Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 12:54     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
No. I'm from California and we visit a lot. So, DS had visited Cal Poly SLO and UC Davis multiple times over the years but never as an actual tour. He considered applying to CPSLO (Davis OOS wouldn't have fit our budget) but ultimately decided he wanted to be a reasonable drive from home.

However, his experiences seeing those campuses definitely seemed to influence his idea of ideal college - big school in a college town. He ended up at Virginia Tech.

Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 12:41     Subject: Re:East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Everyone will.be leaving CA soon, scary for Stanford, brain and $$ drain.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 11:27     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How funny so many posters in DMV aren’t willing to send their kids so far. I’m in California, and many kids spread their wings and go to college all over the country- the south, the Midwest, northeast. Yes, it’s far, but airplanes…

Parents here are weird about travel. They’ll complain about a $200 ticket from DC to LA, but they happily will spend $90,000 on an education. It’s nonsensical to me.

+1, I don’t understand it either. Most of these kids aren’t driving or taking the train to their New England colleges either. They can, but the Amtrak isn’t cheap. We toured west coast schools, cause they have many good ones and the weather is pretty nice.


My kid is in school in LA. And while it is far, it's actually easier to get him to and from school than say, to Dartmouth or UGA. There's tons of direct flights, some fairly cheap, and then just a cab ride to the airport. Much better than a shorter flight then having to find and coordinate a shuttle for a 1.5 hour trip to the school.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 10:35     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:If so, which ones?

Based just on reputation, it seems UCLA and Berkeley are too large and "sink or swim", the other UCs are too expensive for OOS students, Caltech is too hard and cutthroat, Stanford is too impossible, Claremont Colleges are too small or too niche. What are other schools that east coast families found have to be worth long the trip to visit in person? DC is a high stat junior at a top private; above are schools college counsellor and friends of older kids mentioned for campus tours.


Pepperdine?
Oxy?
But you could probably find those two type of schools on the east coast. If you do, please list them.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 10:33     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:Visited USC, UCLA, Oxy, and 3 of the Claremont colleges spring break junior year. Saw HS friends from DC on every single tour. Ended up at one of the Claremont schools. Now at Berkeley for grad school.


Which CMC?
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 10:31     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:What do they want to study?
USC for film business CS
LMU for film
Santa Clara for engineering
U San Diego if you don’t get into any of the others


Is there a reason kid for CA? Family, friends, politics, weather, major? Etc.

Univ of SF (private)
Univ of SD (private)
Loma Linda

The Cal State system (California State University) has 23 public universities across the state. Such as
Cal Poly SLO
San Diego State University
Cal State Long Beach
Cal Poly Pomona
San Jose State University (San Jose is founding campus of California State University (CSU) system 1857 -- oldest public university on the West Coast, and has an 80%+ acceptance.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 10:24     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Visited USC, UCLA, Oxy, and 3 of the Claremont colleges spring break junior year. Saw HS friends from DC on every single tour. Ended up at one of the Claremont schools. Now at Berkeley for grad school.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 08:58     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:If so, which ones?

Based just on reputation, it seems UCLA and Berkeley are too large and "sink or swim", the other UCs are too expensive for OOS students, Caltech is too hard and cutthroat, Stanford is too impossible, Claremont Colleges are too small or too niche. What are other schools that east coast families found have to be worth long the trip to visit in person? DC is a high stat junior at a top private; above are schools college counsellor and friends of older kids mentioned for campus tours.


Nada
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 08:10     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
No, the plan was to go tour if she got in and really was considering. She got into two but decided against it.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 07:43     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If so, which ones?

Based just on reputation, it seems UCLA and Berkeley are too large and "sink or swim", the other UCs are too expensive for OOS students, Caltech is too hard and cutthroat, Stanford is too impossible, Claremont Colleges are too small or too niche. What are other schools that east coast families found have to be worth long the trip to visit in person? DC is a high stat junior at a top private; above are schools college counsellor and friends of older kids mentioned for campus tours.


