Another school to consider might be Loyola Marymount. In April my D and I visited Occidental in the AM with full tour etc and Pepperdine in the afternoon full tour etc.We then drove through brutal traffic to stay near the airport/Loyola Marymount. We did a morning tour at Loyola then flew out.
I went to Occidental and grew up in Northern California. It is a very nice campus (not Pepperdine view gorgeous but still nice). It is small and UCB level liberal (great if that is your daughter’s cup of tea). The level of speakers that came to campus was extraordinary.
Loyola felt like a smaller UC to me. Lovely church but felt impersonal. My D said it felt like Universal Studios.
Pepperdine is an interesting mix of wealth and religion. Stunning views but probably need a car as it is a little ways just to get to Malibu or Thousand Oaks.
The Claremont Schools are all good schools but far from LA and the area is really a typical suburb. Very safe but not very exciting.
UCSD is in a great location but the campus itself feels very military. Great school though.
USC is in a rough area but they have a lot of security and the campus itself is relatively safe.
UCLA is beautiful. Has a Richie Rich vibe even stronger than USC in my opinion.
The private’s will be worth giving higher consideration if finances are at all an issue. If you are full pay with no merit then maybe UC’s will be cheaper ($60k per year vs $70k per year). My D did not apply to any UC’s as we live in Washington State and $60k per year is not doable for our family. She did apply to Cal Poly SLO and Univ of San Diego. She decided not to apply to Occidental as she felt it was unlikely for merit aid (plus she may not have been admitted anyways). Occidental is good about meeting need but not a huge provider of merit scholarships.
@CaMom13 - understood on Pomona and the Claremont Colleges. In western Mass, the outstanding liberal arts college Amherst does that with some of the nearby schools as well (Smith, Mt Holyoke, UMass-Amherst and one other I’m forgetting) - however, while my daughter liked the open curriculum at Amherst and understands about taking classes at other colleges nearby, it still wasn’t her thing.
@JBSeattle - thanks, that was very helpful. I’m not sure my daughter would like a military atmosphere if that is what it’s like at UCSD.
Columbia in NYC is not in a great area, but is gated and has excellent security as well. However, I don’t think my daughter has much interest in Columbia (because of a more rigid curriculum) and it’s too much of a reach, even though my daughter’s HS had 8 kids accepted there last year.
I think you may want to try Chapman if you are looking for merit dollars. The UC’s will not give your daughter one dime towards funding, so if you are spending that kind of money, you need to choose wisely.
Once you’ve seen UCI and UCSD you’ll get the drift of what they are like.
Agree with @crknwk2000 about UCSD. If you are going to be spending $65K for a UC, you need to be happy living there for four years.
thanks @“aunt bea” - right now, I doubt we’d be eligible for much in the way of needs based financial aid. We have one child and my wife and I both work and have well paying jobs.
@NewJeffCT, I was mentioning MERIT dollars because the merit is based on her grades, not on your need income. California is expensive for both publics and privates. The publics can’t give her any funding because they are funding by limited tax dollars.
If your daughter wants to go to a California university, she’ll (probably) get a better scholarship package offer at USC, Chapman, USD, LMU or the Claremonts. Pepperdine is beautiful, but some students find the “religious” obligation a bit different.
As well as Loyola Marymount if you’re looking at some less competitive admission schools maybe also stop by University of San Diego? Beautiful campus, very safe and the students I know there are very happy!
Not to beat an ailing horse and believe me I have no stock in the Claremont colleges but their consortium is very different from the Amherst 5 college model - the schools are actually adjacent. I think if you look at this map you’ll see what I mean, it’s totally different from separate schools with shuttle busses.
@NewJeffCT
I did not mean UCSD is full of military. I meant that the architecture looks like a military base. They had a great location and filled it with ugly buildings. I think UCSD is a little more middle of the road student wise. Fairly diverse, not Richy Rich albeit probably not that many kids from outside CA.
