<p>What are the differences between the student experience at the six different college at UC San Diego? The University's Web site has vague descriptions of the philosophies for each college, but I'd like to know how student life is different at each? Which colleges are more/less rigorous? Which is better for kids who like to participate in athletics? Which has the highest graduation rate? And who has the best student advisors?Thanks!</p>
<p>I've heard John Muir has the least, or at least the most lenient requisites. If I had chosen to go to UCSD, that's what I would have wanted. I've heard that students should stay away from Warren and Revelle, although there may be bias in my conversations with UCSD students.</p>
<p>This should also help:</p>
<p>Muir requires the least amount of units for its spread but lots of breadth, Revelle and Roosevelt appear to require a lot of units, and Warren has a very large spread of unit requirements that appears minimal, but has breadth is more difficult (I went to an orientation meeting describing Warren breadth, and I slapped myself for choosing that college). Marshall is the only college with a stuck numerical unit requirement. That said, I'd put Muir and Marshall, respectively, as priority colleges.</p>
<p>Muir has the easiest ge's, the best location, but the worst dorms, most social college, and one of the most spirited.</p>
<p>Revelle is the oldest, has the hardest ge's, good for premed students, known to be nerdy, but has school spirit.</p>
<p>Warren has okay ge's and you have more options in choosing your classes, good for engineers, but is known to be nerdy with no school spirit. </p>
<p>Sixth is too new to have spirit, but there ge's are fairly easy. Farthest from the beach.</p>
<p>Marshall is one of the most spirited, has pretty easy ge's, in the 2nd best location, and has pretty nice dorms.</p>
<p>ERC has the nicest dorms, close the athletic stuff, but furthest from the price center, has tough ge's in writing and stuff like that.</p>
<p>Hi! I am a rising Junior at UCSD. I am in Sixth college, but I might be able to help with your question about picking a college. As I said, I am in Sixth college, which i really enjoy. The GEs for this college are quite minimal, and the required writing sequence is extremely interesting. I know that Muir college has a very easy requirement list, and is a popular choice. Revelle college has a largely science-intensive list of GEs, and is not very popular, for that reason. Also, Roosevelt college is nice, but the writing sequence is the longest- 6 quarters. Most colleges have only 2 or 3. Warren has only 2, and alot of people enjoy that college. Whatever college you choose, UCSD is very good if you don't quite know what you want to pursue, because they are very flexible with classes. Hopefully that helps a little.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your responses. This is a great help to hear about the colleges from the students' perspective. I'm doing research for my son, who hopes to major in International Studies/history at UCSD. Will that major make any difference in which college to choose?</p>
<p>My D is about to start her fourth year as a CS major at UCSD. She was in Muir when she started.</p>
<p>The primary difference between the colleges is in the GE requirements. Some have more flexible requirements than others (Muir, Warren) but depending on the major, it might not matter if they were going to end up taking those classes anyway. </p>
<p>The main reason for the 'college' system at UCSD is to group the students in smaller groups to let make it 'feel' like a smaller campus. In my D's case, I don't think it was that big of a deal but she was in engineering and studying all the time and didn't have enough time to do all of the 'college' specific activities. </p>
<p>One can take any major at any college and they'll attend classes all over campus at other colleges as well as at their own typically. Other than the GE requirements, one needn't pick a particular college because of a particular major. One can also eat in any of the dining halls. My D routinely ate in a dining hall at another college because it was open later than the one at hers.
Because of this nature of taking classes all over, eating at any dining hall, and because some students have HS friends at the other colleges, it's not really segregated like some might think. </p>
<p>Students generally will live on campus for 2 years and then move off campus. Once they move off campus in their third year, the college affiliation doesn't really mean much - they'll be affiliated more with their major and their peers in that major. In the end, they're really UCSD students rather than students of a particular college (not to be confused with a particular 'school' such as the Jacobs school of engineering).</p>
<p>This information was extremely helpful, thank you!</p>