Ok so I applied to 9 schools and have gotten accepted to 4 so far and I had some questions on those
CSUB (local CSU, about 10 mins away from home)
SFSU
SJSU
UCR
I was wondering how the dorms and campus life were at UCR, SFSU and SJSU?
I know most freshmen dorm at UCR, but what about SFSU and SJSU are there alot of freshman living in dorms at those two or do most people commute there. I apples for a Biology major Btw
If you want a more residential campus, UCR would be better than SFSU and SJSU.
SJSU: only 14% total live in the dorms, but about half freshmen do (since freshmen are required to live on campus if they don’t have family nearby, it means 50% students have family nearby and commute). The numbers are slightly lower at SFSU.
According to this :
http://www.sfsu.edu/~reslife/faq.html#census
more than 3000 people live in student housing at SF State.
I know SJSU is now ‘requiring’ non local freshmen to live on campus and also houses several thousand in dorms, etc.
While both have residential student populations, they both draw many of their students from local households - I’d guess more than half commute from a family residence in the area. That isn’t a bad thing - but it does make the campuses feel empty off hours.
Contrast that to UCR where something like 75% of freshmen live on campus.
Both schools (SJ and SF) have fraternities, clubs, etc so, there is a sense of community but, you have to work a bit harder for it.
Bunp
UC Riverside: 74% of freshman, 34% of all undergraduates.
San Francisco State: 49% of freshman, 13% of all undergraduates.
San Jose State: 56% of freshman, 14% of all undergraduates.
UCR: http://housing.ucr.edu/
SFSU: http://sfstatehousing.sfsu.edu/
SJSU: http://www.housing.sjsu.edu/
For biology, it honestly depends what concentration you are going for (ecology, zoology, microbiology, etc.); if you’re going for general biology all schools are really good. However, just be aware that for UCR, UCs tend to focus on research and CSUs tend to focus on being hands-on. UCR will have more graduate students to reference from by far, and then SJSU edges over SFSU by a 1,000 or two graduate students. So, the chance of graduate students teaching some of your classes instead of professors are more likely in UCR than SJSU than SFSU.
Also, Riverside is close to Bakersfield in terms of weather and environment. San Francisco has beautiful weather and is much more urban and is surrounded by water, and the city is beautiful itself. San Jose is close to the Bay Area and is in the Silicon Valley, enough said from there.
Good luck.
Also, if you’re doing biology in preparation for med school, be aware that CA med schools are super selective, but that UCR’s new premed/med program has quite a few advantages on that front. In any case, few CSU’s lead to med schools, either because med schools frown on CSU’s vs. UCs, or because the students there don’t get the proper MCAT scores, I don’t know.