Where to?

This post is a plea for help: I am not looking for more people to tell me what to do, as I already have enough of those, but I am looking for information. College has got to be just about the most important decision of my life so far, right next to coming to France in terms of how much it affects my life. I applied to seven colleges and got accepted to six: UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz (+honors college), University of Washington (+scholarship), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (+scholarship and honors college), University of Wisconsin-Madison, and McGill. Last year I wrote about my college visits here and here, although unfortunately I didn't visit UCSD. I have to admit, getting admitted to six schools out of seven means I underestimated my academic record. Comparing myself to all my high-achieving, hard-working, AP-overloading friends means I forget that compared to most people, I actually do pretty okay. So the point is, I really did not expect to get into UCSD. For that reason and because last year I was determined to go to school out-of-state, I never got around to touring UCSD.

Where to?

This is now an incredibly problematic problem. Because now that I've been living 10,000 km away from home for seven months, I'm starting to think that living closer to home would be awfully nice, and that really there's no reason to go far away when I find California's culture entirely compatible with my own (big surprise there) and have started to appreciate the mutual understanding this creates between people. UCSD is a very prestigious school although by most measures about the same as Madison, with UWash are not far behind. Its prestige and the in-state tuition mean a lot of people are telling me I should go there.

But a few prestige points really don't matter that much. In the end, my career will not be significantly different if I go to UCSD or UWash or Madison. What does matter is the vibe. I didn't really like the vibe at U-Michigan, for example, and ended up not applying even though it's a nice big public school, which is what I was going for. I've never visited UCSD, so I don't know what kind of vibe it has. By “vibe” I mean the intangible attitude of the school, so I know whether our personalities will match up. UWash, for example, was full of hipsters. I like that, thought it was quirky and fun and I'd probably fit in. Madison and Minnesota were full of really friendly Midwestern kids who all had smiles on their faces. Also nice. I didn't apply to any privates because I didn't feel the cost-benefit tradeoff to be advantageous, and also because I am not a fan of the elite private school vibe of well-off entitled kids who've never failed at anything in their lives. Not saying that all of them are like that, of course. It's just the general vibe I pick up on.

So here are my questions about UCSD:

What is its vibe like? What is the bizarre college system like? (I got into the Thurgood Marshall college; is that good?) Can you take crazy awesome random classes like medieval weaponry? (If not, never mind, I'm going to Madison!) Is it full of people who seem vaguely disappointed that they didn't get into Cal or UCLA, or is it like Madison where people seem proud to go to the best school in the area? Is it full of dreamers who want to learn to surf and do study abroad and do something crazy and amazing with their career that will change people's lives? Are they friendly? Do they smile at you as you walk down the street?

If there are questions I haven't asked but you want to answer, go ahead. Just don't tell me “UCSD is awesome.” I know it is. I know I can't choose wrong, because I will have a great time at any one of my schools. Please tell me what it's like to be a Triton, since I wasn't lucky enough to get to visit it. And please, don't tell me what to choose. Tell me why, but not what.