University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

The grades thing definitely isn't - when UCSC was first founded in 1965, the school used long narrative evaluations rather than letter grades, but that practice has long been replaces by the traditional grading scale. And, yes, of course there are a lot of hippies - the school is literally surrounded by forest paths and hiking trails, so it naturally becomes a kind of hippie haven. And weed is big here, especially on 4/20, but its not a necessity for a social life at all. But there are so many people who don't fit that mold. There are a great number of students who don't party, don't smoke, and spend weekends studying or hanging out with a close-nit group of friends rather than partying. We've really got all types of people, because Santa Cruz attracts a lot of different students for different reasons.

Tussanee Reedboon

Julianne Quimby

Jake Pierce

Eric Young

David Burns

Barbara Barton

Adam Lease

Of course they are accurate for SOME portion of the student population, however i found that as far as academics it was department specific in terms of attitude. But... everyone smoked pot.

There are a lot of hippies there, and a lot of radicals. People are protesting all the time and it seems they will protest anything and everything. Things sometimes get out of control. Students there are often very friendly though.