Crown College, UCSC

This entire campus is incredible, and I was so upset to leave when the time came. The woods are the best part about it with awesome trails to meander through and hills to rest on. The whole location makes me really appreciate nature and its wonderful things.

Maybe it’s just me but I LOVE Crown! Yeah, we should probably get more remodels for a lot of our buildings, but on the bright side we’re one of the oldest colleges here at UCSC – we have HISTORY. I’d like to address a lot of the issues that came up:
«Crown is anti social and full of geeks/​nerds/​gamers»
Ok, I’ll admit it, we probably do have a lot of gamers here… but we’re NOT the only «gamer» college. There’s multiple «houses» within Crown, some houses are «gamer» houses, and others aren’t at all. It just depends where you end up, if you don’t like gaming you won’t suddenly become a gamer once you come to Crown. Also, why is being a «geek» or «nerd» a bad thing? I think of it as a compliment, we take our studies seriously and who is normal these days anyways?
«Hills, hills, hills»
Freshman 15? How about NEGATIVE freshman 15. Yes, a lot of people actually lose weight after coming to UCSC due to how much you end up walking, and thanks to the hill leading up to Crown our legs gets toned along with our tummies. After about a week, you honestly don’t mind the hill that much anymore – unless you’re just extra tired a certain day, but there are less steep ways to get up to Crown.
«Food»
Our DH is probably one of the best ones on campus. Our salad bar, fruit bar, and sandwich bar is one of the best because of how many options we have. Even though our DH closes on the weekend we have Banana Joe’s and Taco’s Moreno’s that are walkable distance from almost anywhere at Crown/​Merrill.

First of all, in terms of the oh so important dorm experience, let me tell you that college is what you make of it. For those complaining about the quality of the people who live at Crown College, I hope someday you’re going to look back on your opinion and feel embarrassed and ashamed that you weren’t a little more open minded and less judgmental about people who you can only barely get to know in a year. People who are only barely developing into their full potential as awesome people to know. I think it’s important to be polite towards those you meet and keep your acquaintanceship friendly because you never know who will be the next Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, or Barack Obama. Don’t you think you could learn a lot from someone like that? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some of those folks in your social network? Keep all of this in mind, especially if you’re worrying about finding a job in the years after you graduate.
If you don’t feel like you really click with the people in your dorm or at your college, why aren’t you capable of meeting friends from other colleges in class, at clubs, or around campus? Why, then, can’t you walki or take the bus to their colleges? It’s not like when you were in high school you only associated with kids who lived on your block, right? If you don’t enjoy living on campus, be proactive about finding off campus accommodations after freshman year.
More important that your dorm experience is your ability to graduate. This is where Crown students can thank their lucky stars. The Crown College administrative office is wonderful! I left UCSC during my second year and re-​entered a few years ago after extended time off. Navigating graduation requirements can be very complicated, especially for a re-​entry student. I ran into a lot of snags with transferring in transcripts, figuring out if I had to meet new requirements implemented since I’d left, applying for petitions to extend my financial aid, etc. The former administrative assistant, Andrew, and the current one, Matt, rank in the top 10 most helpful people I’ve encountered at UCSC out of the dozens of staff members from whom I’ve had to solicit help. Matt will do whatever he can to assist you and if it’s something he doesn’t know about, he’ll get back to you quickly with an answer from someone. Former Academic Advisor Jeanne Johnson, Academic Preceptor Maria Acosta-​Smith, and Provost Joel Ferguson have all personally been of great help to me throughout my years at UCSC. I am very glad I picked Crown for my UCSC experience.

Crown is great! I’m a social guy, but I’m also a nerd you could say so I was a little hesitant when applying to Crown but I did so anyway. I’m really glad I did and I love it here. The people are nice, smart and funny and partying does happen here if you’re into that, but it usually won’t inhibit your ability to succeed academically. The dorms are pretty nice too, all things considered, not beautiful like 8 or ⁹⁄₁₀ or something, but they are decent for sure. Also the trees are really nice here. Not quite an ocean view like cowell but it will do for sure.
If you have questions about what college is right for you then talk to a current student or advisor and see what they think. Feel free to email me too if you like, jrowley at
I won’t be too biased, I promise.

All the complaints about Crown College are kind of ridiculous. A college dorm is not meant to be a palace, and in California we have these little things called hills.
Crown College is a nice place to live, and because of its position on top of the hill, it is much quieter and more peaceful than the rest of the school. The dorms are a little funky, but so are a lot of other places on campus, because the school was not built yesterday! If you put in a problem report to the fix-​it team, it will get completely fixed within 12 – 24 hours, just like the rest of campus.
It attracts intelligent people mostly because of it’s emphasis on being the «Sciences» college, but many of the people who live there, including myself, are not affiliated with the science majors at all. Many of the people here are more private and reserved, and we like it that way. A lot of the people here are more interested in their education than getting drunk every night, and that makes this place is a haven for us.
However, if you want to get high every night and fail all your classes, try a different college.

Nerd alert !!! This college was so wack man, the only thing good about this place of residence was the dinning hall area its probably in the top 2 as far as best dhs to hit up on campus.
Talk about a pain in the ass just to walk up to crown. Shit ! Crown has probably the two steepest hills leading up to it on campus.
Its one of the oldest colleges on campus and the dorms and apartments are all run down, with nerdy pokemon drawings on the walls in the stairways.
It is a good place to live if your a computer or science major tho, because every other person there is majoring in one of em. But if you hope to get a lot of hot ass in college do not come here, try college 8,9, or 10

The hill of Crown College is very similar to the slope on a graph of exponential or cubic growth of how much I hate it.

crown college is a social deadzone. unless you love dungeons & dragons, cosplay, and world of warcraft tournaments, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM CROWN COLLEGE.
my whole apartment got evicted for partying and drug use, but it’s okay because ANY place off campus will be better and cheaper than the janky ass crown apartments.
and if you’re a girl, TRUST ME, you don’t want to shower in the disgusting co-​ed showers in the dorms. crown college is like the land of animé creepers and peeping toms. pick stevenson… so you can live and shower with all the cute boys who live there :)

The Crown College mission statement is a joke. I tolerated this college for the 2 school years I’ve lived there and minded my own business until shit went down towards the end of the year. Thinking that I can lean on my college for support, I was completely betrayed and treated unfairly. This college is run by children with one hell of an administration. For a college that prides itself on honesty, community, individual freedom, they sure have a way to silence opinions based on facts and proof. Either that, or they probably have never (or rarely dealt with) dealt with intelligent 27-​year old undergrads that if they (the crown admin) took the time to swallow their pride, would put them in their place.
Here’s a lesson that I learned the hard, hard way:
Never agree to live with your «friend» who happens to be your R.A.

the dorm experience was so horrible that i had to move off campus asap after my first year
lets see, maxwell = upper quad
the bathroom flooded, and lets just say there were … surprises floating about. the RA threatened to closed down our bathroom, but thank god someone from the 1^st floor cleaned it up. THANK YOU!
from the third floor, i was getting wonderful watering gifts from the good o’ bong. twice, and i basically got the guy upstairs kicked out of the dorms. THANK GOD, it was a pain cleaning it up!
the rooms were tiny, barely any room for two people to live, especially one who had too much stuff (me).
the dining hall sucks, it was only good because of late night but that definitely encouraged the freshmen 15. banana joes was much better.
the library had no book, its just a study area. there is a computer lab for CS majors. i hated cardiac hill, and when it was a rainy day, you would almost slip on the ground … so many have.
your better chances are at c9/​10 … they have brand new BIG rooms … very nice, and no crazy ass hill. not to mention their dining hall is awesome.