I think we were given bad intel - the website is very clear that freshman can’t have cars/aren’t eligible for parking. Parking | Campus Housing
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Interesting. I am personally anti having a car in college if it’s doable otherwise, but I’m pretty dang sure our guide said they could too.
I know people who have gotten cars as freshmen, but this was a few years ago. Don’t count on having a car (and it’s not necessary!)
You can rent a Zipcar for pretty cheap (like 11$ an hour) if you need to go somewhere.
Probably old information.
@Gumbymom
what’s your opinion of the FSSP program at UCSB? Do you know if the students are still housed in San Nic and if so, are they automatically assigned San Nic when the school year starts or are they assigned a new residence hall based on requests? I seem to have read conflicting info on this.
BTW, freshman are not allowed to have cars on campus unless there are extenuating circumstances. I’ve heard this on multiple tours.
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I cannot offer any opinion or advice regarding the FSSP program but hopefully other posters that have had experience with the program and comment. I as far as I know, San Nicolas is the dorm used for the FSSP program.
This is what was stated last year if you did not select San Nic for Fall.
You have to move out of your dorms after FSSP, along with all of your stuff UNLESS you are staying in San Nic for the fall too. Regardless, despite which option you pick (to stay in San Nic or leave), you cannot stay in the dorms for the one week gap between end of summer and start of fall. However, there is summer temporary housing in San Rafael, so you can buy a week and a half of housing.
My daughter is a freshman at UCSB and is not a partier. She has gone to a couple of parties but is not into that scene at all. It is easy for her to have a full social life without it and I honestly don’t see how they maintain the “#1” status. Greek life is not very big there. The parties are on Del Playa, which is the strip of rentals right on the ocean. Many other schools come to mind when I think of party schools, but either way, UCSB has more serious students these days and there are more kids focused on other things. My daughter goes to the beach every day, hikes, bikes, rock climbs, surfs. My opinion - don’t let the label scare you.
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Can confirm.
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The #1 party school ranking stuff is all BS (how do you ‘rank’ party schools lol), people have an idea of what UCSB is because it’s on the beach and has a strong work hard play hard culture (but not necessarily partying, just good work/life balance). Agree with everything you said there
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Interestingly, one Prof on the panel of people answering audience questions during the College of Engineering event at 10 am on Open Day (4/12) skirted the response to “party school” question, and sugar coated it with “work hard play hard”, “social interaction” kinda fluff. For me, it was a major disappointment coming from a Professor, others may have different opinion.
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Does anybody have info about doing biology at UCSB with the intent of doing grad school in bioengineering? The UCSB website say there is a pathway and talks about bioengineering seminars, but when we spoke to the professors about it at open house they just looked at us funny.
@gauchoengin My DS is thinking to change major within L& S. You mentioned he can do that before committing. How do we initiate that?
Here is the change of major information for Newly admitted students. As long as the major is an OPEN major, you can follow the instructions on the webpage: Major Changes for Applicants and Newly Admitted Students | Undergraduate Admissions
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He shouldn’t have any worries about committing to UCSB if that’s where he wants to go, even if he’s not listed in the major he now wants. For incoming frosh changing majors within L&S is easy to do, and there are plenty of undeclared students who need to settle on a major by roughly the start of their junior year. They aren’t frozen out of any majors in L&S and neither are those changing from one L&S major to another. For transfers it is a different story but it sounds like your son is a prospective frosh.
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Thank you!
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Thank you! you are right, we have been told its pretty easy to change within L & S although changing from L& S into school of engineering is very hard and not guaranteed.
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This is a difficult question to answer because the true answer is “yes there are parties, but there are parties at every school and they’re lying to you if they say otherwise” which obviously the Dean of Engineering (I’m guessing Umesh right?) is not going to say, they’re not going badmouth other schools.
All I can say as a student is that UCSB has parties, but if you don’t want to party there’s absolutely no reason to, there’s a thriving social scene outside of parties which you really can’t say for some other ‘party schools.’ In my opinion, the label is meaningless. I understand the concern for parents but if your child is dead set on partying through college, there’s really nothing you can do no matter what school they go to.
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I would agree with this assessment
Son committed to UCSB today!
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After a couple weeks of indecision my daughter finally pulled the trigger and committed to UCSB over CalPoly.
Somewhere out there a CalPoly SLO, mechanical engineering, waitlist kid is about to have a very good day.
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