Hello. I am a rising senior interested in majoring in public health in college. I am from the East Coast but am planning on applying to some West Coast schools. What colleges would be best for public health/nutrition? I like UCSB, Oxy, LMU, and USC. I have also looked into Seattle U and University of San Francisco as backups. I want a college with good academics, diversity, sports, and a pretty campus. I would really love to hear peoples opinions on Occidental, UCSB, and LMU. Thank you!
UCSB is a California Public University so you will receive little to no financial aid as an OOS student. If you can afford around $65K/year to attend, then definitely apply and that goes for all the UC’s and Cal States which are around $40K/year.
UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Chapman University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Pepperdine, USC and San Diego State are considered to have the better good Nutrition programs in California.
For Public Health, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, USC, Stanford, Santa Clara and University of San Francisco are considered top programs.
Thank you! Do you know anything about Oxy? I have heard it is a good school but very small.
Occidental only has around 2000 Undergrads, a nice campus just west of Pasadena. Definitely not sports oriented but many good academic programs. Not extremely diverse. Many things to do in the surrounding areas such as restaurants. I would definitely try to visit any schools of interest since your opinion will be the one to matter.
As an out-of-state student, four years at UCSB (or any other UC) will cost you a quarter-million dollars. You will get no financial aid from the state schools, and you will be unable to qualify for state residency. It may not be worth it.
Same for CSUs, although they would cost less than than the UCs as noted in the previous post. The CSUs also tend to have lower name recognition than the UCs, especially outside of California.
Your best chances for admission and financial aid in California are probably at private schools. CA residents typically prefer the UCs or CSUs, because the in-state tuition at the state schools is low. But if you don’t qualify for the in-state rate, and are faced with the high OOS rate instead, then the privates may be cheaper, especially if you qualify for financial aid.
Oxy is a good private school in a cool Los Angeles location. However, it is a small liberal arts college, and only offers a minor in Public Health. You would have to figure out if this is sufficient for your future goals.
My suggestion – which doesn’t seem to be on your list – would be Santa Clara U. One recent ranking of pubic health programs put SCU in the Top 20 nationwide, behind only UC Berkeley and USC in California. http://www.epimonitor.net/Top-20-Programs.htm
A lot of OOS people seem to overlook SCU. This may be because they use the USN&WR rankings for their research; USN&WR puts SCU in the “Regional University” category, rather than in the more widely viewed “National University” category. However, SCU easily matches mid-tier UCs (like UCSB) in common measures of academic quality. For example, the most recent Common Data Sets show ACT scores of 26-32 at UCSB, compared to 28-32 at SCU.
For a more affordable OOS public U (under $35K/year) that is less than 15 miles from the CA border on the eastern edge of the Sierras, consider U of Nevada Reno:
https://www.unr.edu/degrees/nutrition/bs
https://www.unr.edu/public-health/academics/bs-community-health-sciences
In California, the state schools (which have the lowest cost of attendance for state residents) typically have the highest levels of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. The private schools (like Occidental) generally cost more, and generally have lower diversity.
But if you are coming from the East Coast, then even a private school in California might seem pretty diverse. Occidental, for example, is 49% white. That’s a high number relative to nearby state universities, like UCLA (27%), Northridge State (22%), or Long Beach State (18%). But it might seem like a low number to someone from many parts of the East Coast.