<p>I just typed all of this up originally for the SB board, because that was where I was originally intending to go. But the tours have thoroughly changed my perspective and nothing is sure at this point. So here is my original message, I’m too burned out to change any of the latter paragraphs geared toward the SB board, so bear with me.</p>
<p>Dunno, dunno, the past two days have been sorta revolutionary in terms of my college search. I visted SB yesterday and Davis today. I took the student guided tours on both and have come back with boggling information.</p>
<p>First and foremost, my SB tour was horrible. I felt I was very underwhelmed with the campus and what the school had to offer. It was a Friday afternoon, the campus was not very active, the buildings were old and shabby(they were comparable to a high school campus), and the campus itself was cramped and not organized but rather shoddy. Maybe it was just the tour guide but the info I learned about campus was not fascinating or anything like that, the main thing that impressed me were the seven nobel laureates that teach undergrad students. The actual student population was very un-diverse and not as impressive as I hoped. The main food court was only two stories and had rather shoddy dining options with Panda Express being the main restaurant. Umm, what else, I was just really thoroughly unimpressed because I was hoping for a great tour that would really get me psyched for SB because it was my previous first choice. I also looked for a fair amount of diversity because diversity naturally adds culture to a campus and whatnot, but I did not find much. The only real diversity was found in geeky looking international grad students. The undergrad population, though -the only positive aspect I can bring back from the tour- was very good looking and impressive, maybe I was just sidetracked by the beautiful ladies in my tour and on campus. Either way though the campus was very bland, compact, and unimpressive. The only big trees were in this main science quad and they were rather unimpressive and boring. The campus also had a nasty, old, and rotten little camper type thing that was in the middle of a wide path selling some type of food - I walked past as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>So anyway, my point with all this is that I’m trying to find some counters to my experience that can still keep SB in the running for me, because at this point the tour was a total turn-off and I didnt want it to be in the least.</p>
<p>On to Davis, it was probably the best tour I could have hoped for. </p>
<p>After being dissapointed with SB I could not have been less excited to go to Davis - I was expecting something terrible after the thorough bashing my perspective had taken after SB - something I was expecting would be the holy grail. Instead after being picked up by a friend and being taken for a short tour of the campus from the car I was wowed by the massive amounts of new and beautiful buildings spread all across the open and giant tree filled campus. There was a lot of just finished construction such as the Mondavi Center and the Activities and Recreation Center which was just gorgeous and far surpassed the best buildings SB had, as well as buildings still under construction, like new labs and research buildings. The buildings were large, varied, and designed beautifully, far surpassing my expectatiions. The campus was spread out nicely, with nice wide bike lanes in the middle of tree lined streets with big roundabouts nicely painted and whatnot, it was great. Moving on to the actual tour, the tour guide could not stop pouring out impressive information every minute of the tour. This and that, there are SO many activities, student run, non student run, bands, rallies, fairs, speeches, etc, etc, etc, there are just so many that she talked about the whole tour. The students at Davis are just so incredibly involved, there is never a lack of anything to do. The school spirit is also great, everyone plays a sport and Davis is just going D1 so there are great games coming up to watch. Umm, what else, there is great diversity, I felt very much at home, the numbers are spread out nicely - 40% asian, 40% white, and like a little more than 20% others. It really was a treat seeing people walking about in groups all over the campus even though it was raining seeming to have a great time - I didnt see any of this at all at SB. </p>
<p>I dunno, everything just turned upside down for me and I have to serioulsy reconsider everything that I previously thought I had down. I even created that Gaucho Class of 2009 thread somewhere on the latter pages, haha, that shows how pretty set I was on SB.</p>
<p>So, in conclusion, sorry if I bored you guys, I thought I’d type up as much as I could so that I could be of some help to those still deciding. Please comment on whatever you can guys, I have no idea where I’m heading at this point, I need to do so much more research but there just isnt any time. So those that dont agree with me please attack me and tell me whatever you must. Haha, cheers.</p>