Match Me anywhere & Chance me for CA public school [CA resident, 3.6 GPA (3.87 for UC weighted-capped, 1410 SAT, <$50k; public health or cognitive science]

[Twoin18]

@tamagotchi

It all depends on what the OP’s child is looking for in terms of “urban.” So for example, my kids like being in / near a big city, but they also think it’s very important to have walkable urban amenities immediately adjacent to campus (such as non-chain restaurants and shops, independent movie theaters, music concerts and live theater, etc). They both crossed off UCSC, for example, because the campus is not adjacent to the town of Santa Cruz. My D is attending a summer program at Stanford, and she hates the way Stanford is physically separated from Palo Alto, so that she can’t just get impromptu lunch from someplace in town when she feels like it; she now says that she wouldn’t attend a school with that much separation from its city or town, regardless of how nice the city or town is.

There’s a big difference between UCSC and Stanford, in that UCSC students rarely live on campus for more than 1-2 years. After that they are generally living down in the town, and get the bus to campus for lectures. Whereas Stanford students typically live on campus all four years. Many public colleges are more similar to UCSC than Stanford, with limited on campus accommodation. And then options for eating out at lunch are very different to eating out at dinner time. And the primary consideration with regard to separation may be how far away from campus you are likely to be living.