My son enjoyed Santa Clara University and graduated last year. In general, the students are smart but have good social skills too so they are well-rounded. He was on a sports team and those students weren’t thugs, they were smart too. He joined a fraternity and the frats were reasonable students. SCU has no affiliation with the Greek system so the students need to keep their ears & eyes open for their open parties in the beginning of the school year. There are about 5 frats and you can look up their house locations. During the year, there are darties (day parties) where males can attend but they cannot attend the other frat parties if they are not a member. They can check social media or the student app that has social events listed (can’t remember the name).
The classes are small and they are filmed in case the student misses class. The professors are available at office hours and are responsive to emails. SCU is on the quarter system.
There is a 2-year mandatory dorm stay because they don’t want it to be a commuter school. But unsure how much it’s enforced.
Upsetting was that the Housing administration is lazy with regards to dorms assignments. Whatever dorm the student is placed in the first year affects their sophomore year. If the student gets placed into one of the newer dorms (Finn or Graham, that have suites and bathrooms), they have first dibs on staying in that dorm the next year. My son wanted to be in the old freshman dorm (Swig Hall, shared bathroom in the hallway) because it’s considered a social dorm versus the newer dorms. But the next year, he couldn’t get into a better dorm because so many students stayed in their first dorm. He got a good, early spot for choosing his sophomore year dorm but there were hardly any options so he chose the dorm next to Swig named Dunne which was the same as Swig but had air conditioning. This was a few years ago so you might want to check with Housing to see if the process has changed. The formal campus tour does not show the inside of dorms.
The cafeteria food is overpriced and has stations of food that’s okay but not great. There is some good food but you have to find it. If you don’t use all your points, there is The Cellar, a campus store. Often students are buying drinks or snacks from the store at the end of the year to get rid of their points.
There are two huge malls that are a 10-minute drive from campus: Westfield and across the street from it, Santana Row
A 5-minute drive in different directions will get you to:
Target, Sprouts grocery store, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Costco. Korean restaurants, Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, Burger King, KFC.
Students can use Doordash to order food and Uber or Lyft for rides.
There is a Safeway grocery store literally across the street from campus as well as a Kirk’s hamburgers, Taco Bell, Round Table Pizza. Also near is MidEast wraps at Shawarmaji, Ike’s Sandwiches, Casa en el Aire (Columbian food), Domino’s Pizza, Annie’s Vietnamese sandwiches, Rocko’s Ice Cream, Pizza My Heart. Togo’s Sandwiches is on another side of campus, across the street.
The campus and buildings are beautiful! They are modern buildings and the landscaping is well-maintained.
It’s a Catholic college but there are no religious overtones. While in 2013, the school had crucifixes hung on many buildings, those were removed. The students are required to take 2 religion classes but there is a large amount of options, even a course on death & dying so it’s not all classes on religion. We don’t affiliate with a religion but appreciated the Jesuit education which emphasized “the whole person.” My son enjoyed a drama class and screenwriting class that he would not have taken otherwise.
There is a train station across the street from campus (Caltrain) that runs from San Jose up to San Francisco. On S.F. Giants game days at Oracle Park, many people take the train, which drops off a few blocks from the stadium. After the games with all the people walking to the train station, it’s very well organized and there is security on the streets. The stadium is very nice too, with things to look at besides watching the game.
The San Jose International Airport (SJC) is a 10-minute drive and is a small airport. The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is large and is a 35-minute drive on Highway 101N on weekends or off-hours, otherwise there is rush hour which starts around 3:30 going north on Highway 101. Rush hour going south on 101 starts earlier, around 2:00. Unless the ticket is a huge price difference, it’s much easier to fly into SJC.
The city of Palo Alto where Stanford University is located is 20-minutes south of campus up Highway 101N. SCU does not have a football team. Many of the tech giants live in Palo Alto such as Mark Zuckerberg, Marissa Mayer, Larry Page, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and formerly Steve Jobs.