hii just looking for some information about the social scene/campus life of both schools also which school seems to have a “better” academic agenda
overall which seems best for someone looking for greek life and a good education!
(price is not a deciding factor)
You can start with basics. One is mid size with 7700 undergrads while the other is huge - nearly four times as large.
Size often matters - Chapman has a faculty/student ratio half the size, etc. and will be more residential.
Both will be strong in certain majors - so that’ll depend. Like Film at Chapman.
And I suspect you can get a good education at both but potentially more adjuncts at LB State. But also more areas of study.
Chapman says 1/3 are in Greek life. Not sure about LBSU.
As for diversity - Chapman is very diverse. But if it’s very diverse, then Long Beach is off the charts diverse!!! Super super diverse.
These schools are different enough. Why not visit both - talk to kids, profs, etc. including Greek life members - so you can make the best decision for yourself.
Will one stand out in life vs. the other? Likely not - but again, Chapman is known in certain areas - and LB State will have its strengths too.
These schools are so different you really need to visit and decide for yourself.
Good luck.
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thank you so much for your imput i really appreciate it!
Are you local to the schools?
yes 30 minutes from both
Best thing is to go there any weekday afternoon into early evening as well as a random weekend day. You will get the flavor of the campuses.
If you are 30 minutes away, you have know someone who has gone there, no?
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FYI: off the topic but relevant,
My niece attends Long Beach. And it’s known as CAL State Long Beach or just plain Long Beach. They don’t go by “Long Beach State University”.
Most of the Cal States go by their names: such that they are usually known by their locations or by their CSU label-Cal State, otherwise they are known as:
Fullerton
Fresno State
Northridge
Sacramento or “Sac” State
San Bernardino
Sonoma State
Dominguez Hills
Channel Islands
East Bay
Monterey
Chico
Humboldt
Bakersfield
Stanislaus
Cal Poly Pomona
Cal Poly SLO
Cal State LA
Cal State San Marcos
The only ones that I know that use the acronyms are SDSU, SJSU, SFSU.
It has to do with how the California legislature and the Regents named the universities. So you hear students say “I go to Long Beach”, “I go to Humboldt”, “I go to Chico”.
OP you are so close you can visit the campuses. I know traffic is bad going into Long Beach and Chapman is in Irvine but you’re really close enough to spend several days there if you wanted to and see the differences.
Thanks - hmmmm - I grew up in Rancho Bernardo and spent years living in OC (Irvine and Placentia).
But - we all go by different things.
Some go by CSULB or California State University, Long Beach which is the formal name. I go by Long Beach State because growing up, that’s what we called it.
Perhaps it’s an old habit…but it’s my naming vice.
Here’s an article from today - in fact - which calls it Long Beach State.
Tomato, Tomato I suppose. But yes, off topic for OP.
I can’t speak to CalState Long Beach but I can speak to Chapman. It’s basically the SoCal students who don’t want to attend a CalState. There is so much incompetent behavior by administration, it’s unbelievable. My daughter attended for 1.5 years, then transferred. Many people she knew were unhappy and transferred or just stayed. She should have left sooner, it’s a tuition factory with bad administration, down to housing, RAs, deans, etc. One can graduate in 3 years because it’s such an easy school. They hire 4 instructors and call it a department. They pretend they are a private school but do not treat the students well like a private school would because it’s run by dumb people, many who are Chapman grads. We had spoken to Chapman alums and they loved it there but they were in frats. They start partying on Wednesdays because a lot of them have no classes on Fridays so they return home to SoCal for 3-day weekends; weekends are a ghost town. The cafeteria is back to the high school scenario of cliques. The RAs won’t allow the students to leave their doors propped open due to being a “fire hazard”—REALLY?! My daughter had an issue with roommates bullying her and the Resident Director wouldn’t mediate, then the female dean didn’t want to deal with it, she was dismissive. My daughter moved out and missed the deadline for dropping a class and even knowing what she went through, the other dean said he wouldn’t delete the “W” from her transcript (private schools usually do favors). There isn’t much housing except Chapman Grand and Panther Village (both 20 minutes from campus so it’s like commuting and living in an apartment on your own). They assume everyone is from SoCal so we were waiting for an email from Housing so she could move into an on-campus apartment for the summer and the admin told us to just go wait at home because she assumed we were from SoCal. She moved into Davis Hall, which was basically like a Motel 6 apartment. The downtown is a joke, there’s not much good food unless you have a car and most SoCal students have cars so they don’t hangout downtown. The surrounding area seems sketchy. The “professors” are not high quality. There are 47% Caucasian SoCal phonies who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. There isn’t enough parking so commuters have to arrive early. Take a tour, and everything looks great. I know money isn’t an issue, but I suggest attending CalState and saving money, probably higher quality professors. It’s the worst feeling to pay Chapman’s high tuition and feeling scammed.
The only reason to attend Chapman is for film majors and their drama program is supposedly good too. My suggestion: If you decide to attend Chapman and don’t like it after a semester, scoot on out, it won’t improve.
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