There are so many great schools and I am torn between Chico and Long Beach. Chico is beautiful, a residential campus and I will be a big fish in a small pond academically. This could lead to internships and research. Long Beach is a great school. Not so much a residential campus but students seem happy there. Harder to get classes at LB. Any thoughts on these two schools. I am going in undecided to all my schools. Not ready to say what I want to do. My plan is to take classes from fantastic professors and see what I love. Criminal Forensics is a maybe and they both have a path.Thanks
I think you are selling the Chico student body short. They are only nominally less selective than CSULB. There are lots of bright and highly motivated students that were drawn to smaller school, college town feel that’s unique to Chico in the CSU system. My son is a sophomore at Chico and loves it. He’s enrolled in their honors program, which sounds like it might be of interest to you. It is a separate application and open now. Here’s the info:
http://www.csuchico.edu/honors/admissions/freshman.shtml
Long Beach is nearly twice the size and has a real commuter vibe to it. I think they also have an honors program but know nothing about it. LB does give you better access to the ocean and all that is LA.
Tour both on a school day, talk to students you see on campus - that will make your decision easy.
Good luck.
Thank you @NCalRent. I have made up my mind to go to Chico. It has almost everything I want in a big way. I love so many things about it. I am not too sure about the honors program. How hard are the classes for your son? What is different about them compared to regular classes. Is there a lot of reading in honors? I read about the program but I am not sure. I have a 3.92 W GPA and 1730 SAT, but…I work very hard for my grades. I was looking at Sutter Hall? Did your son dorm with honors program? Thanks so very much.
My son lived in Lassen last year and loved it. He said the old style dorms are actually more social because everyone leaves their door open to the hallway. That lead to many spontaneous invites and hang-outs. The default door position in the new dorms is closed.
The honors dorm has a kitchen and a reduced meal plan. He didn’t want to cook.
The honors program isn’t supposed to be harder, you take one class per semester and they provide an alternate GE path. The classes are smaller, full of bright , engaged students and taught by enthusiastic teachers. The course he took last semester - Beauty’ he didn’t like but, the others have been good. You don’t sign in blood so, you can stop the program after a semester or two. Priority registration is a big plus too.
@NCalRent Thank you. I committed to Chico State and being a wildcat for the next four years. I am taking a tour in April.
Congrats - You are going to love it.
Did you go to Choose Chico yesterday? We were pretty impressed.
@grrrrInxtdoor… I did not go to Choose Chico day because I was working. But, I would love to hear about the high and low points. I would really appreciate it. Thanks
@julben Beautiful campus, inspiring success stories, great farm/hands on pre-vet program, the faculty in the Ag department (my daughter was accepted for animal science) seem very hands on and down to earth, you can get jobs on the farm, work with animals etc. The housing is pretty nice and overall we liked the rigorous program yet also liked the “homey” feel of it. It really does seem like a big family, everyone very friendly and relaxed etc. Seems really safe.
The only down side for us is its party reputation and I wonder a little about people’s perception when job hunting… but they say they’ve gotten that under control and are really strict now - all the partying happens off campus supposedly, which is fine. LOTS of people do not live on campus past Freshman year because it is super affordable to rent in town, and most places are within walking distance. It is a super rural area so if you are used to city life it would be a big change I think but my daughter likes it and wants to get some cowboy boots right away if she enrolls there. For us it is closer to home as well. She is still waiting on another option but if that falls through we’ll send her to Chico with confidence.
This is some good discussion on Chico state- I wish collegeconfidential also had a forum for the university. Even though you already decided on Chico (as did I, go Wildcats!), I feel like contributing some thoughts so future prospective students can compare the two schools.
I had gotten into CSULB for exercise science but they rescinded based on a technicality (they apparently don’t follow the math standard that most other universities do in terms of kinesiology math expectations). I was really going back and forth between the two before that happened, as Chico also has a really good exercise physiology program. There are tons of pros and cons between CSULB and CSUC, but it really is kind of like comparing apples and oranges. The biggest thing is probably that Chico still has some of that party reputation but it has gotten toned down a lot- I think this has probably attracted some more academia focused students, but there is probably still a lot of college bros who go to Chico so that they can do beer bongs every day and live on their dads credit card. CSULB attracts a huge diverse student body, with a lot of first generation college students who really value their learning experience. It is a total commuter school though, which is going to make it harder to meet people and construct your social circle. Chico is the total opposite, and is situated in the middle of the city and right by downtown.
Based on what I’ve seen on Craigslist, housing is much cheaper and easier to acquire in Chico than it is in Long Beach. There seems to be a theft problem in Chico. Chico is out in the backwoods, so it seems kind of disconnected from the major cities. However, Lake Tahoe is close enough- which was a major attraction for me. You’re going to have good and bad professors at any school, weed them out with ratemyprofessors.com! I’ve used it for every single college term and I’m positive it has maximized my classroom experience.
I think the bottom line is that although Chico still has some of that party reputation which could potentially affect your post-college career outlook, the type of program you pursue and how you perform GPA-wise is going to determine what kind of job you get. For me, doing exercise physiology at just about any school is probably going to give me the same result. It’s like learning chemistry- taking a chem class at Berkeley is going to have you learn the same material as a chem class at Humboldt. You have to make the most of your studies, and try to do an internship or two- my brother did a few internships when he was doing the mechanical engineering program at Cal Poly Pomona, he had a job straight out of college as a result.
Good luck, enjoy your time at Chico- because I definitely will!
@KBChief Nice post 
I’ve committed to Chico for class of 2017. I was seriously debating if I had made the right choice- I’m changing my major to kinesiology and we’re in the same department despite my name, woo. Nice reminder to just keep the grades up as I’m applying to grad school. Thanks so much, man.
@agrihopeful Nice! Yeah kinesiology is a great major, what better way to stay healthy and fit by studying physical activity? Are you also exercise phys, or a different concentration? Yeah good grades are important especially if you want to go on to something like physical therapy- what are you wanting to go to grad school for?