College Hopefuls Tour Santa Cruz

Campolindo and Miramonte students joined together for a tour of the University of California at Santa Cruz’s (UCSC) campus on November 1. Campolindo college counselor Joan Batcheller and Miramonte counselor Samantha Stuber coordinated and chaperoned the trip.

“I learned a lot about Santa Cruz that I didn’t know before because I had certain opinions about the town and the school, but [the trip] changed those opinions in some ways,” said Batcheller. “I had concerns about sending kids to Santa Cruz, but then I learned the classes aren’t impacted, there are popular majors, and kids can graduate in four years with a double major, and those were things I didn’t know about UCSC.”

Students boarded the bus in the early morning at Campolindo before it traveled to Mirmamonte to pick up the majority of participants. Of the 33 students who went on the tour, 13 were from Campolindo.

Although the two school have a long-lasting sports rivalry, their competitive attitude did not extend to the college trip. “I think they [the Miramonte students] were fun,” said junior Sophia Bartolo. “I thought they were interesting to have on the trip. I liked how the trip was set up with them.”

Once on the UCSC campus, the students were split up into their respective campus groups.  Each received a separate tour with a tour guide assigned from the university. The tour covered about half of the college campus. Once the tour was finished, the students were allowed free time to buy food and visit the campus bookstore.

“I think the fact that we had student ambassadors for tour guides was great because all the questions we would’ve had for the admission talk, we got directly from the students who were leading our tour,” said Batcheller.

For underclassmen who are not yet applying to colleges, the trip provided a general idea of what college life might be like. “I really liked the trip overall because I felt like it was really eye-opening and important to me to know like, ‘Oh, this is what you do at a college, this is what it’s like, this is how the campus is laid out’,” said sophomore Andrew Price. “I learned about a lot of the majors, how you can get into the college, how you get into the dorms, and just how the campus is structured and arranged, and how big it is.”

Visiting the UCSC campus also gave students a window into the school’s atmosphere. The college tour allowed individuals to compare how their personality might fit into the student life. “Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of UCSC, but I enjoyed the clarification that I didn’t like it because when I saw the students around campus, they looked kind of sad and lowkey, and I’m more of an energetic person. So, it wasn’t the college for me,” said Bartolo.

Bartolo also said that the details she learned on the visit to UCSC may be beneficial in her future college searches. “I don’t really know which college I want to go to, I’ve looked at a few, but definitely the clarification that college tours give would be really helpful for me,” she explained.

As valuable as it may have been for the participants, Batcheller understands that it is a big time commitment. “I think it’s a long trip to take, because we traveled two hours on the bus down and an hour and a half  coming home.” She is now thinking about taking shorter trips, such as visiting “Davis or Sonoma State, and schools we can visit that aren’t so far away.”