UCSB Once more attending the woman to Woman conference…read moreI love this university and the facilities here

Stayed here for 2 nights for orientation in a two-bedroom, 2-bath apartment. Decent location, about…read more1-1/2 miles from the center of campus. A long walk, but quick drive. Nice grounds with two sand volleyball and pool (no jacuzzi). The room was (as advertised) pretty bare. No TV, phone, decorations. There's a kitchen, but no sponge, dish soap, silverware, glasses, dishes, etc. They do provide sheets, thin blanket, pillow and towel; you make your own bed. A student style, higher bed, with drawers below. So, not fancy, but convenient for a quick stay. Bonus: ours had pretty Mountain Views.

Avoid this place -- premium rent, poor living conditions, and unfair management…read more I lived in a so-called premium Apartment E and paid one of the highest rents in the complex, yet the living conditions were terrible. The unit was a heat trap with no fan or proper ventilation, even though other units in the complex do have fans. I often felt suffocated. Management was informed and took no action. The apartment is located near the parking area, and the unit was constantly full of dust no matter how often I cleaned. There was also frequent management and maintenance noise around Apartment E, making the "premium" label misleading. The toilet clogged almost every week, even with very light and normal use. This was a recurring issue that was never properly resolved. Before moving out, I wiped down all furniture surfaces, and the unit was left in good condition. Despite this, I was charged 5.5 hours of "general cleaning" for a studio apartment, which is completely unreasonable. Carpet cleaning was not even counted in that 5.5 hours. I formally requested a pre-move-out inspection, asked to be present, and requested 48-hour notice. None of this was honored. When I went to the office on a weekday before move-out, it was closed without notice, so I was never given a chance to address any concerns in advance. The cleaning was done about 10 days after I moved out, raising concerns that the hours charged reflect dust accumulation over time rather than my move-out condition. When I questioned this, management pushed responsibility onto the cleaning company instead of explaining or correcting the charge. After that, management stopped responding. Even returning the undisputed portion of my security deposit was delayed and required repeated follow-ups. High rent, poor living conditions, constant issues, and unfair deposit practices. Avoid this place and rent elsewhere.

This is the best deal to live nearby the UCSB campus. IV maybe noisy but Felipe, the land manager,…read moremakes an excellent job at keeping Sutdio Plaza the most quite place in Isla Vista. He is kind but firm, and impartial. Also, if anything in the apartment needs fixing, the Studio Plaza team gets it done very fast. I loved living there also because the natural environment around IV is great.

I was a tenant at De la Vina house in 2010 and I'm totally happy with my stay for 10 months…read more Although, I'm not a fan of bunk beds, the house was fine, great, no INCREDIBLE location, with a nice big back yard , BBQ- equipment, pool table and patio furniture. First off, I can't stress enough how awesome it is to have a 10 month lease, rather than 12 month situation, of which 2 months, you never use the house at all (that's $1800 people!). EVERYBODY stays home (or somewhere else over summer) before school starts, at the end of August, and why pay additional rent when you're not there? Or live there over summer, just because you've paid for it, when you'd rather be somewhere else? I didn't mind the summer fee, in return for no rent over Jun/Jul. I lived here as part o a co- ed house, 7 girls to 2 guys. Although the guys tended to be less "clean" than us girls, and we were no sanitary saints, kinda managed to keep the house somewhat acceptable but the weekly housekeeping was a huge relief.. Each week, there would be a huge stack of dishes and trash piled up, just in time for the housekeepers to come in. In all honesty, we all contributed to the stacks, knowing that we'd be "liberated" on Tuesdays.. We never had any complaints from either the housekeepers or from the landlord. This is great, when you're in college, with far more "important" things to think about than housekeeping. I don't think that we could have done this on our own and there would have been an all- out war after the first couple of months. It's just not possible to get 9 people to agree on any acceptable level, unless everybody is 100% tuned in the same way, which I know we were not. So, the house is old, sure, but it was furnished, supplied with all of the stuff you'd need to get through and whatever wasn't there, we asked for and it got delivered, often by the landlord himself. We had a great relationship with the landlord, who would come in and fix stuff when we reported stuff broken or missing, and he would even hold house meetings, when things got too tense in the house. (Some of us had a harder time coping with the roommate situation than others and this caused occasional rifts.) The house meetings helped and we all ended up staying in the house through our lease period and, most of us are friends still today. The house had laundry facilities, highly appreciated by all of us and all of the other stuff, like TV, wi-fi, all the services/utilities paid and done. We had 0 bills to deal with every month. This is a huge plus! The most important aspect, to me, was the LOCATION! De la Vina (and Haley) are both just perfectly positioned for school (5 blks), downtown (2 blks) grocery shopping and everything else. Nobody in our house had a car but we didn't need one! We could walk to everywhere from our house. I think that this is a great set up and, aside from getting your own studio or apartment, which is soooo expensive in SB, you couldn't do better than this for your first year of college. It's all there when you arrive. You don't need to haul sheets and stuff like that, it's already equipped. No kitchen stuff, no bills, no worries. Show up with your suitcase and you're good. To wrap things up, we had all heard of the dreaded move- out day and other kids getting ripped off for their deposits with shitty landlords.. We had created a few dings and tears to the house, which nobody was willing to fess up to, of course.. ;) We all got 100% of our deposits back. All of us! I have to say that I'm stunned at the level of service we received from Dave. I have recommended Active Student Housing, and De la Vina in particular, to tons of my friends, some have actually stayed and agree with me. This is AWESOME housing for SBCC! A+++++

