Money magazine rates UCI the top campus for beach lovers

Surf’s up, UCI! Money magazine on Tuesday ranked the campus No. 1 in the nation for beach lovers. Paired with high-profile faculty and stellar students, the proximity and diversity of Orange County beaches helped bring it home. There’s surfing in Huntington Beach and serenity at Corona del Mar State Beach; there’s the pier scene in Newport Beach and the art scene in Laguna Beach–basically, something for everyone, just like the campus. Editors first narrowed their Best Colleges ranking to schools in states that border either the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico and pulled out those with easy beach access. In other words, no lakefront, riverfront, Northern or rocky coastal universities made the cut. Then they limited the list to five schools per state and only one per city. “Irvine sometimes gets a bad rap for lacking a ‘college town’ feel,” the editors wrote, “but if you’d rather spend your time on the sand than on Main Street, it’s tough to beat.”