College / Skiing in Cali

Kev-Kev.

Kev-Kev.

Member
Looking at schools in Cali. What are the best schools close to the mountains? So far i've only looked at the CSU campuses and didn't really find a lot of info. Would be nice to be in a central location because I wanna surf too. Thanks.
 
UC Davis is probably the best for skiing and surfing. It's located between the coast and the mountains. The SoCal schools are too far from good skiing in my opinion...5 hrs to Mammoth. I understand where they are coming from as I drive 5 hrs to go surfing from Reno.
 
grew up near s.lake and ended up at UNR, not a California school but 30-45 min from N* boreal alpine squaw and within 2 hours for sierra kirkwood heavenly. i like it, not far from mammoth either straight drive down 395 like 3-4 hours , urban on campus a good 10 days this year. i like it, at least check it out, cheaper than California schools too
 
Fresno State is an hour and a half away from China Peak, 2 hours from the beach. Physical therapy, kines, etc. are all strong programs at the school. When I went there and joined the Ski & Snowboard Club I got my season ticket for only 99 bucks.
 
USC has a solid ski/snowboard team and its close to the beach being in LA. Any of the LA schools pretty much
 
Yep. Fresno State actually has a really solid program for physical therapy and well within an hour thirty. 168 is right next to Fresno State so all you have to do is hop on the freeway and mob up the hill.
 
It's also in the ghetto.
And when I say ghetto... I mean...
riots_la.jpg
 
Yep. In all honesty, Fresno is not as bad as everyone says it is. Maybe I've just grown used to it though.
 
Fresno averages 91 degrees in June, 97 degrees in the month of July. 95 in August.
106 days over 90+ degree temperatures annually?

All I can say is HOLY FUCK THAT...

 
Also, all the tropospheric ozone we generate in the bay gets blown over to Fresno and just stays there. It'll burn your eyes, throat, and soul.

Davis is your best bet, if you can get in, though it's depressingly flat.
 
I have spent pleantly of time in Fresno. I went there often during high school and college for school related agriculture things. My bf's family lives there and we go see them for awhile every summer after the pass opens up. With that being said it's not so bad overall, but the summers are too hot for my liking. I would never want to live there for an extended period of time.

As for the OP, where you go to school really depens on what type of riding you want to do. If you are more of a park rider, and less interested in all mountain, then Southern California is the place for you. I went to Cal Poly Pomona and was 45 mins from Mt. High and Newport Beach. On the occasional powder day Mt. Baldy is awesome, and Mt. High and Bear aren't too shabby. The season does tend to be short there (dec - april) but it's fun while it lasts. If you want to ride some more serious terrian Mammoth is the closest mountain, and it's only about 5 1/2 hours away. I drove up there at least twice a month during college - the drive is not bad.

If you are looking towards more all mountain then your best bet is to live more northward simply becuase you will have better terrian to choose from that is not too far away. Have you considered UNR? It's really close to the north shore Tahoe resorts. Personally I wouldn't go inward towards central California because during the summer it is so damn hot, and you are going to have to drive several hours to get to the ocean. You should really figure out how you plan on spending your time - take into consideration the type of skiing, how much surfing, what type of environment you would like to live in before you decide where to go, and wether or not the school nearest is best for you.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
 
It's all about UC Davis. It's a great UC, they have a good exercise physiology/phys therapy program, it's an hour from SF, probably an hour and a half from the beach (Stinson, other Marin beaches at least), and two hours from Tahoe. I went there for undergrad and now I'm there for vet school, and I love it. I also was a part of and helped run the Ski or Snowboard Club too, which helps you make friends with fellow skiers, get cheap tickets and passes, and they do at least 4 cabin trips per season which are super fun. It's a fun college town too.

No offense to the valley people, but I am personally not a fan of most of the central valley towns south of Sacramento. If you don't go UC Davis or Sac State, you might as well go somewhere coastal. Berkeley has a fun ski club, the town's fun, and it's about 3 1/2 hours from Tahoe. UC Santa Cruz has a good ski club too, and it's in a beautiful area, but no clue on their phys therapy program.

