[quote=scaredyclassic]The competition is brutal. My kid was wait listed at Irvine with a 97th percentile sat and over a,4.0 GPA.[/quote]I’m so sorry, scaredy. I drove past the entrance to that campus (just north of the beautiful Newport coast) on Sunday and it is beautiful and classy. I spoke at length to a young man who was a junior there (software engineering) while we were walking our dogs in one of the local dog parks in town. He and his girlfriend (who was with him and the dog) had already purchased a condo in Costa Mesa and were saving up for a house. He said he already had an internship lined up and planned to graduate on time one year from now and stay in the local area for work (now a virtual megalopolis and far from the sleepy rolling sprinklers I remember). They seemed really upbeat and happy that he got in when he did and they are able to start their life out ahead of the game and that his GF was making great $$ working FT locally.
Unlike past decades, there are tons of good jobs in that area now and I think the toll roads built in the past ~15 years connecting it with the OC/LA “mainland” had a lot to do with major companies deciding to set up shop there.
