<p>Hello!^^</p>
<p>I didn't accept the offer of admission yet (because I'm waiting on a decision from another college and both of their financial packages), but I'm planning on visiting UCSC either this weekend or later during this month!</p>
<ul>
<li>Can I attend Spring Spotlight even if I didn't accept the offer of admission?</li>
<li>Can my family come too? Or is it for students only?</li>
<li>Any other <em>must-see's or to-do's</em> or tips? xD'</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you ~!</p>
<p>Ignore the first two questions. :] Is anyone else going? I’m going on the 10th! Sounds exciting~!</p>
<p>I’m going tomorrow at 11 : )</p>
<p>the 7th :)</p>
<p>I’m going tomorrow at 2 with my friend whos choosing to go to UCSC :D</p>
<p>im going at 3…</p>
<p>I went today, and to be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the tour. I think it was only because we never saw the places I really wanted to go to, like… more residential colleges. We did drop by Merril and Crown, though, and I liked Crown a lot. : > It seemed really intimate and connected, in a way. Oh, and Merril dorms have TINY HALLWAYS!</p>
<p>By the way, if I could redo Spring Spotlight, I would walk off on my own instead of sticking with the guide. She knew her way around and was kinda funny, but I would’ve rather seen places I was more interested in. </p>
<p>After the tour, our parking permit was going to expire so we went back home. : ) … UCSC is really beautiful, no lie.</p>
<p>inthemorning, what was the best part about your visit? Did anything really stand out to you besides what you mentioned?</p>
<p>i just came back today from the Spring Spotlight 
with my friend whos going to attend UCSC if his appeals dont work :). Basically for people who havent gone yet, they just give you a tour of the campus and walk you to all the academic buildings(humanities, social science, arts, and engineering/science) You also will stop by college 9 and 10:). They talk about the majors and all the good stuff, ask question if you need to :O. I think you’re allowed to also see a dorm room in Cowell’s but thats not on the tour.</p>
<p>I think the dorms that you stop by depends on the day that you tour/the tourguide you get. : ) </p>
<p>@whatthefriction
I think the best part of my visit was… looking at Crown College, really. I think the reason why I wasn’t completely blown away by its beauty is because I’m used to this kind of scenery. BUT I still thought it was great, cause there were these cute bridges and the buildings are seriously integrated with the trees. We didn’t find any banana slug, but the tour guide did mention that the students liked to leave orange peels behind for banana slugs and I thought that was cute. =P</p>
<p>Aww, that is cute!</p>
<p>Did you catch sight of any squirrels or deer?</p>
<p>I’m excited! :D</p>
<p>Son was accepted at UCSC and UCD. We did the Spring Spotlight (UCSC) on 4/2. Campus is very pretty, but very spread out. We only got to see one college/dorm (Crown). Not impressed with it. We never even got to see where Colleges 8, 9 and 10 were! I agree with inthemorning that you need to check it out by yourself, perhaps after the student led tour. Maybe you will be able to tour the individual colleges & actually see a banana slug (we didn’t, which was really disappointing). Also, Santa Cruz is not a “university town.” We stayed in town and the locals we spoke to (including our Santa Cruz friend) didn’t seem to care for the university or the students. Not sure what that was about! </p>
<p>In any event, Son and I toured UCD on 4/3 & loved everything. Son (Biology major) ended up choosing UCD, mostly because he wanted to live in a university town and be closer to home.</p>
<p>^What do you mean by university town?</p>
<p>@Star </p>
<p>‘University town’ means that the city itself is well integrated with the university. Even though the city of Santa Cruz depends on the UCSC students, a lot of the locals have bad vibes with the students for some reason. </p>
<p>I would strongly agree that UCD is one of, if not the best, college town in the UC system.</p>
<p>I’m a transfer and I’ve visited the campus numerous time visiting friends–honestly, that’s the best way to go. I stayed in the dorms (she happened to be in Porter) and the experience was awesome. The dorm life seemed very open and everyone was friendly and outgoing. The dining hall food is amazing too.</p>
<p>I can imagine a guided tour would be boring and too educational, you need to see the real side of the campus! If you don’t have a friend currently enrolled at the school, I recommend checking everything out on your own.</p>
<p>i went to the spring spotlight on saturday. i think the campus is amazing but i was annoyed we didnt spend too much time on the actual residential colleges. after the tour i took a trip myself to visit the ones we didnt see on the tour (the ones i cared about). it is a must</p>
<p>@whatthefriction</p>
<p>I saw two deer! : ) No squirrels, though.</p>
<p>Aww, I was hoping they would give a brief tour of all the colleges. I wonder if there’s enough time to venture out on our own…</p>
<p>Star, there’s not a lot of time left after the tour if you don’t buy a half day parking permit. HOWEVER, if you would rather see residential colleges, I’d <em>highly</em> encourage you to skip the tour and just walk around on your own. In fact, I’d actually recommend just grabbing a map and going without going to the meeting. They don’t notice if you’re at the meeting or not, and they don’t give you any information that you can’t already find online. : )</p>
<p>well after the tour you have around 1 hour to look around 
(till parking expires D: ). The tour ends in the centerish part of the campus so you’re close to crown, merill, cowell, and stevenson if you wanna see those. You can walk a lil bit more and you’ll see college 9 and 10(though on our tour we stopped by there, because it’s next to the social science department) :(.</p>