My son will be attending Georgetown in the fall and we recently attended a GAAP Weekend. And while he did not apply to UCLA, we do live in Southern California and are very familiar with the UC system and California’s budget problems.
I was extremely impressed by just about everything we’ve seen at Georgetown – but the thing that really stood out to me (the mom), was the Jesuit influence. We are not Catholic, but we find the Jesuit philosophy “education of the whole person — including the intellectual, social, and spiritual dimensions” to be very appealing. UCLA, I am sure is a great university, but I would find it very difficult to believe that the level of individualized attention – and caring – is anywhere near the same level as it would be at GU. At Georgetown, this is the mission. And as someone mentioned in an earlier post, there are spiritual leaders from just about every faith on campus – in full-time roles.
The other issue, also mentioned earlier, is the occasional difficulty getting classes at larger universities. I don’t know how often this occurs at UCLA, but I do know that California’s budget issues have at times caused problems that trickled down to the UC system. At one point, those problems were forcing kids to graduate in six – rather than four – years.
Having said all of that, I will add that the weather in LA is definitely better. 