<p>OK, I am going to be very UN-PC in order to give you a frank opinion. My twins are both between UCSB and Davis right now (neither were their first choice but UCSB was a top choice of one of them.) Both of their top choices were reaches, but plausible, and they didnât get them. Both have decided after yesterdayâs revisit for Spring Insight that UCSB is probably where they want to go. (They have not yet revisited Davis, and will, next week.) </p>
<p>This creates an issue for one of them who does NOT want to go to school with his more forceful personality twin yet again, and wants to branch out on his own. This twin applied to and was accepted to Santa Cruz as well. (The other didnât apply.) This twin who applied to Santa Cruz is an old fashioned English/History/Liberal Arts/Comparative Literature/Philosophy kind of a guy. He did well enough in math and science (2150 SAT and I think a 4 or at least a 3 on his AP Calc exam with a B in the class) . However, he didnât enjoy them, much. He doesnât really know what he wants to end up doing, but in a STEM program as he was, anyone who doesnât want math and science gets very little career guidance. I want him to go back and look at UCSanta Cruz. </p>
<p>Mind you, Iâd like him to love UCDavis, because it is higher rated. But if he doesnât fit there, I want him where he will be happy. This is NOT the difference between a UC and a ânot a real collegeâ, it is just a lower rated UC in the mind of the public. Which MAY influence jobs or admissions to graduate schools in the ârigorous programâ part of analyzing your transcript, imho.</p>
<p>Going at this from another angle, my other son, also bound for law school, has good reason to look again at Davis, despite really enjoying the âfeelâ at UCSB. There ARE internships nearby and the question is, does a school schedule allow you time for an internship an hour away, during the school year? Because my brother and I from other UCs also had internships, his in the state capital and mine in Washington DC, from other UCs. They have intern programs and if you have to do it over the summer or take a quarter off, I donât yet know if Davisâs location is or is not a real benefit â particularly if you are competing with law schools in the area for the internships.</p>
<p>Which brings us to something the pre-law adviser said at the UCSB pre law advising program yesterday. There was a panel of students, and he served as moderator. Each of the students, including the freshman, had internships of some sort, law firm, courts, social service departments, and they said how they got them. The pre law adviser said in other, bigger cities, a lot of these internships would have gone to law students because there are law students desperate to get internships, but Santa Barbaraâs comparative isolation helped UCSB students in that regard. In Santa Barbara, UCSB is the big frog. I wonder if Santa Cruz might not be a bit the same, and they must have courts etc. You might want to call their pre law adviser and ask them what people there do. </p>
<p>There is another thing the pre law adviser at UCSB said that struck me, which is that your gpa will be a huge part of your competitiveness for law school and your successfulness in what you do, more than in the selection of what area you are in. And that you will be more successful where you are happier and in the courses you like best.</p>
<p>Having said ALL of that, the last yearâs list of undergraduate schools from which Harvard Law drew its class included UC Davis (and UCSB) but did not include Santa Cruz, Riverside or Merced. Mind you, next year the mix might be different. Another thing the adviser pointed out was that even schools that do feed Yale can only hope to do it every couple of years or every few years given the size of the Yale class and the hypercompetitiveness for the slots [ this was about Yale specifically, since the discussion was about a student who had gone there recently and who had been extraordinarily successful in what she did, but did NOT do poli sci nor legal internships but did what she enjoyed]. He was trying to give a reality check to peopleâs expectations given changes in the legal market since 2008. A student from the panel, who was accepted to NYU and waitlisted at Harvard for law school pointed out that many schools, Yale and Berkeley (Boalt) amongst them, want to see real world experience between college and law school which put those applying from college as he was at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>I canât say where you should go. I donât know the strength of your feelings for the schools. As a Mom, Iâd say if you have a REAL pull towards Santa Cruz and feel youâd be SIGNIFICANTLY happier there, you should consider whether that might impact your gpa. And you should ask the pre law adviser there where students go to law school and if they send their share of students to the schools that interest you. I suspect your gpa will matter more than the difference in ranking between Davis and Santa Cruz, but YES, Davis sounds better at a cocktail party.</p>
<p>Sorry for any insults anyone infers for any schools; I like ALL the schools Iâve discussed here. </p>
<p>OP, I wish you luck, wherever you go. </p>