Is Humboldt right for me?
I am trying to decide which college to apply for early decision. Humboldt is on my top list, however i have heard good and bad things about it. I love nature, but a lot of people keep talking about it being a horrible school. I don’t even know if I have a chance to get it. I have a 3.8 GPA, and I am involved in my extracurricular activities. Please tell me what you think about it, and what other colleges in California you think I should try.
Thank you so much!
2 Responses
Tyler E
27 Mar 2010
xo379
27 Mar 2010
It’s definitely good if you love nature…but there are other schools like that too. Humboldt is definitely not a top school–it’s probably third tier (which I think is the lowest you can go). With a 3.8, you should be looking at schools like UCLA and USC. But you could possibly get a scholarship, since your GPA leaves you pretty overqualified for a school like Humboldt. Keep in mind that Humboldt has a LOT of pot smoking, so if you don’t feel comfortable with that, don’t go.
Humboldt is actually the best school in the nation if you are looking at majoring in the sciences. It is constantly ranked #1 in the sciences amongst other schools that do not offer PhD’s, and it also produces the highest percentage of students who continue on to receive PhD’s. It is not considered a tier 3 school by any means. In fact, it is a tier 1 Master’s University. It is ranked at 49th in the West, much higher than all but 6 other CSU schools. Its major downfall is that many programs outside of the sciences lack much support, but still keep in mind that a B.A. is only a B.A. and it almost never matters where you go, but how well you did when you got there. Plus, if you are looking at becoming a teacher, your best bet is Humboldt as it has the highest number of students pass the CSET test (which is required to teach in CA) and students constantly work at and with the local high schools and elementary schools. So, honestly do not be fooled by people telling you that it is a horrible school, they honestly have no clue as to what they are talking about.
I go to Humboldt and I have constantly met people whom have turned down UC schools in order to get a much more valuable education. My tuition is roughly 2500 a semester, compared to 10,000 plus at UC’s. Cost of living in Arcata is relatively cheap, instead of nearly 1,000 a month at a school such as Santa Barbara. Other than that, the classes are smaller, the teachers hail from schools like UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, Nebraska, Columbia, and various other prestigious schools. Your GPA could get you into almost any school you want, but take the prestige factor out (most jobs really do not look at the school attended) and think about the place you would enjoy to spend four years at. I love Humboldt, I love having the beach five minutes away and viewable from campus, love having the redwood forest surround the campus, love having faculty that I can call by first name and they know exactly who I am, love the town and the community, love the fraternity I am in, but only downside for me is that I am about a 10 hour drive away from my hometown. Wouldn’t be bad, but flights out of the little airport are extremely expensive and well, I can’t do weekend trips back like most of my friends at other schools are able to do.
By the way, the whole pot smoking stigma that people bring up is absolutely nowhere near what people make it out to be. I have visited several campuses and there is little to no difference.
But other schools I would look into would be University of Redlands (great school, but extremely expensive), Chico State, SDSU, any of the UC’s, Santa Clara University, Cal Poly (SLO or Pomona), and any of the of the Claremont or Pomona colleges.