<p>UCSD is a more respected college than case western, even outside california. especially on the west coast and east coasts. what are your stats? out of state UCSD is very difficult to gain admission to. likely significantly more so than Case Western. UCI/UCSB/UCD would be a bit easier, although out of state, they are by no means easy. unless you have very good stats, UCSD, UCLA and UC Berkeley out of state are gonna be real real tough. USC would be another option and possibly Pepperdine which is a lower ranked than usc, sd, la and berkeley. USC and Pepperdine, are in california and because they are private dont penalize you for being out of state. you could also consider even slightly lower ranked schools that are privates such as usd and loyola marymount. if you like the big citys, as you stated, i would focus on either UCLA, which has downtown la down the road a bit, or UCSD which has downtown San Diego down the road a bit. Berkeley has San Francisco a half hour away as well. Irvine and Santa Barbara arent really close to large cities, although Irvine is continuing to grow, but is deff not a city like LA or SD. Loyola and USD are also close to big cities (LA, SD) so those are also an option. But if your worrying about grad school placement, UCSD will deffiantly place you every bit as good as Case Western, in my opinion it is even more respected, especially by grad schools. UCI/UCSB/UCD should place you quite well into a good grad program too, with good grades of course. as someone who went to UCSD for my B.A. and go to UCLA for grad school, i visit/visited ucsb and isla vista quite a bit to see my buddy who goes there, and I second what the other poster stated. it is a very fun school with very solid academics. you really cant go wrong there if your looking for a fun place to go to school with good academics. for social life, UCSD is very dull. however once you turn 21, you have the whole city, which has an incredible urban night life scene, in the gaslamp district (downtown sd) and pacific beach. But untill you turn 21, you will be with a lot of smart science oriented people on campus who dont really tend to party much at all. UCSB on the other hand has partys galore. If i was under 21 i would rather be in SB, but if i was over 21 i would choose SD (downtown sd gaslamp and pacific beach/mission beach) or LA (hollywood/westwood) for the big city nightlife options.</p>