<p>zimmee32, you posted a few I haven't heard before! That van thing - never heard it, don't believe it.</p>
<p>IV is not that scary a place. Most ucsb students live there and love it. To address a few things you mention & ask about: IV is separated from the college by a row of eucalyptus trees. It is that close. Type "isla vista, ca" into google and look at the map it displays. As for robberies, most often these happen because kids leave their doors unlocked. There is a simple solution ;) You didn't mention bike theft, BTW, also a problem at ucsb. Bikes get stolen because they're not locked; again, we have the technology to prevent it.</p>
<p>Regarding walking alone, there are people out and about at most reasonable hours (and even many unreasonable hours). So if you're walking home before 1am or so there are going to be be other kids out and about. It probably isn't the smartest idea for a girl to be wandering home alone at 3am, though. Stay where you are or have the guy walk you home.</p>
<p>As for cliffs -- it isn't as if you can be innocently walking down a sidewalk and then you plunge to your death because the ground is so unstable;) People who are drinking step over fences, step past warning signs that say "dangerous cliffs", and sometimes they fall. It's not unique to ucsb, it happens anywhere you have drinking and cliffs. A few months back the kicker for the USC football team died in Long Beach falling off a cliff. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2gh2wj%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/2gh2wj</a></p>
<p>The tragic incident a few years back (2001) about the kids being run over did not happen during Halloween; it was in February. Nor was it an out-of-control driver, or due to a dangerous street. It was a deranged student who deliberately ran his car into people and got out of the car saying "I am the angel of death", the kind of tragic event that could happen anywhere. In Northern CA a similar thing (driver targeting pedestrians) happened a few months ago. The ucsb driver was sent to a mental hospital. <a href="http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=3376%5B/url%5D">http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=3376</a></p>
<p>Parents are usually horrified when they see IV because it looks a lot like a slum. There are winos hanging around that have probably been there for 20 years. But most students love it. If you go to ucsb then all your friends are going to be living a short walk or bike-ride away. It is one of the few CA schools where you get a real sense of a student community. It's easy to get together to study, to hang out, to attend events on campus, play intramural sports, go to one of the many food places, etc. </p>
<p>But ucsb (and IV) are not right for everyone, and people usually know pretty quickly. What I urge everyone to do is visit. Go and see the school, walk around IV, strike up conversations with a few kids about what they like/dislike about the place.</p>