Trip Reports: Private Bay Area Colleges

Parents Forum
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<p>We visited three private northern California colleges this weekend: the University of San Francisco, St. Mary's College of California and Mills College.
Since the new system limits post size, I will break this trip report down into three separate posts, one after the other.</p>

<p>The University of San Francisco - Has about 4500 undergraduates, 8300 students total, including graduate students. Strong business programs in particular. Run by the Jesuits. The campus is in a residential area on a hill in San Francisco. The campus itself is very pretty with a mix of architectural styles - some modern buildings, some Californian-mediteranian styles. Lots of greenery. The campus is split in two with a strip of private residential housing down a block in the center, but it still feels like a unified campus. Gorgeous views from several points on campus. Really a very nice urban school in terms of campus and location. Unlike most of the schools we've visited so far, USF does their admissions presentation before the tour. Within five minutes of the presentation's start, I could tell from my daughter's face that we wouldn't be taking the tour based on what she was hearing. The first turn off for her was that housing is only guaranteed for the first two years - after that nearly all students are forced to find their own housing in San Francisco. When I asked about the cost of this and whether reasonable housing was available close to the school, the admissions rep seemed to dance around the topic. Most students shared apartments with several other students so the price of an apartment in SAN FRANCISCO would be "reasonable" but he acknowledged that often that meant living some distance from campus and commuting. The next negative was a 4 year graduation rate of 62%, which the adcom tried to brush over by explaining that many students do not graduate in four years because they are "challenging themselves" by taking additional courses. This didn't make sense to my daughter - she raised her hand and asked for clarification. After rambling about for awhile, he admitted they had a high transfer rate. Next, he talked about teacher-student ratios - seemed quite good, average class size is 25. (At this point, a boy in the back of the room raised his hand and asked "huh, what is the ratio of girls to boys here man?" further convincing my daughter that this was NOT the school for her). Study abroad is available, as it is at most schools, but not emphasized (this is VERY important to my daughter). USF does not run any of its own programs, all programs are through other schools or straight exchange-programs with foreign schools. About 70% of the student population is Catholic, 50% come from CAtholic high schools. Very diverse campus - only 40% of the students are caucasion, with high populations of Asian and african American students. Any student with a 3.8 GPA/1300 SAT automatically receives a $16,000 merit scholarship regardless of need (to receive it must apply Early action, which is non-binding). 79% of students receive some financial aid. USF accepts 75% of applicants, average SATs are 1100. As I said, daughter did not want to go on the tour after the admissions presentation, so I can't give details about student life or the dorms but overall, I'd say it's probably a decent choice for mid-range students who want an urban mid-sized school, especially those interested in business.</p>

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<p>St. Mary's College of California - St. Mary's College of California had been recommended to my daughter by her guidance counselor as a possible safety school in California.
Our school is something of a "feeder school" for St. Mary's. Indeed, when we arrived, she was surprised to find a classmate waiting for the same tour. St. Mary's is located east of San Francisco - it took us about 40 minutes to drive from downtown San Francisco to the campus, a friend told us that you could be in San Francisco within 30 minutes on BART. Afterwards, we drove to Berkeley in 15 minutes. Daughter loved the idea that the city and Berkeley were relatively close by but the school was located in a beautiful suburban/semi-rural area surrrounded by hills and woods. It really was quite lovely. The campus has the feel of a Spanish monastery - lots of enclosed courtyards with fountains, arched walkways, beautiful well-maintained buildings, gorgeous landscaping and outstanding views. St. Mary's was founded in 1863 and is run by the LaSallian Brothers, a Catholic order devoted to education. There are 2500 students. </p>

<p>St. Mary's has two interesting programs: the Collegiate Seminar program and the Integral Studies program. The Collegiate Seminar program is required of all students and is based on reading and intensive discussion of the "Great books" St. Mary's has been requiring this program since 1941. Unlike at many schools, where similar programs have been launched in the past few years, this is a program that extends over the course of the student's years at St. Mary's. In the first Collegiate Seminar, taken freshman year, the subject is Greek Thought and works delve into everything from Homer and Plato to Euclid, Sappho, Aristotle, Astriophanes, and Thucydides. The second collegiate seminar covers Roman, Early Christian, and Medieval Thought - Marcus Aurelius, Phtarch, St. Augustine, Chaucer, Dante, the Bible, etc. The third collegiate seminar focuses on Renaissance, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century thought - from Luther and Shakespeare, Gallelielo and Hobbes to Voltaire, Rosseau and Thomas Jefferson. The fourth collegiate seminar covers 19th and 20th century thought including Marx, Newman, Darwin, Blake, Kafka, Thoreau, Freud, Bacon, Martin Luther King, Nietzsche. Two other optional collegiate seminars focus on multicultural thought and world traditions. According to both our tour guide and the admissions rep we met with, a high percentage of students willingly sign up for those other two optional seminars after completing the required 4. Again, all students - whether you're majoring in business, biology, art or history, must complete the 4 required seminars before graduation.</p>

