Yesterday, it was our turn to visit UC Davis for their “Decision Davis” event, designed to sell the campus to prospective students.

We drove up on Thursday night, stopping at China House in Vacaville for dinner – while I wouldn’t make a special trip to eat there, I’d be quite willing to go back if I was in the neighborhood. We spent the night at the Comfort Suites in Davis, which lived up to its name. And we had an excellent breakfast at Caffe Italia before going to the campus for the actual event.

We were pleasantly impressed by the campus and by the town. Even though the campus is huge, the relevant parts are walkable (but most students bike — and, like UCSB, bike theft is the biggest crime on campus), and downtown Davis is immediately adjacent to campus. The student government and the town jointly operate Unitrans bus service, which is free to students and has good service throughout town (a good thing, because housing is basically limited to first year students). I had to be careful when walking through campus, because there were bicyclists everywhere, and they weren’t interested in stopping for me — it reminded me of Amsterdam.

Davis has a Freshman Seminar program, somewhat like Willamette’s, but it’s not mandatory. Like other UCs, most lower-division courses have TAs for the discussion sections, so this would be the best opportunity to actually work with a tenured professor for the first year or two.

Some classes are constrained (again, like other UCs); they do a two-pass registration process, and then they have waitlists and “crashing” to get into classes that are otherwise full. *sigh*

Unlike UCSB, Davis invited us to eat in a Dining Commons along with current students; it was a much more pleasant experience than our 45-minute wait for Panda Express last week. There was a good variety of food (even Jeff found things he liked), and the cookies were very good. The dorms weren’t all that impressive, even by dorm standards; the one we toured had been built in 1960. So I guess students aren’t all that unwilling to move off-campus after the first year.

Like UCSB (and, I suppose, other UCs), advising is largely at the initiative of the student — they have a peer-advising program called The First Resort which is available in the dorms as well as in the Academic Advising Center, and which does most of the advising; faculty/staff-led advising is also available, but unlike some other schools we’ve looked at, it’s not mandatory.

Davis also reaches out to parents with the Aggie Family Pack.

The Memorial Union (student union) was a lively place, with good vibes, and Davis itself is definitely a college town, with coffeeshops (other than Starbucks!) and lots of little restaurants and shops.

Downsides? Well, it’s a UC, so it’s going to be under budget pressure. And you can smell cows from some parts of campus (apparently the Tercero dorms are on the ag side of campus).

Everyone we talked to was enthusiastic about the school; it definitely moved up on Jeff’s list (and mine).

Next stop: Tulane.

It’s getting down to the wire for Jeff’s college decision. The schools which are still in the running (I think) are (in no particular order) Willamette, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Tulane, and the University of Oregon, though he hasn’t given anywhere (UC Riverside and American) an official “no” yet.

We spent yesterday at UCSB’s “Spring Insight”, a one-day open house where they try to have people available to answer your questions and, I guess, limit the disruption to normal activities.

Things I learned about UCSB:

• Political Science is a somewhat impacted major. History isn’t. In History, AP credits can be used to place out of at least some survey classes, or you can use them as general credits and take the surveys.

• UCSB offers many orientation sessions throughout the summer, so planning vacations should be no problem.

• Academic advising is done at both the college and the major levels. A lot of it is done by students (at least at the college level), and you have to pursue it because it may not be required. You should do it at least once a year.

• Housing is only guaranteed for the first year; most students move off-campus by third year (and a good many move for second year). If you live on-campus, you must have a meal plan (10, 14, and 19-meal options are available) which is good at any of the four dining commons but is not good at the restaurants in the University Center. The dorms (at least the one we saw) have tiny kitchenettes on each hall. Many of the dorms are actually off-campus. Dorms are co-ed by hall; bathrooms are single-sex.

• Bike theft is the big crime on campus (we were told about it three separate times!). This is the first campus we’ve visited without security callboxes all over the place; they have a well-used escort service.

• Wireless access is spotty on campus, though they hope to build it out. The library is not 24-hours, but there is a 24-hour study room (often used for groups) on the ground floor of the library.

• Greek life is a major part of the campus but not dominant.

• Although UCSB is supposed to have a stunning campus, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the buildings. The view of the lagoon was nice, but that was about it.

• For future visitors to a Spring Insight event: 7,000 visitors tax the campus pretty severely.

  • It’s best not to follow the herd to parking but to find the first available lot and park. We bailed out on the long line leading to the closest structure and went back to Lot 18; it probably saved us ten minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic and was only a few steps farther away.

  • We made the mistake of trying to have lunch in the University Center at Panda Express. We spent 45 minutes in line. It would probably have been faster to walk to Isla Vista (which we didn’t get to see) and eat at one of the restaurants there.

Next stop: UC Davis.