You really do need to get a handle on the cost side though. It is going to be expensive.
I’m with CaMom13, instead of Pepperdine, maybe check out the Claremont schools. Those were the first schools we looked at when D19 was a freshman on Spring Break (total over eager nerds, I know) and we really liked it and she still does after visiting many, many more schools between then and now. Many schools fell off her list, but not Mudd. From a parent’s POV, even though it is a suburb of LA, I thought it was so lovely and charming. One of those places you kind of feel right at home at. And academically, all the schools are really impressive. There is the LA lite rail (I think that’s what it’s called) that can take you to LA proper. It didn’t seem ridiculously removed from the big city to us.
@crknwk2000
They are great schools! LA public transportation is not very good and the traffic is terrible. The neat thing about the Claremont schools is that each has a different vibe and all of them are excellent. If one is ok with living in a suburb and not needing big city life all the time then it is a great option. And, it is not remote or terrible for flying etc. My D really wants a big city atmosphere, kids are different.
Her list seems odd. To have Pepperdine and UCLA/UCB on the list…I’m not sure you can get more opposite in student experience. Is she religious? I’m not sure it is still the case, but students used to have to swipe into chapel daily at Pepperdine. If she’s considering a school that size, then Santa Clara should be on the list.
If she’s considering small, I agree, the Claremont Consortium should also be on the list.
Even though it is POSSIBLE to do two schools in a single day, I don’t think I would recommend it. It becomes too much of a grind. That’s from a dad who visited schools in the east, midwest, and west.
The undergraduate gem of California publics in my opinion (my son goes there from OOS, and saw no attraction to the UCs, so take this with a grain of salt), is Cal Poly. It is not in a big city, so that may kill it for her. San Luis Obispo is a smallish central coast town, a little over an hour north of Santa Barbara. The reason my son chose it is because, unlike the UCs, they have small classes (average around 25, largest lecture hall on the whole campus is 200) and don’t use TAs (they top out at MS, so they don’t have graduate students to use as TAs). It is also less expensive from OOS than the UCs. Plus, he’s an engineer. They’ve been known for that for a long time. Engineering only makes up 25% of the student body though. It is worth at least a bit of Google time.
The only Claremont that gives much merit is Scripps, it is pretty competitive at the other ones that give any merit. Which is a fine school and a good option, IMHO.
@NewJeffCT, cost should always be a concern, because you can give her some or all of the difference and she can invest it. If you gift her $10k per year as a student and she holds it until 60, it’ll be worth roughly $600k. Two schools, equal in every way, the less costly, is the wise choice when it comes to her future security.
You asked about hidden gems. I’m not sure what the parameters are, but check out Santa Clara, a mid-size Jesuit university, albeit up in Silicon Valley, far from your other tours (we flew San Jose to LAX when we were doing our CA tours).
IMO, with your D’s high academic profile, Cal Poly SLO might not be a great “fit” unless she is an engineer, into agriculture, or wants to be an architect. It’s a very good regional college but pretty isolated and not near a large city as was one of her requirements. You listed schools like Northwestern, University of Michigan, and USC which are polar opposite of the Cal Poly SLO college experience.
UCSB is outside of Santa Barbara in Isla Vista, not really in SB. We found doing two tours a day to be exhausting. It can be done, but one a day is better IMO. USC has a beautiful campus, but I may be biased, since my son goes there!
Also want to add – check spring breaks. We had less than great tours that were during a school’s spring break, and didn’t really get the sense of those schools.
SLO and UMich have some similarities to me. Cute towns right next door to campus, great academics and both have football teams.
A big difference is that AA is about 35 min bus ride to Detroit, but SLO is the middle of CA, isolated, long rides to either SoCal or NoCal. And the weather of course.
but their consortium is very different from the Amherst 5 college model - the schools are actually adjacent. I think if you look at this map you’ll see what I mean, it’s totally different from separate schools with shuttle busses.