How’d it go? We did a similar trip a few years ago which resulted in my first student attending UCB and my second student attending Pomona College. They both got into UCLA (hard to pass up). UCSB equally nice. and Pepperdine campus in Malibu although far from the beach is lovely and impressive esp if you want a Christian college. They were very hospitable giving my daughter a towel and backpack. The only college that didn’t make it to our apply lists was UCSD. Kids didn’t like the concrete jungle.
Hello - we just got back.
USC was on break, so no “buzz” about the big scandal there, even though Lori Loughlin’s daughters still have not been booted out of the school. (Supposedly, it’s under review)
Our first stop was Monday at UCSD. That was the least favorite for all of us, and we usually don’t agree on a lot of these sorts of things. My daughter, who usually doesn’t notice these things, sounded like a realtor when she said that all the buildings look dated. For San Diego, I was disappointed it wasn’t more colorful - many of the buildings were white concrete blocks and the grounds were a lot of dirt covered by mulch, it seemed. It was also telling that the tour did not take us inside buildings - not even the library with the views. The weather was rainy/drizzly and mid 50s as well.
Tuesday we went to UC-Irvine. Yes, my daughter had heard about the stabbing, but it was not a huge concern to us as these sorts of things can happen at many schools in, or near, big cities. We all liked the charm of this campus - the tour guide was great and described the school & campus perfectly - we think we’re cool, but we’re really not. We got to meet one of the department heads on our own, and he was fantastic to speak to and also got us chatting with a couple of his students there and let us sit in on a pre finals presentation by his students. The weather was much sunnier. We rated UCI a solid #3 for the week.
Wednesday, we journeyed up to Santa Barbara on Tuesday night for a tour on Wednesday. Shout out to the Pacifica Suites hotel - only 5/6 minutes from campus, had a free shuttle bus to and from campus and greeted us with a bottle of wine. Even though I’m decently fit for my age, I liked that UCSB was on flat ground, so we had a break from going up and down hills. I liked the tour, the location and the campus, but were scared off a bit by our tour guide saying that only about 4% of students were out of state and 8% international. My daughter said it seemed too much like a summer camp.
Thursday, we went to UCLA and we all loved it - the campus was beautiful, the day was sunny and around 70, the tour guide was wonderful and they seemed to fill in most of my daughter’s academic wants. Unlike UCSB, they have a much higher percentage of out of state students (16 or 18%?) and international. The architecture on the older buildings had an east coast flair to it, so it was also somewhat familiar/comfortable, but just had palm trees. She also got to sit in on a class (the one that fit into our schedule was History of Chinese Cinema, which she said she enjoyed, though it’s not really related to anything she plans to study) - we also met up with a boy that is a current freshman at UCLA and lived across the street from us in Connecticut until 3 years ago, so he spent a little time (between studying for finals) to promote the school to us as well.
on Friday, we went to USC and we also all loved it quite a bit. The campus was also beautiful, but in a different way than UCLA. UCLA has more green and is hilly. USC is flat and had a lot of well maintained concrete walkways. We went to the 1 hour admissions presentation, then had a 90 minute tour and then a 1 hour presentation at the Dornsife college of liberal arts. However, since my daughter is interested in a couple of majors, we asked to sit in on an afternoon information session for the Dept of Dramatic Arts, which we liked as well (though, oddly, they’re in a small white building while most of the rest of the campus are these huge and impressive brick buildings) - in between, we went to the USC village and had lunch. My wife and her sister (both Chinese) loved the food they got at a Chinese food truck and my daughter got a “make your own” ice cream sandwich at another place. Dramatic Arts seems to be a bit more open to having a double major at USC than it was at UCLA.
Fun note - this year, my daughter’s high school was the first in the nation to get the rites to perform the Musical Fable “The Old Man and the Old Moon” - which they had just done in February. The show’s original creators - PigPen Theater (a group of Carnegie Mellon grads) - said they were inspired by the school’s Instagram posts on the show and decided to give a series of performances of the show again - and, they just happened to be performing at the Wallis Annenberg Theater in Beverly Hills this past weekend, so we got to see them perform the show and my daughter got to meet all the guys from PigPen after the show. (We also noticed that both UCLA and USC have buildings named after Wallis Annenberg as well)
After the trip, I think my daughter’s top 2 schools are USC and UCLA. She loved Southern California overall. UCI is still on her list as well. However UCSB and UCSD are probably off her list.
oh, and yes, it was a bit unnerving the first few times a motorcycle roared past between lanes.
Also, we had rented a small SUV but when we got to Enterprise late at night, they were all out of that model and the only thing left was a Cadillac Escalade. No extra charge for the bigger SUV and they also waived the gas fees - it came with a full tank and we could return it empty, which is a nice little bonus since the Escalade holds 26 gallons. I noticed that as soon as I hit my turn signal to change lanes, the car behind me in the next lane would just get out of my way and let me change lanes - I guess that’s the advantage of driving a tank through crowded highways.
Glad you were able to make time to see all of the schools and that you were able to enjoy a little California sunshine.