Yes, we made a vacation of it and included a target school, LMU, along with reaches - USC and UCLA. We also did the tourist things like a studio tour, SoFi stadium tour, the pier while we were there and also ate well. We still have good vacation memories from the trip. I will say this though, I had to watch the campus tour schedule like a hawk to get the times lined up for the timeframe we wanted to visit.

In terms of UCs being too expensive OOS, the private CA colleges are likely more expensive. The exceptions where it might be less than UCs OOS is if your family qualifies for a lot of aid and the private college meets needs and has generous aid OR they are applying to a target school where they are competitive for top merit which might be 25-30K off tuition.



True. USC is $99,342, but over $100k a year if you add in travel expenses. Oxy is right behind but makes no sense for OP since she says DC has top stats (Oxy is 45% selective). Pomona is worth a visit but also $94k*

I don’t think travel expenses matter if you’re the family paying $99,000 to USC. After freshman year, trips really diminish, so cost of travel drops a bit.


Which means you don't get to see your kids as often. Maybe that's why people don't want to send their kids that far away.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 07:37     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
My kids have *applied* to these schools but we never toured. In my mind, the only reason to tour a school before senior year is to figure out where you want to ED. Those schools weren't in contention so we didn't visit. In reality, the kid will get into just a tiny fraction of where they apply so there's no reason for the time, expense, or frankly getting their hopes up until it becomes a real choice.
Anonymous
Post 01/12/2026 23:06     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Santa Clara, Chapman, and LMU are all worth a visit.
Anonymous
Post 01/12/2026 21:57     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:If so, which ones?

Based just on reputation, it seems UCLA and Berkeley are too large and "sink or swim", the other UCs are too expensive for OOS students, Caltech is too hard and cutthroat, Stanford is too impossible, Claremont Colleges are too small or too niche. What are other schools that east coast families found have to be worth long the trip to visit in person? DC is a high stat junior at a top private; above are schools college counsellor and friends of older kids mentioned for campus tours.


We toured the schools you mentioned plus USC minus CalTech.
Anonymous
Post 01/12/2026 21:51     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
My DD goes to UCLA. Never visited but committed and then went to admitted students day. Wanted big, rah rah good school. Waiisted at Michigan. But took self off list and never looked back.
Anonymous
Post 01/12/2026 21:51     Subject: East coast families: did you and your DCs tour colleges in California?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:If so, which ones?

Based just on reputation, it seems UCLA and Berkeley are too large and "sink or swim", the other UCs are too expensive for OOS students, Caltech is too hard and cutthroat, Stanford is too impossible, Claremont Colleges are too small or too niche. What are other schools that east coast families found have to be worth long the trip to visit in person? DC is a high stat junior at a top private; above are schools college counsellor and friends of older kids mentioned for campus tours.


Yes, we made a vacation of it and included a target school, LMU, along with reaches - USC and UCLA. We also did the tourist things like a studio tour, SoFi stadium tour, the pier while we were there and also ate well. We still have good vacation memories from the trip. I will say this though, I had to watch the campus tour schedule like a hawk to get the times lined up for the timeframe we wanted to visit.

In terms of UCs being too expensive OOS, the private CA colleges are likely more expensive. The exceptions where it might be less than UCs OOS is if your family qualifies for a lot of aid and the private college meets needs and has generous aid OR they are applying to a target school where they are competitive for top merit which might be 25-30K off tuition.


I was about to point this out. Is your DD pre med or thinking about working in tech? In addition to Cal and UCLA, I’d look at UCSD and UCDavis. UCDavis for pre med or chem, UCSD for chem and applied to math. For UCLA and Cal look at the off campus housing estimates and then add a few hundred. UCLA I believe does offer four years of housing. She may need a car at UCSD as it’s surrounded by highways and the upperclassmen live on the other side sometimes a 10-15 minute drive away.