<p>For those who want a more classical education, St. MAry's offers the integral program. St. Mary's began this program in 1955 and consulted with St. John's College in Maryland and Stanford in developing it. It is fairly similiar to the program at St. John's in that all subjects are taught using the tutorial method and classical texts. The emphasis is on using original source materials. However, unlike St. John's, additional religious tradition study is included, students still complete the collegiate seminar, and there are some opportunities to take elective courses outside of the integral program. </p>

<p>The sciences are very good at St. Mary's - my daughter's classmate who was on the tour is interested in pre-med and has visited schools like Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Boston College. The admissions rep noted that St. Mary's has an 85% med school admissions rate, with a very high percentage of those going to UCSF or Stanford for med school. They do not
"weed out" pre-med candidates, but try to help everyone find a slot in a med school if possible. They have just built a new state of the art science building with anatomy labs on campus. Arizonamom - if you read this, they have a health science major for OT.</p>

<p>Psychology, elementary education and history are also popular majors. The art program is small but had nice facilities that my daughter liked. St. Mary's does run a number of its own Study Abroad programs - about 15 semester abroad programs and other trips during January semester. If St. Mary's doesn't have what you're looking for, they will work with you to find another school's program but my daughter is looking for a school that offers its own programs as well so she was very interested in this.</p>

<p>The dorms are all relatively new and pretty nice. Here again, only freshman and sophomores are guaranteed housing but a large majority of juniors and seniors are able to get housing. The rest move off campus into local townhomes and houses. Average rent, according to our tour guide, who is a senior living off campus, is about $400-$600 a month, depending on how many roommates you have. We saw flyers advertising a 600 square foot detached studio cottage three miles for campus for $600 a month.</p>

<p>The campus is fairly secluded. The bus runs a shuttle to the local Bart station, about 10 minutes away, so that students can get directly into San Francisco or Berkeley, but you would probably want to have a car. There is a small shopping center with some restaurants, a supermarket, drug store and some other stores within walking distance. The campus seemed very quiet for a Saturday afternoon and our tour guide said many students do go off campus on the weekends - either home or into SF or to Berkeley for more excitement. The school does sponsor speakers, concerts, parties, dances, etc. on the weekends to try to keep people on campus but in general it seemed like you would need to be able to make your own fun if you went here.</p>

<p>Admissions is relatively easy going - they accept 80% of applicants. Average GPA is 3.4, Median SAT score is 1100. Merit scholarships are automatic for students with SATS above 1250 and GPAs above 3.8. Overall, a very nice school for solid B students or a good safety for slightly higher schools.</p>

<p>My daughter's reaction: not quite the "quirky" school she is looking for but she was VERY intrigued by the collegiate seminar program, liked the art facilities, absolutely loved the feel of the campus and it's location - both it's beauty and close proximity to SF and Berkeley. She also The kids on campus reminded her very much of the kids at her current high school, where she is very happy - she said it's a definite "California safety" for her list.</p>

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<p>Mills - My daughter has a friend who is interested in Mills so since we had a few hours before our plane home we decided to do a drive through for her.
I think if Mills was co-ed daughter would probably have put her application in on the spot. It is a beautiful campus - stunning huge trees (and wild turkeys!) and many unique and historic buildings that somehow all fit together. My daughter was probably most surprised to see "BOYS!" on campus - I guess she thought that all-female schools lock you away for 4 years in a convent. We did get out and walk around and talked to a few students. They all agreed that they loved Mills. The students seemed so much like my daughter that I wanted to hit her over the head with a brick and say "don't you get it?" but all she kept saying was that she wants a school with "MORE BOYS." The students we talked to said that males are on campus most of the time either as graduate students, students from UCB taking exchange classes, or just visiting. They said that they can also take classes at UCB and that there's a shuttle over to the UCB campus. They didn't seem to feel not having males on campus stunted their social life. What struck us about the students we talked to was how friendly and self-confident they seemed. One student took us to see her dorm room - I thought my daughter would die - a beautiful single with huge windows and a porch. Apparently, most of the dorm rooms at Mills are singles (is this true Outwest?). We walked over to the art building - an exceptional facility. A teacher was in one of the studio's and invited us in and answered some of my daughter's questions about the program. She seemed extremely approachable and enthusiastic.
In the end, as we drove away, Daughter said she would highly recommend Mills to her friend and would "maybe" give it some thought as a possiblity. The only negative that we could see was the immediately surrounding area is OK but beyond that things get kind of dicey quickly. On campus, however, you feel like you are a million miles away from everything. Really a wonderful and special school and quite a surprise.</p>