I suppose there is UNR too, but that's Nevada. It's really close to Tahoe though.
 
Dunno why nobody has mentioned this, but UC Berkeley is pretty close to the mountains. It's about a 3-4 hour driver depending on where you are going. I've gotten to Northstar from Berkeley in about 2hours 45minutes before. UC Berkeley also has a ski team as well. They also have great season pass deals if you are on the club or team on campus. Last year they had passes to Squaw Valley for $300, and went up about every weekend/every other weekend. Then there's Stanford, but it's Stanford..it's in Palo Alto, a pretty nice place, but kinda far from the mountains. It'll take an extra hour to get to the mountains compared to UC Berkeley. Like others have said, UC Davis is cool too. IMO, I would say go to Cal if you can. Might be a biased opinion since I go there..lol
I would say to pick a school that you really want to attend, base NOT on how close it is to skiing, but to how it fits you/your intended program of study. You can always ski, even after college, but you can only do undergrad once
 
Never mind my post on nobody mentioning Berkeley, I failed at reading lol. About UC Davis's physical therapy program, I've heard some good things about that too. Davis is a great school, nice little college down, not too far from SF, but also not too close.
FYI, Fresno is rated as the #1 city in the US to have the worst air pollution. Or at least that's what I read in the newspaper last year. Modesto was #2 I think.
 
Good luck skiing a lot at Berkeley though. They work you to the bone there depending on your program. I have a lot of friends there who are lucky to get a few days during spring break to ski.
All that aside, good luck even getting INTO Berkeley. You have about a 4% chance or something ridiculous, no matter what your GPA is... unless you write a ridiculously good acceptance paper, or were a highschool athlete or something..
(example: my cousin didnt get Accepted to UC Berkeley's international relations program. She graduated highschool with a 4.2 and being one of the top 5% of latina students in the country - She got into Dartmouth, Brown, Tufts, NYU, Boston College, Santa Clara, Pepperdine, San Diego, and several other prestigious private schools as well as being given full rides to both big Arizona schools.. shit's madness, and shows you how selective they can be there)
 
ya, shits gnarly. I go to well known private school here in LA and this year's seniors were having a lot of trouble getting into California schools. People getting near perfect scores were getting turned down by UCLA and USC but getting accepted into Harvard, Yale, Brown and a lot of those big schools on the East Coast. There was also someone last year who got accepted into Yale (I think, maybe Princeton) but was declined from UCSB.
 
Oh and as for good schools, I don't know North California at all but here in Socal the best schools would be in LA, like USC or UCLA. They are probably both about an hour or so away from Mt. High. I've gone from Thousand Oaks (Far West of LA before Ventura and Santa Barbara) and it took an hour and a half so I assume USC would be like one hour. Plus you got Baldy, which is a tiny bit closer but takes about the same time, and Bear mountain which is further, I have never been though. Mt. High is great for one day trips. And of course you have Mammoth about 5 hours away, I just went up this previous weekend and saw UCLA ski team and they looked like they were all having a great time. Most of the girls were taking bikini runs through the park. And the day prior was bluebird powder, one of my best days of the season. Faceshots all day in the sun. Mammoth is great, that is all I have to say. Never been to a Tahoe ski resort but definitely plan on going to one soon.
 
top 5 nicest areas in the country. plus it contains some of the most powerful people in the world.

but its easier to get into the UC's if you are out of state because you bring in more money. still hard though
 
So I've looked at UNR a bit and it seems like a pretty legit school. But what's Reno like? Is UNR right in the city like downtown? I may actually be moving to Truckee because my buddy's family lives there so that would give me a better feel of the area overall. So I would just finish Senior year there and then go to UNR assuming everything works out.
 
UNR is very close to downtown, just north of I-80. A lot of people in this regional forum went to or are currently attending UNR, including myself. I like Reno, it's not a big city, but there are still plenty of things to do. Great access to outdoor activities. Hop on 80, and you're at the north shore resorts in 30 - 45 mins.
 
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