<p>major: child development ultimately pre-med. other than the weather, any opinions/insight...</p>
<p>Tour the campuses. They are very different.</p>
<p>UCSB is right on the beach. Davis is inland...bikes widely used to get around campus. Davis also is the only UC besides Berkeley and LA to have a football team.</p>
<p>You won't go wrong with either...pick the environment you prefer.</p>
<p>It depends on what you want to major in and what you are looking for in a school and in a college experience. Academically both are fine schools, but there are differences. Davis has a business school, medical school, veterinary school and law school and the opportunitities and emphases those bring to a campus, and SB does not. Davis has a football team and Div. 1 sports and SB does not.</p>
<p>Santa Barbara is a medium-sized beach town, but the campus and Isla Vista are about 10 miles away. Davis is a small, self-contained town - a true college town with something of a crunchy granola vibe. SB got its start as a teacher's college in the Cal State system and later converted into a UC. Davis got its start as Berkeley's agriculture station and still carries something of a moo factor to this day. SB has better weather than Davis. Davis is closer to the ski slopes. And so on....</p>
<p>They each have pluses and minuses. It just depends on what you are looking for.</p>
<p>One point of disagreement I'd have with coureur is that UCSB is also a true college town. Sure, it's not actually in Santa Barbara, it's in Isla Vista, but you have the students and student-oriented services right there. See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Vista%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Vista</a> It's also self-contained, you don't need to go to SB or Goleta (although you might want to go to Goleta for the better prices at Safeway).</p>
<p>Both are good schools, people are happy in both. The best thing to do is look up the admission weekends and visit both campuses, see which strikes you as a better fit.</p>