<p>It doesn’t sound like any of you actually come from Southern California.</p>
<p>If you want to live in Southern California, many of the colleges have a very strong network and presence here. USC’s is one of the strongest, and the days of being the University of Spoiled Children are long over-- it used to be that, but now it is much, much harder to get into and is more academically rigorous.</p>
<p>Other schools with strong alumni networks and good local reputations here are Occcidental College, Loyola Marymount, the Claremont colleges and, of course, UCLA. </p>
<p>If you want to be in Northern California and you want a strong network, you want Berkeley, Stanford or Santa Clara, with UC Davis as a possibility, too. There’s also a strong Stanford alum presence in Southern California.</p>