<p>What is your estimated family contribution ? How much can you pay ?</p>
<p>University of California- Santa Cruz is definitely not nerdy. Its full of heavy party-ers with 1650 SAT and 3.3 GPA. You do not belong there. You will only be miserable.</p>
<p>You need to look at colleges like Carnegie Mellon University, College of William and Mary, University of Chicago, Duke University, Tufts etc. Basically any top private liberal arts colleges.</p>