on a side note, we’ve visited quite a few colleges now, but yesterday was the first time we actually received a “thank you” note from a college - the tour guide at USC sent my daughter a nice little card. My daughter has sent some “thank you” emails after meeting individual professors at colleges, but this was the first thing like the card.
@NewJeffCT What a nice touch! I hope admissions have been kind to your daughter with lots acceptances and choices. Cheers!
@BayAreaRecruiter - Thanks, but she’s just a junior. We’re getting an early start. We’re going to take some time in June to visit schools in the Midwest as well.
@NewJeffCT I’m sure you mentioned that, but I didn’t realize! Enjoy the schools in the Mid West and the rest of the college tours!
@NewJeffCT I hope you work your way back to northern California and visit some of our great schools here as well.
We recently did USC and UCLA in the same day (kids did not sit in on a class). Impressions:
UCLA: Beautiful, big, grassy hills with kids lying out. “This is what I imagined a college campus would be like,” D (after touring USC). Organic. Bustling. Good food. Lots of kids milling about with signs for events, etc. Hard if not impossible to change your major to an impacted major (engineering, CS, ?).
USC: Trojan Network, jobs, jobs, jobs, who’s who who went there, matching perfect buildings, beautiful pavers with artificial grass patches (you’d look silly lying down here!), movers and shakers. Much easier to change majors, even into engineering.
Our impressions were also affected by the personalities of our respective tour guides, but their personalities seemed to match the schools. SC tourguide as a sophomore, double majoring, already has connections with top people in his field (PR/cinema) and internship, dressed for success. UCLA tourguide worked in dining hall and joined cheerleading (male, mention this only bc he was funny about how he barely had any competition) and was ecstatic to see a top math prof on campus.
Very different vibes. S liked USC better, daughter UCLA (though both thought the sidewalks were too crowded, lol).
@ProfessorPlum168 she likes Berkeley, but one thing that scared her a bit about the UC schools was that they’re almost all kids from California. I had thought it was like other states where they try to keep it 50/50 between in state and out of state/international. However, it seems like it’s closer to 80-85% in state at most UC schools… though, I know it’s a little bit less in state at Berkeley (70-75%?) and UCLA (75-80%?)
I think Stanford is a bit of a reach for my daughter. Cal Tech is as well. So, we could see Santa Clara and maybe UC-Davis in addition to Berkeley?
2018 Enrolled Data:
Total/OOS Domestic/International
UCLA 6,240/1,207 (19%)/662 (11%)
Cal 6,012/953 (16%)/774 (13%)
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-residency-and-ethnicity
@havenoidea That might be the best description of USC vs UCLA I’ve ever seen! As someone with initiate knowledge of both campuses, you’re spot on!
Actually Santa Clara U instate enrollment is 62%, so not much different than the 70% at Berkeley or UCLA.
Here is SCU’s racial mix and international students %:
https://www.collegedata.com/en/college-profile/776?tab=profile-overview-tab
https://www.scu.edu/admission/undergraduate/choosing-scu/class-profile/
Yes, the UC schools are capped as to how many OOS students they can accept. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-board-regents-approves-policy-nonresident-student-enrollment
Stanford is the ultimate reach for everyone, but if your kid has a good story to tell, why not? It’s a beautiful campus, worth a visit. And then you can also do the fashionable Silicon Valley excursion of visiting the headquarters/visitor centers of Apple, Google and Facebook.
So yes, Stanford, Santa Clara, UC-Berkeley and UC-Davis would be a good NorCal campus visit itenerary. Do note that if you come in the summer, UCD is inland and will most likely be hotter than Hades.
Thinking about it, I don’t think my wife and I have the vacation time to take a week long west coast trip after the one from a few weeks ago when we have a tentative weeklong trip for Midwest schools planned in June, as well as a trip to the mid Atlantic region.
Since she will likely do the UC app for UCLA and UC-Irvine, she can also do Cal as well with one app. If she gets in and is really interested in Cal, we can take a visit at that time in early 2020.
yeah, come during Winter Break when it’s -20 on the East Coast but in the 50s out here…
What would you recommend for students to look out for while visiting these schools?
Definitely schedule a tour of the campus. Then on your own, you might want to walk or venture a little away from the campus to get a feel of environment there. For example, at UCB, if you venture south of Bancroft on Telegraph Ave., you will notice quite a few homeless people, especially if you walk east away from Telegraph Ave toward the People’s Park area.