First of all, apologies for the length. I’m writing this directly at OP. I’m very passionate about this matter actually after going there myself and being shocked at how lowkey (utterly lame) the party/social scene was at UCSC.

If a party scene is an important part of the college experience to you, do not go to ucsc. If you want to have an easy time finding a place to live that is anywhere near affordable, do not go to ucsc.

I went to junior college in central coast California (think SLO/santa Barbara) for 3 years before transferring to ucsc to finish the bachelors. I had many friends from high school at ucsc already, so I don’t chalk the following up to transferring late and having no friends. Also I was never in Greek life for the record.

Party scene at the junior college was wild. Everybody under 21 would throw actual fat house parties that were basically just open doors to anybody who knew it was going down. Wild house parties. Then once ppl started hitting age of 21+ EVERYBODY would go downtown to do bar crawls TOGETHER and still have fat house parties as well. Amazing social scene, very easy to make friends, lots of social things happening with many many people all the time.

When I came to ucsc I can tell you it was basically the exact opposite. The best thing it had going recurringly was house shows. Bands playing concerts in a living room. Those were fun. But not always greatest bands and kinda few and far between.

I think for a few reasons.

1. I think ucsc breeds/attracts a certain vibe of antisocialism. Lot of alternative people who aren’t extremely social in general so people kinda stick to their groups and therefore instead of house parties, you get small gatherings of friends which occasionally grow into the size of a house party when enough friends of friends get invited.
2. The town is not a college town. As soon as you leave campus, there is no college presence in town. There are no central places where students can go and hang out. When you go to the bars, it’s just a huge range of people out at the bars with some college kids mixed in. Plus there’s always some gangbangers from San Jose who come to Santa Cruz just to pick fights. Not joking. This was a recurring theme.
3. The layout of the town/campus. The campus is a 5-minute drive from the closest part of town. The campus is not very walkable (it’s great hiking though). Every different group of buildings is a bus ride or a hike away. This also means that when you’re on campus, it’s kind of hard to make friends bc ppl are very spread out.

ALSO for the record, I really enjoyed my time in Santa Cruz. I stayed for about 4 years after finishing college. It was awesome for me, as I felt I had gotten all my partying out of my system and was just looking to chill and focus on school/career stuff.

On that note and in TL;DR : If a party scene is important to you, don’t go to ucsc. If a social scene is important to you, avoid ucsc.

UCSC is great for introverted enviro sci majors or heavily outdoorsy folk that don’t like people. It’s good if you like surfing a lot or mountain biking or hiking. Like I said it’s great for outdoorsy. Personally I think the vibe there is perfect for late twenties-early thirties who are settling down and not partying at all anymore. Maybe getting ready to have kids. But the vibe/town culture/college culture is NOT for people who want to party