Is Santa Clara a good place for nerds?

Hi!

My junior son is interested in Santa Clara’s computer science program. He is also nerdy in the best way-- he has social skills and has a great friend group, and also loves to play long games of D&D, humans vs. zombies (nerf guns), make music with people, read, etc. He is not interested in partying or drinking, and is actively seeking a college that has a big nerd base-- he wants to find more of his own quirky/nerdy tribe. I can’t tell if Santa Clara has more of a traditional student body, or maybe somewhat preppy? Hard to tell since we haven’t visited-- but we are considering visiting next month.

Thank you for your input!

More info: We are located in WA state and are trying to decide by the end of this week whether to visit Santa Clara or WPI next month. Santa Clara has the more desirable location: a quick plane ride from us, nice weather, and an older, beloved sibling in the area. People sing praises about Santa Clara’s CS department and Silicon Valley location, but we’re having a hard time getting a read on the student body.

WPI seems like a great match for him both academically and socially.

WPI
Believe it or not, even though over 30% of the students are in Fraternities and Sororities it does not reach the caliber of a drinking/party university. Every once in a while one of the fraternities may wander a bit, but it does not come close to the reports we hear about on many campuses. Even on the same campus you will find nerd fraternities, football/rugby fraternities, and other fraternities which tend to focus around a common set of interests. It is very hard to be a party university when 60% of the students are majoring in engineering (and that number does not include CS majors).

If you are looking for an intellectually alive university concentrated in engineering and science with students who focuses on teamwork both inside and outside of the classroom, WPI has developed this reputation largely because they treat teamwork as though it were their middle name. They want scientists and engineers who communicate comfortably with the other disciplines and the entire university program is designed to develop that.

Eighty percent of the students participate in sports, but you will not see them congregating in large numbers around the scholar-shipped athletes. These students play at teamwork and, like the old english boarding schools, are learning in the process. Gamers are common and have a well developed major in the fields. Music groups are very active and the quality is quit good even though they do not offer the major. Likewise, theater is very much alive. Good actors, musicians, and gamers also require teamwork.

It is about finding your group, but not hiding in you group. We not only believe in it, we design for it!

See https://www.wpi.edu/student-experience/getting-involved

When I was down with personal family problems many years ago, my PGD brothers helped me through it. We did not know what depression was, but they helped me out anyway. We belonged to a team. On the more negative side. there was a party where the drinking got out of hand but we talked about it because we were a team. It turned out some CM majors were trying to show off with a pretty blue fountain that was improperly loaded and too attractive to some of our guests.

WPI '67

I’ll put in my 2 cents as a ‘85 scumbag (SCU MBA grad). The school has put so much modernization to it over the past 25 years, it’s been a complete transformation. Very beautiful school. The reputation way back when was that it was private school kids who couldn’t get into Stanford, but nowadays since it’s got a solid academic reputation especially in STEM areas, and with good men’s and women’s soccer teams, you get preppy, traditional, nerdy, jocks, the whole spectrum at SCU. Since it’s fairly close to Ground Zero for Silicon Valley, “nerds” exist all over the place, given the large number of chess clubs, Yugioh trading and fantasy stores, code hackathons, etc that are abound.

also, not sure if this matters, but I’m guessing that a much bigger percent of the population than say Berkeley or SJSU will have come from private schools.

@ProfessorPlum168 , Thanks for your 2 cents. And, I think that’s a good guess that more SCU students come from private schools. I teach at a private HS in Western WA, and SCU is a popular choice for many private high school students in this area. My son is a public school kid, and is looking for small class sizes and interaction with his professors. I don’t know if SCU is the right social fit for him, but it sounds like it’s worth a visit.

Do you know if the spectrum of students you describe interact with one another, or do groups tend to be cliquey?

@quarkpie my extent of knowing the kids at SCU nowadays only extends to going to their main library on many Sunday nights since we live pretty close by and my kid liked to study there. My wife and occasionally I sometimes go to church at Mission Santa Clara for church services, but I don’t see too many students. So I can’t really answer your question specifically. You should set up a visit to find out more. They should have their open house sometime in April which I would highly recommend that you and your son go check out.