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<p>Carolyn, just for your FYI, Mills College is heavily Lesbian. If your daughter has an interest in the opposite sex, this college could be very uncomfortable for her.</p>

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<p>Well, maybe that's why the students were so friendly then. :)</p>

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<p>I have to disagree with this: If your daughter has an interest in the opposite sex, this college could be very uncomfortable for her. Since the vast majority are hetero and not walking around uncomfortably. It's true that all women's colleges naturally attract some gay gals--the Bay Area is a great place to come if you are gay. But still they are a minority. Mills is probably the strongest academically and has the best reputation locally, of the schools you looked at.</p>

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<p>Where (part of country) do you live?</p>

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<p>Carolyn: tx for the trip report. My S is looking at St, Mary;s and the input is helpful. I concur on Mills, but disagree on one point. My parents lived within 3 blocks of the campus for 30+ years, and I literally grew up in the 'hood. Since I was a marathoner in my former life, I covered a lot miles of the local territory. I would hasten to say that the inside Mills's fences is a wonderful (and safe) enviroment, but outside it is NOT safe, particularly at night. Indeed, I did much of my training on the hills of Mills campus. East Oakland has the highest crime rate in the state. There is no place to go in walking distance -- no movie theaters, no pizza parlors, etc. Mills provides an excellent LAC experience, but the surrounding community is not one.</p>

<p>We now live in SoCal, and I can assure you that the area surrounding USC is much, much safer for kids after darl.</p>

<p>Oakland dad</p>

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<p>Bluebayou, Thank you --- our friends live in the Rockridge area of Oakland and said that the immediate area has "improved" around Mills of late. Our personal impression was that it would be dicey without a car. I was surprised when they told us this as I had always heard what you said that Mills was not in the best of areas. Certainly, there didn't seem to be anything of interest to college students within walking distance of college students. I know one parent who occaisonally posts here - Outwest - has a daughter at Mills so perhaps she could comment. I don't want to spread misinformation. Bettina, thanks also for your information --- again, we felt that the students seemed very friendly, and not as "Radical" as Mills students had been portrayed to us. While there may be a heavy lesbian population, it didn't seem oppressively lesbian to us at first glance. </p>

<p>MisterHeyU - we live in San Diego. </p>

<p>My daughter was very impressed with St. Mary's and said she would feel very happy applying there as a safety. It felt like a very nice, nuturing school - academics were decent, only concern was the level of social life on the weekends but with so much to do in the bay area she felt that may not be too much of an issue.</p>

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<p>Dear Carolyn,
Like your friends, my family also lives in the Rockridge District of Oakland. I have grown up here, & my mother has lived in Oakland & Berkeley all her adult life. She is a native Bay Arean. She is also an educator, & knows the education scene quite well, including all the local colleges. That is also why I know about them in some detail. I also went to a Catholic elementary school in this area, & therefore know something about the local college experiences of some of my older schoolmates -- some of whom (not many) have chosen nearby colleges.
The other poster is correct: Mills is quite Lesbian.<br>
While not a commuter college as much as, say, San Francisco State, USF still <em>feels</em> like a commuter college. Maybe that's because of the iffy campus housing situation at USF that you spoke of. There's not much of a cohesive campus community there.
As to St. Mary's, it's secluded all right, but the safety (security) is horrible. There have been several rapes & attempted assaults (in the dorms!) in the last several years, with the worst part being the "cover-up" on the part of the administration. These were publicized locally, but then quickly hushed up by the religious authorities.
If your daughter really feels it's necessary to go to a Catholic college (or if you want her to), then I would suggest Santa Clara U. It's just as beautiful as St. Mary's, has an excellent reputation, is in lovely surroundings. Or Dominican College in San Rafael is another choice. Both would be a better value than St. Mary's for a similar price, in my opinion.
Several teachers at my elem. school graduated from the teaching program at St. Mary's. Those particular teachers were the worst teachers in the school. I mention that only because you happened to mention St. Mary's education program. I would also wonder about the "high percentage" of pre-med students going on to top medical schools. That's not what I have heard.</p>

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<p>Carolyn, did they talk at St. Mary's at all about the recent resignation of the president and the short or long term effects on the campus of building a multi-million dollar science building based upon a "pledge" that has fallen through due to a real-estate scam? Here is one article, there are many on google:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/3751110/detail.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ktvu.com/news/3751110/detail.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Carolyn, great report. I have a couple of things to add to the posters above:</p>

<p>1) To give you an idea of apartment costs in SF, my older S paid $700 a month plus utilities for the privilege of living in the garage of a house in Outer Sunset. It was a private room with a real door, but in a garage. His second living situation was a 3 bedroom apartment in the Ingleside area. The rent was $1910/month which included washer/dryer facilities but not gas, electric, and garbage. </p>

