UCLA or UCSD?

State Forums
1

I was accepted to both UCLA and UCSD, pre-PolySci for UCLA and PolySci: International Relations plus Regent Scholarship for UCSD. If forced to decide between the 2, which should I go with?

UCLA pros:
-more prestigious/lower admit rate
-better athletic teams to root for
-people seem to like it more than UCSD, quality of life rating is higher

UCSD pros:
-Regent Scholarship comes with perks (are they considered to be good perks, or do they not make much of a difference?)
-I live by the beach now, so 10 minutes from the beach is a huge plus
-Div II athletics, which means a possible chance at playing tennis there
-multiple college system, which seems like it would give a “smaller-community” feel to the large campus

I don’t know much about the difference in quality between their respective PolySci programs, so I don’t know how to weigh that in. I really want a good education, but also a good quality of life, and I am a little distraught as to how much people dislike UCSD.

Any advice or input?

2

Personally, if I got Regents from any UC, I’d go to that school in a heartbeat. No one wants to be in debt after graduation.
I highly recommend reading up on faculty and course requirements/catalog offerings for Political Science, and read about their departments with what they are up to in terms of news/research.
Are people getting job placements after graduation, or have they been accepted to graduate programs? They might have some info on their department website, or DO look up recent Poli Sci grads for both schools on LinkedIn.