Cal88;842321306 said:

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Cal is a great choice for engineering except for EE, which has a bit of an insane overly competitive culture totally dedicated to GPAs.

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Great for going into industry where your GPA doesn't matter so long as you can make it past the paper-cut phase and get an interview.

Not so good for grad school, though.

ducky23;842321242 said:

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I have a friend whose dad is a Berkeley professor. My friend got into cal and wanted to do premed. The dad ordered the daughter to go to dvc and then transfer to cal later so she could avoid the weeder classes. This is a Berkeley professor telling his daughter this.

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Back in the day, the 4 physics series was graded on a strict 10/20/40/20/10 curve. That meant that after five glorious quarters of physics fun, 3 and 5 of every 100 4A entrants earned an A or a B in the 4E. This rough guestiment assumes every D and F recipient dropped. Many of the best and brightest were bumped out of STEM careers. Stupid.

Also, although both Cal Poly schools are technically administered by the State College system, they are a different animal. SLO and it's former satellite campus in Pomona were put into that grouping as part of the Pat Brown higher education realignment in the early sixties, but they were both given almost complete independence. The SLO President is third in pay behind Cal and UCLA's heads.

Cal88;842321306 said:

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UCSD seems like a commuter school with little in terms of campus life, though I haven't visited.

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UCSD is hardly a commuter school (in that people go home after classes). It has a pretty sizable dorm presence and the rest of the students live in apartments around La Jolla.

It's social scene does kind of suck though. Having a HUGE campus with 6 different schools that function the same, no frat row, large majority of STEM students, no D1 athletics and a wealthy, conservative town that doesn't exactly embrace the school will do that to your social scene.

concernedparent;842321841 said:

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UCSD is hardly a commuter school (in that people go home after classes). It has a pretty sizable dorm presence and the rest of the students live in apartments around La Jolla.

It's social scene does kind of suck though. Having a HUGE campus with 6 different schools that function the same, no frat row, large majority of STEM students, no D1 athletics and a wealthy, conservative town that doesn't exactly embrace the school will do that to your social scene.

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Hey now, us STEM folks now how to throw some pretty big parties from time to time too.

LAN parties, that is...

Rushinbear;842321052 said:

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Thank you, one and all. I have passed along your thoughts to my daughter who will take it from here.

I am staying away from direct conversation about this unless asked. My granddaughter has two other sets of grandparents, all well-educated. Each of them has been unabashedly selling their school to her and the onslaught has become overwhelming. So, in the interest of reducing the pressure and according her the space to make her own decision, my daughter is serving as the go-between. Seems to be working better; maybe not in as timely a way, but what good is impatience anyway?

I appreciate the time you took to give such thoughtful feedback.

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Coming all the way to CA for college is a big decision since so many people have misconceptions of NorCal and SoCal.

She should fly out to California for a few days. One day in NorCal (visiting Cal) and one day in SoCa (visiting UCLA and one of the Claremont Colleges)
and maybe one day visiting Cal Poly or UC San Diego.

It would give her the chance to get away and see things "up close and personal". Each of the campuses mentioned above is very different from each of the other campuses.

You would be surprised how inexpensive it can be to fly from Oakland to LAX (or nearby airports).

I did the same thing with one son who was enamored by the idea of going to college at Northwestern, Notre Dame or Georgetown. [He ultimately chose to go to Cal.]