I was kind of disappointed that I got denied by UCI and waitlisted to UCD and UCR. However I was accepted to UCM and at first I was really happy, but when I told people about it the majority of them said the school sucks! This really bothered me because I want to go to a UC and as of right now UCM seems to be my only choice. I did accept the waitlist offer from both UCD and UCR and I also submitted my intend to register to UCM, but there are so many negative responses that I receive about this school and it frustrates me because people keep telling me to transfer out or that I am going to regret it. I know I shouldn’t let these things bother me but is UC Merced really that bad of a school? or is it just because it’s small and in the middle of nowhere?
Hi @DarthRadec09,
I felt the exact same way about this school before I started attending. My classmates from high school told me a lot of negative things about this school that made me doubt if I should even go here, but now I can’t envision myself anywhere else.
There are some definite cons about the campus but it also has some really good qualities that are hard to find elsewhere. A lot of people complain that school and the city of Merced are boring, but you can avoid that by getting involved on campus. There are many opportunities in volunteering and research available on campus that can really make you busy.
Another thing that makes people uneasy about the school is the city of Merced. It hasn’t quite adjusted to UCM and does not have a whole lot of fun things to offer students. It is also home to crime and poverty, but that is only because the Central Valley is largely ignored in California. Despite being an agricultural and water supply powerhouse, it gets a bad rap because it is in a rural area aka middle of nowhere. The purpose of this UC was to help alleviate these problems through the campus’ service, especially from the students; I have a close friend who is volunteering at a local middle school and she says that they are years behind in their education and are in great need of help. The students at UCM truly want to make a difference in the community and are continuously working to make Merced a better place.
I think the biggest draw that makes prospective students consider UC Merced are the research opportunities. A lot of faculty are involved in some sort of research, especially in the sciences. There is many areas of research work being done on campus, like on stem cells and solar cells, which are so interesting to learn about!! I have several close friends that are also freshmen who were already offered research positions! Where else can you get research experience at just 18??
One of UC Merced’s strengths also lies in its community. The students here are some of the most friendliest and sociable people I’ve ever met! I have made amazing friends here and they make up for some of UC Merced’s downfalls. I feel that our student body is so motivated to make a positive impact and it shows through our organizations and service, like Love Merced. Another thing to note is that UC Merced is only 10 years old! It is so young that it doesn’t make much sense to compare it other UC’s. And it’s so new that we do not have distinct boundaries between academic disciplines; faculty in different areas of science can work together, as well as in the social sciences.
It’s weird to think that a college experience at UCM is completely unique, as it is still (and quickly) developing.
Don’t mind people’s comments about UC Merced; what right do they have to judge an academic institution if they haven’t actually visited the campus? In the end your experience is truly what you choose to do with it. 
Thank you for the feedback! I will keep this in mind.
Judging by some of these: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=UC+Merced
…I was surprised of what people say…
It seems like you are really concerned about this, did you even do research before applying???
The short answer is NO. The long answer is UC Merced is a campus of UC that takes the “residual students”, meaning the students who are rejected from the admission pool of all other UC campuses. UC Merced is a facing a serious problem of shortage of funding, poor faculty selection, too many students with very weak academic caliber, no real sport or entertainment for the students. There’s not much to do as the campus is situated in the middle of no where. This campus is also an official campus for the Hispanic students. This means academic competitiveness is lowered a notch or two. The best thing you can hope for your career after graduating from UC Merced is flipping burgers!By the way, there are lots of made-in-China professors here too!
So, it’s your call!
You forgot to mention UC Merced students are often viewed by the locals as targets… for shooting. But you’re right about one thing: folks in the city seem to suffer from some kinds of ‘allergic reactions’ to UC Merced students. Local politicians and campus administrators don’t seem to see eye to eye. And they all are too busy playing politics and games of self-preservation and they are doing all this at the expense of the students! One of the big problems at UC Merced is it has too many incompetent staff who would screw up the very basic things that affect the students negatively. And the bureaucracy at this campus would make you cry.
@CarlosV Others may disagree on you with this, but you are right to some extent. By the way I ended up choosing UC Davis.
