I have been admitted to both of these schools but I am having a difficult time confidently deciding which school to attend this upcoming fall. I will be transferring out from a CC and plan on spending 2-3 years at one these school obtaining my bachelors in bio. My ultimate goal is to attend grad school and land a research position at a university. Which school will allow me to better prepare myself to achieve this goal. I am aware that SB is a “higher ranked” UC vs SC, but will it really matter that much for grad school if I build a respectable/competitive academic and scientific portfolio at both schools? I really liked the SC campus and I would have to say that I fit in better with the culture at SC than at SB, however, I don’t want to regret my decision of not attending a better school in the future. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially from current/former students of these school. Thank you.
Go where you think you’ll be happiest. I went to UCSB and really loved it, but from a recruiters standpoint/grad school, etc, unless you are coming from a school like Stanford, Harvard, etc, it really comes down to the candidate, and their achievements, and not the school in the majority of the cases. UC’s will generally trump state schools in terms of some initial interviews but there’s not enough of a difference between UCSB and UCSC (or UCSB and UCSD for example) to matter much on grad school apps. Enjoy!
Been a while since I lived in CA - isn’t UCSC Santa Cruz? I had a friend who went there (not for science) and he loved it. Don’t they have an alternative grading approach? Maybe that’s a consideration, whether you prefer that or a more traditional approach.
My sister went to UCSB (years ago) and liked it. She majored in biology (or perhaps wildlife biology). Later went on to get her masters and PhD in the same subject (from another school). UCSB set her up well for grad school, no issues there.
It may be as simple as which you like best. Northern CA, or more southern. Don’t think you can go wrong with either school.