Pacifica Stories

Throughout the school year, Pacifica sophomores and juniors have several opportunities to register for our college trips to check out select California schools and begin their college search. These trips are chaperoned by our College Counselor, Dane Fragger; one of our Academic Counselors, Kelly Kurtenbach; and our Advancement Associate, Megan Rose. In order to provide students exposure to a variety of college environments, we typically tour one larger, public university, as well as one smaller, private college. This gets students thinking about what feels best for them, what they might want to prioritize in their college search, and what types of learning and social structures will guide their decision.

Orange County
On February 1, we took our first college trip of 2023 to tour two schools in Orange County, CA. We first visited Chapman University, a private school with an undergraduate population of just under 8,000 students. This gave our Pacifica students a good look at the dynamic of a smaller institution that is also ranked highly in sports and academics. 

Next, we traveled to UC Irvine. This was a vastly different tour, since this campus holds nearly 30,000 undergraduate students. While some Pacifica students will seek out the personal and intimate community found among peers and faculty at a smaller university, others will want a change of pace from this environment.

San Diego
Our next trip of the semester was on February 13, to San Diego! The first visit of this trip was to Point Loma Nazarene University, a private school that sits on the San Diego coast. This university has an undergraduate population of just over 3,000 students, creating a tight-knit community of Sea Lions. The amazing beach views and faith-based culture of PLNU appealed to some Pacificans, while others looked ahead to our next stop: UC San Diego.

UC San Diego has around 33,000 undergraduate students, with a campus equivalent to the square footage of seven Disneylands. This larger university provides a wider variety of available majors, as well as more options for food, housing, and extracurricular activities.

While Pacifica students may not end up applying to the schools we tour together, it’s an exciting opportunity to begin the thought process related to life post-high school. We want to encourage students to begin dreaming about college early on, along with all of the decisions that come with it. We’re looking forward to our next local college trip to USC!