Located in Southern California, approx. 50 miles directly east of Los Angeles. Opened on an old research laboratory on acres of (diminishing) orange groves on the foothills of Canyon Crest and Sycamore Canyon. Famous as a "second choice school," still has excellent facilities and faculty. World-famous for its citrus research (including developing disease-resistant strains and new types of citrus fruit), general botany) and entomology programs, still a world-class institution for all. Relatively new engineering and computer science schools, a popular funnel for new admits that don't want to come to the school for what it's good at (namely bugs and trees) and feel they are "too good" for a degree in the humanities.
On the subject of its second-choiceness, an old
California universities joke:
"
The kids at Berkeley are mad they didn't get that free ride to Stanford, the kids at UCLA are mad they didn't get into Berkeley, the kids at Irvine are mad they didn't get into LA, the kids in UCR are mad they didn't get into Irvine, and the kids in high school think they're going to get a free ride to Stanford."
Demographics (Fall 2001, from http://www.careers.ucr.edu/Employers/demo.html):
05.0% African American
21.7% Hispanic
00.5% Native American
37.0% Asian
26.2% Anglo
02.1% Other
07.5% Unidentified
12,714 Undergraduate Students
87 majors
47 minors
1,662 Graduate Students
37 PhD programs, 45 Master's programs
7 California teaching credential programs
14,376 Students Total
A big point of pride for the campus is that "UC Riverside graduates the highest percentage of underrepresented students of all of the nine UC campuses."