We are considering flying to California to visit colleges over winter break but I am not sure how to make that useful and worthwhile when students are on break and the admissions offices aren’t having sessions or tours. Has anyone done and found it useful? Is it ever possible to arrange a tour anyway? If important we would be visiting UC Berkley, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and possibly some of the Claremont colleges. Thanks!
We visited schools on the weekends occasionally, pre-Covid. It wasn’t as good, but still useful.
Depending on the major your student is considering, it would be worth their time to check out Cal Poly and the town of San Luis Obispo. You could make a circuit from the Bay to SC to SLO to LA and back, or just fly open jaw, into one and out the other. The drive between the Bay and LA via I-5 is pretty mind numbing, while the coast is spectacular. You’d get to see Santa Barbara that way too.
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Thanks. Weekends re different though as students are still on campus… we did do summer visits which weren’t great but there were tours…
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I think you need to check the schedules of the schools. At most places, once exams end in December, the places shutter up. You would likely not be able to see anything in any of the buildings. For these longer breaks, all students need to leave campus housing.
Many admissions offices are closed.
What do you hope to see when you go? If it’s the outside of the buildings and the surrounding town, then I guess that’s fine. But I personally would not make a college trip to do that.
So…see what is actually available on these campuses.
You might want to consider saving your trip money for a few accepted student visits.
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How long is your vacation? Are you OK with long drives between points? You have Bay Area, the coast, LA and the Inland Empire. If you add SLO you are hitting the Central Coast. Again, lots of driving.
UC Berkeley is giving campus tours now, but not sure if that is happening during the break.
These schools are really different with different vibes. What is the common thread or your chief goal for the trip? My D likes urban, and so the Claremont colleges are a no go, for example.
UCSC isn’t exactly urban either.
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I second @eyemgh idea to take a coastal drive and include CalPoly (beautiful campus in a scenic location) and I would add UC Santa Barbara either on your way up or down. It’s a stunning location. We did this tour last year with my family and we really enjoyed the vacation we got out of it. My personal favorite was the UC Santa Cruz campus but we saw it during the COVID closure with more deer in the woods than students. It does take a lot of bus rides to get places, and my kid that gets really bad motion sickness felt that it would be too limiting. She ended up at UCLA where she can walk to everything she needs (her brain forgot to evolve for motorized transportation). Enjoy your trip!
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I concur that if it is during winter break, a lot of the schools will be closed and weather may be a problem. If she just wants to feel the local environment, then she’ll get that exposure.
Driving will be onerous depending on which route (the 5 or 101) you decide upon. Make sure your car rental is booked because rental cars are in VERY short supply. Plus, the cost of gasoline, right now is really outrageous. I’m in SoCal-and our prices for gas are about $4.50 a gallon. I think the Bay area is more.
Bay area (Berkeley crossing to Santa Cruz) to Central California (SLO) to LA county-a long and expensive drive, especially if the weather is not cooperating.
LA County from the West side to the Consortium schools can be a pain, depending on the traffic.
PS The locals don’t call it “Cali” and don’t like that name. We can usually tell who the tourists are based on the use of “Cali”.
“SoCal”, “Bay Area”, “Central California” works.
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And, the world’s best sports mascot!
Agreed. And for the OP, they are the Banana Slugs. I’m also partial to UC Irvine’s anteaters. Zot zot. Until a friend’s daughter went out of state and her mascot is the fighting blue hens. Also the best!
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Don’t forget about Pomona-Pitzer Sage hens
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The Fighting Pickles of UNC School of the Arts!
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Sublime!
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Remember that quarter schools like UCLA will break earlier and start back earlier than semester schools like Berkeley, typically Dec 10-Jan 3 instead of Dec 17-Jan 10
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Some other art schools also have unusual mascots. (e.g. RISD)
Not Cali. Never Cali.
Gas is $5/ gallon in LA. Make a vacation and drive down the coast. You can get a good feel of the campus even without tours.
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We did that trip this summer, spread out over five days. Flew into San Jose, drove south, and flew out of Ontario. We stopped at UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCSC, Cal Poly SLO, UCLA, USC, and Harvey Mudd. It was a LOT of driving and H and I took turns taking the wheel; CA is a big state. Most of what we did was just walking around the campuses with almost no one around, driving around the perimeter of the campus to get a sense of what kind of shops, restaurants, or houses are nearby, and if it looked like an area where students would hang out. The absence of students makes a big difference, and we didn’t get any sense of what the student body is like. That said, you can see the physical surroundings, the greenery or lack thereof, how large a campus it is (and how long it takes to walk from one building to another, imagining yourself getting from class to class). You can tell if it’s hilly, if it is a defined campus, or bleeds into the surrounding area.
Some brief impressions of the schools on your list:
- UCB - hilly, big campus, buildings of all sorts of architectural styles, some green spaces but not that many. H and I liked it fine. D was meh.
- UCSC - very forested, seemed like the buildings were very far apart from each other and grouped in clumps instead of being distributed more evenly. Is a 10 minute drive away from the city of Santa Cruz. Is H’s alma mater so he liked it, but feels it’s not as he remembered it. D and I did not care for it as it didn’t fit our idea of a campus you’d walk around and run into friends.
- UCLA - big, nice looking campus, is close to a lot of chain-store stores/restaurants and banks (Beverly Hills). Urban, but not downtown urban. And surrounded by uber wealthy homes. You can tell there is a lot of money there.
- Claremont Colleges - We visited Harvey Mudd, but have visited Pomona on a prior trip a couple years ago. Each of the colleges have a separate theme/appearance and vibe to them, but share some common facilities and space, and students can take classes at the different colleges and eat at the different dining halls. It’s one of the top picks for D. There is a cute village with independent shops and restaurants nearby to the west, and then it’s suburban neighborhoods on the other sides.
I’m glad we visited, even though it wasn’t nearly as worthwhile as visiting when school is in session. Still, you’d see what the weather is like in wintertime vs your neck of the woods, and see the traffic.
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Hope you have a pickle Christmas ornament! We do!
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