@DarthRadec09 lol you mean you ended up getting taken off the waitlist.
As a dad with two kids in the UC system (UCM and UCSD) here’s my opinion.
My daughter applied to computer science engineering schools back in 2012.
She was above average for the most part with SAT 480 English and 650 math and about a 3.5 GPA. She applied to a bunch of CSU’s and mid-tier on down for UCs. She got lots of acceptances at CSU’s like SJSU, CSU LA, etc., but not CalPoly, and Pomona was interested but wanted another English test before deciding whether or not to accept her.
She got wait listed by UCD and UCI and accepted by UCM. Rejected by UCSB, and another that I have forgotten. I remember looking at the probability of getting off the UCD wait list, and it was really low, something like only a 5% chance.
We had actually stopped by the campus on our way from Yosemite during the 2012 summer. We talked with some students there. So she (and I) had a pretty good idea about the campus, which is like a very large high school (~5000 students) and hot in the summer. About 10% are grad students, compared with something like 25% at UCSD.
At my urging she decided to go to UCM, rather than SJSU (her other preference). My reasoning was as follows:
- The professor to student ratio is really good. And the school has a lot of tutoring services for lower division students. If you are not a great student, this can really help you to succeed. My daughter constantly visited her profs (no TAs!!!) for help with understanding homework and took lots of advantage of on campus tutoring help in English, etc. Her largest lecture ever was 150 students for her first Java programming class.
- The school was concentrating on building up their engineering (out of about 3 schools). (But no EE yet). Already three programs are ABET certified. They are putting a lot of resources into their engineering school. But having said that it is tough sometimes to line up all the classic courses one needs to take in an undergraduate CS program. Probably the biggest shortcoming is that Operating Systems is currently only offered in the summer. But I already complained about this directly to the Provost and the Dean of Engineering, so I suspect this will be corrected soon.
- A UC degree is prestigious, period. UCM grants PhDs and has UC minimum level research/publishing requirements for their academic staff. This I know because I talked with one of her CSE profs and he told me how difficult it was to get tenure with such limited research facilities during the first few years after the school opened. The UC system did not water down their fundamental requirements for tenure!
- In 20-30 years, when she is in mid-career, UCM will probably have a similar level of respect as UCR or UCI has now. Nobody will remember or care that UCM was the "worst" UC back in the 2010s.
- She can go get a MS in CS from a decent school like SJSU or Santa Clara U and get a great launch into a CSE career. She's actually now (Nov. 2016) applying to SJSU, SDSU, SCU, possibly CalPoly or Pomona, etc., for her MS in CS. (Her GPA is 3.3 and a GRE of 300 so a CSU or the like is in the cards for her.) Her boyfriend from UCM, with a 3.9+ GPA, got a job at Paypal in the Spring of 2015, and now just accepted a job with Google's cloud team.
- On campus jobs are fairly plentiful, and she found it easy to get a job doing programming work for a professor on his research project. This really got her excited about having a career in CS. She also got a summer software engineering internship in Alameda this past summer with a medium sized electronics manufacturing firm.
As a father I noted that she has been able to perform at the top range of her capabilities because of all that UCM offered to her. Any other UC she likely would have drowned, which would have been devastating. I know this because she actually took a data structures class at UC Berkeley in the summer of 2014 and got a C (she worked her butt off for it), so we are under no illusions about how likely she would have survived at another UC that didn’t care much about their undergrads. My son is at UCSD in Math CS and he finds himself in huge classes, one had 1000+ students in the lecture hall, and he is only able to interact with TAs.
Another thing to note is that by the time she got to upper division a lot of kids had flunked out (30% total rate, 20% fail the 1st year). So by Junior year only the pretty serious students with good study habits are left standing.
Also, another plus from my perspective is that off campus housing is really cheap. She and another gal are renting a 2 BR / 2 BA condo for ~$1000/month (which is a tad high for UCM but she’s closer to campus than almost any other off campus housing).
All in all I’ve been really happy that she went to UCM. She got the equivalent of a private school education at a public school price.
I hope this helps.
@UCMUCSDDad: Excellent post and hopefully it will encourage more prospective UC applicants to consider UC Merced as an attractive and viable option.