Synopsis
Introduction from the Author
Sun, waves, bikinis and board shorts, and incredible weather year-round make it hard not to mistake this school for some sort of twenty-something resort. But, then you realize that this resort offers great classes and boasts expert professors, and that the resort dwellers are actually serious students. UCSB is a place that offers both a strong academic and strong social side of the college experience. Students who are “go-getters” and good time-managers will thrive in this big-campus, opportunity-filled environment.
UCSB has begun to shy away from the “party-school” image that it has upheld for so many years. Both students and teachers are serious in their academic endeavors, and the media and applicants have started to notice. Three Nobel prizes have been awarded to UCSB professors in the last several years, the number of applicants has climbed and exceeded practically all of the other UC schools. Still, nobody, not even Chancellor Yang, can deny that UCSB maintains a thriving party scene. You will undoubtedly have many opportunities to be part of crazy Del Playa house parties and some downtown bar hopping.
When you fill out the University of California admission application, you choose which UC campus to apply to with a simple check in a box. I knew nothing about UCSB, but, since checking a box was probably the easiest part of college applications, I decided to apply to it along with the other UC schools I knew. A seemingly unimportant, even random, check has made the last four years the best years of my life. I know I had no idea if UCSB was the perfect school for me when I decided to come here; in fact, I don’t think I knew it was the perfect school for me even after my first year. Eventually, I made friends, found inspiring professors, and took classes that I was really interested in. I explored Santa Barbara and beyond—I learned to surf (sort of), I interned, I volunteered, I worked, I played, and I soaked in plenty of Santa Barbara sun. UCSB has truly fulfilled all of my college expectations, and I’m already enjoying the benefits of my UCSB degree. Obviously I can’t capture the exact life of every UCSB student, but hopefully this guidebook will present prospective students with some useful information about the school—both what it has to offer and, most importantly, what the environment is really like here. Have fun reading!
Kate Sandoval, Author
UC Santa Barbara
About the Author
Welcome to College Prowler®
During the writing of College Prowler’s guidebooks, we felt it was critical that our content was unbiased and unaffiliated with any college or university. We think it’s important that our readers get honest information and a realistic impression of the student opinions on any campus—that’s why if any aspect of a particular school is terrible, we (unlike a campus brochure) intend to publish it. While we do keep an eye out for the occasional extremist—the cheerleader or the cynic—we take pride in letting the students tell it like it is. We strive to create a book that’s as representative as possible of each particular campus. Our books cover both the good and the bad, and whether the survey responses point to recurring trends or a variation in opinion, these sentiments are directly and proportionally expressed through our guides. College Prowler guidebooks are in the hands of students throughout the entire process of their creation. Because you can’t make student-written guides without the students, we have students at each campus who help write, randomly survey their peers, edit, layout, and perform accuracy checks on every book that we publish. From the very beginning, student writers gather the most up-to-date stats, facts, and inside information on their colleges. They fill each section with student quotes and summarize the findings in editorial reviews. In addition, each school receives a collection of letter grades (A through F) that reflect student opinion and help to represent contentment, prominence, or satisfaction for each of our 20 specific categories. Just as in grade school, the higher the mark the more content, more prominent, or more satisfied the students are with the particular category.
Once a book is written, additional students serve as editors and check for accuracy even more extensively. Our bounce-back team—a group of randomly selected students who have no involvement with the project—are asked to read over the material in order to help ensure that the book accurately expresses every aspect of the university and its students. This same process is applied to the 200-plus schools College Prowler currently covers. Each book is the result of endless student contributions, hundreds of pages of research and writing, and countless hours of hard work. All of this has led to the creation of a student information network that stretches across the nation to every school that we cover. It’s no easy accomplishment, but it’s the reason that our guides are such a great resource.
When reading our books and looking at our grades, keep in mind that every college is different and that the students who make up each school are not uniform—as a result, it is important to assess schools on a case-by-case basis. Because it’s impossible to summarize an entire school with a single number or description, each book provides a dialogue, not a decision, that’s made up of 20 different topics and hundreds of student quotes. In the end, we hope that this guide will serve as a valuable tool in your college selection process. Enjoy!
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