Thinking about going to college? There are tons of colleges to go to in California but sometimes, it can be hard to choose. It would be wise to go to a school that has great education and has great opportunities that can help you in life. Maybe a college that is in the Top 5 Greatest Colleges in California, schools that are great overall for most majors, including sports.           

Online research from the following websites (College Consensus.com, US News Time Higher Education.com, University Magazine.ca, and Colleges simply.com) have five colleges that constantly come up: Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, University of Southern California (USC), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Cal Poly Pomona.

Coming in first place is Stanford University, the school of computer science, biology, and engineering. There are other majors available but those are the top three that most people study there. Leland Stanford Junior University is a private research university founded in 1891 by railroad tycoon and former senator Leland Stanford and his wife Jane. The university sits at the heart of Silicon Valley and its graduates have founded some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Snapchat, PayPal and Yahoo. The founders of Google also met while studying there. Stanford University has some national awards but the main one that pops up is the CASE award. Med.stadford.edu states that, “CASE honored the institution with a grand gold-level Circle of Excellence award in the category for multi day, in-person special events for the COVID-19 remembrance project, “Apart-Together.” Fun fact, the program that got the awards was by the Medicine and the Muse program, the medical school’s home for arts and humanities

In second place is the California Institute of Technology. The California Institute of Technology or Caltech is one of the world’s leading science and engineering higher education institutions. Since the early 1900s, Caltech continues to be a leading school of science. The alumni and faculty include 72 Nobel Laureates and six recipients of the Turing Award for computer science. The university also operates the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the research and development center for the space agency, which builds and operates robotic spacecraft. Fun fact, IvyClimbing.com states that there’s an annual Pumpkin Drop that takes place at midnight on Halloween where students drop pumpkins frozen in liquid nitrogen from the top of Millikan Library to see if they’ll give off a brief glow as they hit the ground and shatter.

Rolling into third place is the University of Southern California. The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1880 and is one of the oldest private universities in California. Out of all the majors they have available at USC, the two most popular majors they have there are public health and finance and financial management services. Usnews.com states that USC’s top majors are public health with 8% and finance and financial management services with 6%. Fun fact, USC is also the only university to have an alumni ominated for an Oscar every year since the Academy Awards’ inception in 1929.

Next up in fourth place is UCLA. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) offers opportunities for inquiry, discovery, and education and yet is a close community that provides a sense of belonging. The campus is home to world-renowned faculty who teach in 230 undergraduate and graduate majors, with more than two dozen academic programmes ranked among the top 20 in their disciplines. Undergraduate research projects are available as early as freshman year and more than half of UCLA students graduate with research experience in the humanities, social sciences, or STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines. Fun fact, UCLA’s total enrollment is approximately 44,371 students.

And lastly, Cal Poly Pomona. Pomona College is an arts college located in Claremont, California. It has roots dating back to 1887 and it is the founding member of the Claremont Colleges. Students that attend Pomona can take up to 50 percent of classes at the other four undergraduate colleges within the Claremont group. As such, students have access to 2,200 courses each year. Pomona offers more than 200 student organizations, which include: The Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company, Outdoors Club, Pomona College Orchestra, Glee Club, Women’s Union, Office of Black Student Affairs, and Beginning Rock Climbing. There is also a secret club called “Mulfi” that has left cryptic notes with social commentary around campus since the 1940s. Fun fact, Cal Poly Pomona is among the best public universities in the West and is nationally ranked for helping students achieve economic success.

Personally, all five of these colleges sound amazing to me and it would be an honor to go to them. But just because they are the best doesn’t mean you have to go to them. If you prefer to go to another college like CBU or UCR or even out of the state, then go right ahead. College is about finding out what you want to do in life and figuring yourself out, so go to any college you like. A great college or a normal college, any is fine.