Hello all,
I have been admitted into UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. What are some pros and cons of each? What is the feeling like at each school? Any info would be helpful. Thanks!
You should visit both and find out. UC Santa Barbara is definitely more of a party school. UC San Diego is “dead” but academics are amazing.
Like I said, you should visit both to get the feel of each.
False. UCSB has become increasingly more competitive since a lot of students started going there because of the stereotype that it is a party school and UCSB has really pulled together their research opportunities and labs.
I would say they’re both pretty similar in that regard, UCSD isn’t entire dead but if you’re looking for a more active social life UCSB does still have that.
UCSB, UCSD, UCI, and UCLA are beginning to level off with one another. Get a feel for both campuses and see which one clicks for you more. @jennifereleccion
@grimmghost I never said anything bad about UCSB’s academics… lol. How are you going to say it’s false? UCSB is still a party school, but it’s amazing academically as well. It’s a fact not a stereotype. If people apply because they hear parties, there will be parties lol. Of course going to any UC would provide great research opportunities.
I will agree that UCSB gives more active social life than UCSD, and I never said it was entirely dead either. I have friends that go to both and I have visited both.
And a majority of the schools are becoming increasingly competitive. Freshman profile’s are increasing all the time. Even state schools such as SDSU where this year has the smartest freshman class ever.
I didn’t mean to come off as abrasive @DefineGravity I apologize for that.
I just think that any school can be a party school because every university has parties. That’s why I said that in terms of academics- yes they are catching up. But in that regard, they definitely formerly had a better social environment than the quality of academic rigor they now offer.
The academic world is getting so inflated with the volume of students and the necessity to have BA/BS+ to even be CONSIDERED for a job… With the good comes the bad I guess, higher literacy means more saturation in the realm of education.
I assumed this question was regarding the academic environment since this thread is under College Admissions not College Life.
UCSB is a very good school. But it’s still NOT on par with UCSD or LA yet. It’s in the same league as UCDavis, id say. Purely from the numbers: average SAT scores, they are 100 points away from UCSD. And UCI is even further down. UC has pretty distinct tiers if you are looking at the test scores
UC Berkeley 2094 686 710 698 4.19 31 78,923 13,330 16.9% 65.5% [66]
UCLA 2064 675 702 687 4.18 31 92,722 16,027 17.3% 58.3% [67]
UC San Diego 2035 657 705 673 4.13 30 78,091 26,495 33.9% 61.1% [68]
UC Santa Barbara 1937 629 665 643 4.05 29 70,565 23,074 32.7% 75.8% [69]
UC Davis 1924 618 670 636 4.07 29 64,626 24,670 38.2% 64.2% [70]
UC Irvine 1878
UCSB actually overtook UCSD in most national polls for the first time this year. It’s an excellent school! UCSB and UCSD are very different schools. UCSB is in a college town, and Isla Vista (where all the students live) is a very tight knit community. The enrollment size of UCSB is smaller than UCSD as well. UCSD is a fantastic school academically, however most of the students live throughout La Jolla and the surrounding areas, so it feels a bit like a commuter school. Both excellent choices though, so congrats on your acceptances!
I won’t be surprised that UCSB overtook UCB / UCLA / UCSD in most of national polls if we are talking about party scene. 
j/k.
However, anything can change, but numbers don’t lie.
It’s clear the students that UCSD admits have much higher stats than the ones going to UCSB. (SAT, GPA, ACT, etc).
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/profiles/index.html
UCSB is rated higher than UCSD on many 2016 polls (for the first time, so the 2015 polls will show UCSD ranked higher). From a recruiter standpoint, we love UCSB kids because they tend to more well rounded than UCSD students, although both excellent schools. Here is the 2016 ranking of National Universities per US News Report.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+4
if you are a truly a recruiter, I think you already failed your management’s expectation by relying rankings from US News. It’s laughable. If you were working for my team, I would’ve hired a different guy by now.
- I don’t know how you define “well rounded” when you looking at US News ranking. But apparently in your perspective, the higher ranked universities (US News) are “well rounded” comparing to lower ranked ones. So apparently Harvard kids are more “well rounded” than Caltech kids who are a lot more “well rounded” than Berkeley kids who are more “well rounded” than UCSD kids and so on.
- I don’t know how you justify the reasoning “UCSB kids tend to be more well rounded” as comparing to UCSD’s kids. Did you study in both schools all this time? You clearly understand company culture change and school culture also changes? better yet, how many people have you interviewed? And that represents the whole school?
- US News ranking. Before you point out that ranking, did you check 10 other rankings? Where UCSB stands comparing to UCSD? again you failed as a recruiter.
- by saying the word “we” love UCSB kids. again you are representing the whole group as a recruiter. you should’ve chosen the word “I”. You don’t represent the whole recruiter group.
- in the case, you can’t define who is better than who, which thing do you recommend high school kids to look into? a word “well rounded” from you? or an official UC website stats?
- lastly, not that I have any disrespect towards recruiters, since you guys are helping us filter out junk resumes. But if you are filtering out kids only based on what you just mentioned above, I would start reconsidering my own hiring process.
UCSB have many smart kids just like any other UC does. But the majority of the students quality is NOT as good as UCSD. just like majority of the UCSD students quality is NOT as good as Stanford’s
Goodness… both are excellent schools! I work for a Fortune 500 Healthcare Company and we have hired excellent candidates from both schools. My point is simply that UCSB has “caught up” in many ways to UCSD, at least as of recent times and in the eyes of our recruiting department. UCB and UCLA are still a tier above, no doubt. By “well rounded” I am referring to our last few years of applicants. Although both outstanding sets of applicants, the UCSB students tended to participate in on campus clubs/organizations, intramural sports, held part-time jobs etc. and many were more well rounded. Certainly this is not the case for all, as I have hired many UCSD grads. I’m a fan of UC’s in general, and again, both are excellent schools 
No hard feeling there. I am sure we both just try to point the kids to the best school / major as they possibly can. I work for a monopoly player in telecommunication industry. In my group, I have mostly Cal / Stanford and some SJSU kids, and other than that I have a lot of UCSD kids. not many UCLA / UCSB alumni in my engineering department that I can tell distinctively. And yes, they often have their own alumni gathering events, that’s how I learned. But if you must categorize the UC schools by tiers as for STEM students quality as this whole thread is about.
Cal / UCLA / UCSD
Davis / UCSB
Irvine and the rest
No hard feeling there.
However, let me point this out, I don’t remember seeing anything even remotely related to school clubs / sports on any resumes. We are talking something about a serious job interview, that my department is going to pay something like 85K for that kid. Your interest is not what I am looking for on a resume. (we can definitely chat about during interview, but on the resume? let’s save that space). Part time jobs, yes. It better be related to the full time position I have opening.
I work for a monopoly player in telecommunication industry. In my group, I have mostly Cal / Stanford and some SJSU kids, and other than that I have a lot of UCSD kids. not many UCLA / UCSB alumni in my department that I can tell distinctively. And yes, they often have their own alumni gathering events, that’s how I learned.
For NON STEM majors, I do agree with you, Cal/UCLA > UCSD and the rest.
But if you must categorize the UC schools by tiers as for STEM students quality as this whole thread is about.
tier 1-- > Cal / UCSD /UCLA (just because they have generally good kids, but truth to be told their engineer school is too small comparing to Cal or SD)
tier 2 --> Davis / UCSB
tier 3 --> Irvine and the rest