I was accepted into computer science at UCSC. I basically applied to all UCs and was accepted at UCM and UCR. I was denied at UCD, UCSD and have not heard from UCI. Frankly, my hopes are not high for UCI or UCSB after seeing how tough and unpredictable UC admissions have been this year. I had considered UCSC, UCM and UCR to be safety schools and honestly thought I would get admission to UCD or UCI. I also got into UIUC and UW.
Many of my friends who only applied to the higher ranked UCs have literally no acceptances. They are stunned. At this point I feel grateful to have a spot at UCSC. However, I find that no one even talks about UCSC that much and it does not seem to be that recognized. Am I wrong? To give some background, I live in the bay area just 45 minutes from UCSC but hardly anyone in my school even had UCSC on their radar or would have considered going there in the past. The only students who went there were those who could not get into any other UC or private and did not want to go to community college. I am not putting down UCSC. I am just being honest in the perception of UCSC in my circle of friends.
Is UCSC perceived higher from other parts of the country or state? I know it is not a high ranked UC but it is not that low either.
I have not visited UCSC in person yet, but obviously plan to. I want to feel good about where I go and be proud. I also don’t want to pay so much money on a UC degree that is looked on as being inferior by others and future employers.
Am I overthinking this too much and is UCSC a decent college? Would like to hear some thoughts on this.
I believe UCSC is still considered a public ivy school, although it’s on the bottom. The good thing though is that UCSC is pretty good for computer science compared to many CSU’s, UCR, and UCM. I’ve looked through various sources (PayScale, LinkedIn, startClass, etc…) for the schools I applied to (all UC’s except for UCB, UCLA, UCM) and I have to say they all have really good job prospects.
UCSC has an outstanding CS program. Tour the campus and see what you think.
In my experience, before I got to college myself people tended to dismiss UCSC as basically being a “reject school” for the other UCs. But once you get to college, the only people that care about their school’s prestige relative to yours are the kind of people you don’t want to hang out with. As far as the job search goes, employers should be more concerned with the skills you bring to the table than your school. Honestly, any company that’s so concerned with school prestige as to look down on anyone solely because of their alma mater isn’t somewhere you want to work.
UCSC is a good school. It is part of the UC system which accepts the top 9% of the CA high school students. The school has many good programs. Personally, I would rather attend UCSC than most of the CSU’s.
UCSC was originally supposed to be a quirky, progressive university that didn’t give out grades. That made it interesting to liberal arts majors, but not as interesting to students who wanted STEM or grad school. As the years have gone on, though, UCSC has transformed into a very traditional university with strong programs in STEM, especially comp sci, game design, and bioinformatics.
In terms of future employers, UCSC engineering grads are pretty easily employed. You’ll find alumni at all the big tech companies, like Google and Microsoft. You can try searching for UCSC comp sci grads on Linkedin to see what they’re doing now. FWIW, one of my UCSC comp sci friends just struck it rich, a few years out of college, because his company was bought and he was retained. He’s now way richer than our Berkeley friends, though our Berkeley friends could probably have done the same - he was just in the right place at the right time.
As for whether employers outside of California will recognize you - honestly, they probably won’t. But if they don’t, they probably won’t recognize UCI either, or many of the other great but less famous schools around the country. They care about your degree, skills, and work experience.