Just got back from several California school tours this morning. It was short and fast, very tiring.
Santa Clara U - Down. School itself felt very welcoming. Campus itself was nice and clean. Spanish style mission was the center of the campus. Maybe because of the weather, we really enjoyed the tour. But when wife and I talked more, the more we realized there was nothing stood out about SCU. Plus the program S24 is interested is not very well known there. If S24 is into business, he would be a fit there.
UC Berkeley - Same. It was a gloomy day when we toured. Lots of people because its… Berkeley. Took BART and was an easy walk to the campus.
Well, yes, we noticed a lot of homeless people around the area outside the campus, and there are few wandering around inside campus as well. However, if no one bother them, they just mind their own.
Lots of walking and the tour guide did a great job introducing the school and the culture to us. Most parents and kids were Engineering focus so she talked mostly on that subject.
The admission official did tell us there are impacted majors and after talking to one of them, being OOS it would be even harder to get into S24’s desired major - Poli Sci/IR.
USC - Same. They talked a lot about the school culture and rivalry with UCB. The guide was funny for the first half of the tour, but then something happened and became very… uninterested. So the later half of the tour was mainly her led the group walking and pointing out a building here and there, said a few words, then moving on. A good tour guide could really make or break a tour.
We ended up walking around and dined at USC Village, which has a smaller versions ofTrader Joes and Target. It was relaxing and nice.
BTW, they have a Heisman Trophy on display.
Its a good school, big, and more lively than UCB. But again, being OOS really doesn’t help S24 to get in.
Claremont McKenna - Down. It was a small and ok school. The campus is ok, not as welcoming as SCU, or a traditional school look like UCB or USC. So it looked… boring.
There was only one tour guide because we guess they don’t get too many people registered, our group was not that big too.
The guide was nice and funny. He did very well on intorducing everyone to the school, the schools culture, and programs they offer. The one major downside was that the school accept limited IB credits.
Occidental College - Way Up. Both the admission and the tour guides were fantastic.
The school itself was ok. Campus looks… ok. Better than Claremont but not as warm as SCU. Its surrounded by residental buildings, but if you go further away from the campus, the area is not as welcoming, or in wife’s word, shady. But its ok, students can stay and live on campus all four years.
The guide we have was wonderful. He really shown us what Oxy as a school was and how fun it is. They have really good internship and career matching programs with many companies in greater Los Angeles area, which is a big plus.
Maybe it is summer, we didn’t see many students walking around. But when we do, they would be engaged in talk or study together. So that was good. We saw the exact opposite during the tour at Claremont. S24 really likes the school, and the IR/ Poli Sci program there… Plus… Obama! 
USSD and SDSU - Same. SDSU and UCSD are big. We thought how UCSD’s campus layout and how grouping students into colleges was ok. But a few parents were too hot about that.
Since both are big campus, but not as big as A&M, there were lots of walking.
Most of the parents and students were from CA, only a few were like us from OOS.
When we were at SDSU, they have the Juneteenth festival at the student center.
Eitehr school really stood out, and we atually found the tours boring
.Only good thing about UCSD is that it is close to the ocean, so the breeze was very welcoming.
SDSU has ok poli sci, but not IR.
UCSD has better program, but when we talked to the staffs there (we actually walked all the way up over to the Poli Sci building), they seem not too interested to talk to anyone who is not an admitted student. This left a bad taste.
SDSU has a Trader Joes, while UCSD has a small Target inside the campus.
Being OOS, chance of getting in is low as well.
We were going to tour stanford, but plan changed at the last minute.
*I might have mistyped or misspelled some words, just too tired to double check. Sorry!