Thanks for letting us know your decision. Best wishes and good luck in college! I’m sure many of us will be interested to hear back from you next spring to get your opinion of the honors program and general overall experience at UCR.
Suggest do not keep this pending till the last minute! Hopefully have come to a decision. Everyone suggesting to select UCR, is there any strong reason still exist not go for. Think what happened to all the Grads of UCR, they did well, and you will too! Anyway, discuss with parents. A friends son goes to UCR and they are happy.
It sounds like you made a good decision in choosing UCR and insuring your self your desired major. My son’s will be a freshman this fall - his first choice to attend was UCI, but he is waitlisted there. He was accepted to UCR in neuroscience, his preferred major, and was also accepted into the UCR Honors Program. He has been worried all month, hoping that UCI will accept him from the waitlist for just about the same reasons you were interested in UCSD - since it is considered to be a better UC school, closer to better medical facilities for post-grad and later career, cooler, better location, near the coast, etc. He knows transferring later might be hard. However, now that he has been thinking about the benefits to being in the Honors Program at UCR, (we had a UCR student who answered a phone there who just so happened to be a senior in the Honors Program explain to us how it is such an elite and beneficial honor for her schooling), as well as the fact that they seem to value close mentoring between professors/students, he is currently thinking, (as of yesterday anyway), that even if the “Better University”, UCI accepts him from their waitlist, that he will stick with UCR. I think you made the right decision! Best of Luck to you, and thanks for sharing! 