how is your experience there?
I personally don’t attend UC Davis, but I’m from that area and I have a bunch of friends who attend so I can chime in a little.
Social life is what you make of it. It’s not going to be party all around like UCSB but you can definitely find some.
Academics is great. UCD is a top public university. There are academically driven people there.
Location is up to you. I personally moved because the summers were way too hot, and the winters were around 40F. There’s an agricultural place on campus so it might smell. It’s within distance to go exploring: SF, Sacramento, etc.
This is only in one area of campus, and campus is huge. You have to be in that particular area of campus to smell anything; I can literally count on one hand the amount of days it was noticeable elsewhere on campus in my four years here. Even if you’re in that area, it’s only particularly notable if it just rained, it’s super windy (and the wind happens to be blowing right in your direction), or it’s super hot.
That said, if you’re particularly worried about cow smell, try to avoid the Tercero dorms. They’re in the area of campus that gets the smell, and are right across the street from the cows. Cuarto and Segundo are far enough away that you don’t get the smell except on rare occasions (speaking as someone that lived in Cuarto freshman year). Segundo is a bit closer and is more likely to get the smell than Cuarto is.
OP, try posting this in the UCD forum. You’ll get more responses there.
Thank you guys! I really hope I will be going there one day! 
Regarding cow smell – I go to a very ag-focused high school with lots of cows, pigs, etc. in the farm in the back. We have a tiny campus, but I haven’t been up to the farm at all within a timespan of four years and have never smelled/noticed anything despite the program being pretty active. I spend lots of time on the football field (next to the farm), nothing out of the ordinary there. I’d imagine Davis would be a similar experience. No idea why people always seem to mention the “cow smell.” 
People often worry about it being boring. If you’re worried about a lack of party people, add ucdxsnaps on snapchat. You’ll find parties at any almost any university, but especially a big public one. In general, since you’ll be >21 for most of college, it’s up to you to make friends and find parties at any university.
Academically it’s great, with top notch research and talented professors. There’s also a lot of private and affiliated labs (ex. US government) that operate on campus or the med center and also take undergrads.
Campus life itself is a little dull - only two big events, and those are spring. But there’s plenty of clubs, frats, and other things to keep you busy, and easy day trips to sac/sf/Bay Area.