University of California, Santa Cruz

As a UCSC undergraduate, you will belong to one of eight residential colleges, similar to the system at Harvard and Yale. Each college is a unique social and intellectual community of 900 to 1,300 students with its own affiliated faculty, housing, and recreational facilities.

The campus is located above Monterey Bay on 2,000 acres of redwood forest and open meadow that once formed part of the historical Cowell Ranch. The award-winning buildings were designed by leading architects to complement the natural environment. The city of Santa Cruz (population 48,000) is a center for both the arts and outdoor recreation. San Francisco is 75 miles to the north, San Jose and Silicon Valley are 35 miles northeast, and Carmel and Monterey are 50 miles to the south.

UC Santa Cruz students traditionally have an impressive record in the competitive Mellon and Fulbright Fellowship programs, and UCSC has a high graduate and professional school acceptance rate. More than 90 percent of UCSC's seniors are accepted into one or more of their graduate school choices and the percentage that go on to earn Ph.D. and M.D. degrees is among the highest in the country.