BTW the library is very state of the art and fascinating, book retrieval is done by pretty cool automation that you can partially observe. Very few books on shelves.

The dorms are really nice and well planned out, all probably 5-15 years old. For the most part much nicer than most of the dorms at say Berkeley.

We live in the Midwest, and my son did not consider Santa Clara when applying to colleges last year. WPI was at the top of his list, and he ended up deciding to attend there. He is thriving at WPI. Like your son, he is more on the nerdy side. He found a great group of kids that are supportive, and they spend their (little) spare time visiting with each other and playing D&D and video games. They are definitely not the drinking/partying type. Now that he has had two terms under his belt, he is thinking about joining a choir and is talking to one of his professors about research. There are plenty of activities and clubs to join there. I would suggest, if you have the time and resources, that you pay the schoolva visit. My son fell in love with the campus and community at his first visit.

@ProfessorPlum168 thanks for the tip about the open house!

@mardong Thanks for your input. It does sound like WPI will be the better match, and we should visit both schools eventually and let him choose. I hope we don’t have to send him all the way to the east coast-- I wish there was a good CS college with smaller class sizes in the west that also had a big nerd culture that he could get into (he’s not competitive for top tier CS programs because of his 700 math, 630 verbal SAT score, and also he doesn’t want to attend a “pressure cooker” school).

Santa Clara alum here (undergrad and grad). The school is a nurturing environment. I wouldn’t really call it nerdy though. Although when I attended in the dark ages it was considered a party school. I did enjoy having a few drinks with Jesuits over some interesting philosophical discussions.

The school wants students who wish to contribute to society and subscribe to Jesuit values. I have to admit that SCU made me an open thinker just because all students need to take religion classes and to think independently.

The school is becoming more competitive-I think they want to game the rankings unfortunately. Check the SCU posts on CC. My gut feeling was that my son would have been deferred/rejected from SCU if he submitted an application.

To be honest a 1330 SAT for a potential CompSci major will be slightly low. Another SAT test would be helpful.

@quarkpie from the SCU threads that I’ve been reading lately, it sounds like SCU CS is getting quite competitive. Your kid may have to raise his SAT score a bit to be competitive. Not sure though… he may and probably does have other things that may compensate.

It looks like the preview open house dates for Santa Clara is April 13-14. The preview open house is meant for just admitted students, but anyone can come, I’m pretty sure…

Our friend’s nerdy son (who ended up at WPI for CS) also applied to the University of Utah, if you are looking for more of a match school in the west. My D18 is at Utah and loves it there. The facilities are great, the outdoor activities (especially skiing) unbeatable and SLC is a very nice city.

From what we heard from other friends whose kids applied to SCU, ED for full pay kids had pretty good success.

Thanks, @Twoin18 , we did have U of Utah on his list because of WUE tuition and the reputation of their CS dept, but didn’t know anything about it. It might not be the kind of college experience he was hoping for, but it sounds like it’s worth looking into.

Thanks also for the SCU ED tip.

Thank you @Hamurtle and @ProfessorPlum168 . SCU is definitely in the “reach” category for him, though ProfPlum is right that I think he has other things on his application that help make him a competitive applicant. He is retaking the SAT in March. But SCU could still definitely be a rejection.

I think with the reminder of SCU’s competitiveness, we will probably visit WPI next month. It’s a test-optional school, and he can sumbit his CS side-projects instead of his test scores, so I think he has a much better chance of admission there. I’d still love for him to visit SCU, but maybe we should wait until he gets his new SAT scores, or even (hopefully) an offer of admission so we know we are not wasting money and time.

Since WPI is on your list, would RPI be an option? The drawback might be the travel time though.

Just updating you all… S has been taking SAT practice tests and has significantly improved, and really wants to visit Santa Clara, so that is where we are going next month. I think he finds the location (the weather, Silicon Valley, close to beloved brother) very desirable, and he also likes the idea of a well-rounded university better than a technical university. It will be helpful for him to get a sense of what the students are like there.

And Santa Clara students are required to take 3 religion classes as a graduation requirement. Is your son comfortable with that?

@Hamurtle , Yes, thanks for the reminder! S is Christian (non-Catholic) and is very excited by SCU’s course offerings in religion.