<p>2) I second the idea to check out Dominican University in San Rafael. S's friend, an average student, Jesuit high graduate, is thriving there. He is aiming for a career in sports management, business or something in that field, and as a freshman he is doing live radio play by play for the college sports teams. S tells me he may have his own call in sports talk show soon. It sounds like a nurturing environment.</p>

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<p>Carolyn, also, how about Santa Clara? I am not sure how the selectivity compares with the other schools (I think it is more competitive) but it is also a nice campus, Catholic, a safe area I believe. I don't know how much of a commuter school it is, and that is kind of a known aspect of USF. I do know a fair number of graduates of USF both undergrad and law school and they are all very positive about it.</p>

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<p>Classist - THANK YOU for the information. Now that you mention it, the tour guide did react strangely to the questions about security. See how great this board is for getting the real skinny? And, yes, we were aware of the resignation of the president over the unrealized donations before we went (what a strange story that is) but no, they didn't mention it on the tour (although it is clearly mentioned on the front page of their web site - it would be hard to miss. </p>

<p>We probably will visit Santa Clara on a future trip - another school that our high school sends many kids to. Our daughter would probably prefer NOT to go to a Catholic college, but, unfortunately, it seems as though her choices are limited in Calif. for what she wants (small, LAC-oriented school). She's ruled out Occidental because both her grandparents and several aunts, cousins, and other relatives have gone there (of course that rules it out right away), didn't care for the area around Redlands, doesn't like Pepperdine (too conservative and her father went there), and the only two Claremont schools she'd have a shot at are Pitzer and Scripps (no Y chromosones at Scripps and Pitzer probably won't appeal to her sense of a pretty campus). The UC's and cal states are out in her mind - won't even look at them. That leaves...hmmm....Santa Clara (which she has already said is probably too big), University of the Pacific, Chapman and Dominican. </p>

<p>As I said, we're hoping to go up to the Pacific Northwest in Feb. to look at Willamette, Lewis & Clark, maybe Linfield or Pacific University. Any comments on any of these schools would be appreciated.</p>

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<p>Carolyn: guess you didn't have much time to check the bookstores this trip.
Between Dominican and University of the Pacific, UoP may win on cost, and Dominican wins on location. </p>

<p>UoP has a nice campus but is located in the city of Stockton, spread out and not a very exciting place. One of our son's classmates who is a good but not great academic student has just started there, and I'll check with her parents for impressions.</p>

<p>Dominican is smaller (I think), is in a very nice location in San Rafael, not far from the downtown area and about half an hour north of San Francisco. It has some interesting programs, including graduate programs.</p>

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<p>Yes, San Rafael beats Stockton by a long way. (In cost of living, too I'm sure.) This would be huge for my D. Not considering the quality of the schools, of course ; ).</p>

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<p>I wouldn't worry about Scripps not having men. It's next door to Harvey Mudd (68% male) after all.</p>

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<p>Carolyn, Did you find out if the OT program at St Marys is a 5 yr one. If so we may need to add it back on the list. We just got back from Pepperdine, and Scripps. My D did not feel a real fit with Scripps although the campus is gorgeous, and very peaceful, lots of water and greenery, gorgeous spacious dorms. The girls there say it is harder to meet guys, at least according to some of the girls she spoke with. She loved Pepperdine, felt the kids she met wno were not all that conservative were very compatable with her although she did hear there were some barbies there(she did not meet them). Don't you love how students descibe each other. It is difficult to get in to Pepperdine however. As always thank you for your great descriptions. I will write more later but need to go pick up my D.</p>

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<p>Dear Carolyn,
I agree that there are few choices in the California area if you are seeking small LAC. (Calif. has either HUGE, or small + way too selective for most of us.) Definitely check out the Pac NW. Just recently I finally took Whitman off my list because I had enough safeties, but it is one example of a school I might have chosen. Very good merit scholarships & internships there, without some of the problems that St. Mary's has. Our college counselor gave us a list of other merit scholarships I would not have known about in Oregon. (Again, my college list is already full, & I do want to go East.) Lewis & Clark had some, as did -- to my surprise -- Oregon State, which sounds as if they're trying to attract non-Oregonians, because the money is just for out-of-state applicants. I go to a girls' Catholic High School, & college acceptance lists from previous years include Willamette as a choice for some. Hope that helps. It sounds as if you're going to check out Santa Clara U. & Dominican, which is good. Good luck to your daughter.</p>

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<p>Carolyn,
Is there a particular reason your daughter is limiting her choices to California and the Pacific Northwest? (or is it just that you are limiting your college tours to those that are closer to home).</p>