Very frustrated with Yelp as they keep removing my posts! They have removed some others too at the…read moreinsistance of Nancy M and Tracy W, who I don't even know! My daughter was a resident at ASH this last year and had a great experience. College "dorm" life doesn't come without it's challenges but ASH followed through on their lease agreement and their reputation does not deserve to be ruined so viciously. It's sickening that Yelp continues to let these people's posts stay up while they keep removing mine when we were ACTUAL residents! I have offered three times to submit my lease by YELP apparently doesn't care. Nonetheless, the house was not filth or trash or anything of the sort. There were smoke detectors and every time we called Dave with a concern, it was addressed and it was addressed quickly. I live out of state, and never once felt like I couldn't communicate with Dave or Eliza or that my child was in jeopardy. They ALWAYS answered my calls and emails immediately and we were in constant communication. The choices in SB are limited. You can rent from Criag's list or find your own roommates or God forbid send your child to live in Isla Vista, or you can use a service like this one where the girls don't know each other (just like a dorm) but end up becoming sisters. And you're not held to their part of the lease if they don't follow through. Only yourself. There's nothing wrong with this place. It's your job to do your research and make sure your child is ready to be on your own , but the posts here are just lies. Everything on the website was accurate, by the way and we have ZERO issue getting our security deposit back!

Boy did we dodge a bullet when we ended up in Santa Ynez! My kid originally signed up for a "loft"…read moreroom at Campus 880. But they did a bait and switch after we signed the lease and announced that she'd be getting a crappier room at a higher price. At that point I had read enough of the nightmare stories about that management company and it's evil owner that frankly, I was glad to get my kid out of their clutches. That's a whole story and I'll tell it on their yelp review, but suffice to say that the experience made us paranoid about being scammed so it was a real relief when we showed up at Santa Ynez and found a decent apartment project run by decent people. Check in with Santa Ynez was a cinch at the beginning of the year. It sucks that there are FIVE students in 1 apartment but space was already an issue at UCSB and was made much worse by the pandemic. The only hard part is that 3 of her roommates had roomed together in the past and were good friends. They've been very cold and rude to my kid and the 5th girl. As if the apartment is theirs and the other 2 are interlopers,. My kid is now going thru the process of being relocated. She had to prove that she was living in a hostile environment and that wasn't too hard to do. The place wasn't exactly sterile, in fact, it appeared to have not been cleaned or touched at all since the previous group left. The counters were covered in crumbs and other such evidence that the clean up fees are absolute bullshit. The Santa Ynez complex is pretty nice and the apartment is comfortable. And no issues w/ bugs. It's not their fault that the roommates are a-holes.

Nice community to live in! I feel pretty safe when I'm walking alone outside, and there's a bus…read morestop right in front of the apartments. Santa Ynez is located convenient distances away from school, iv, and Albertsons, Costco, etc.... plentiful parking spots, laundry room with lots of laundry machines, 3 community centers with a piano, flat screen TV with cable, couches, vending machines for drinks and snacks (cup noodles too), studying tables, pool tables, and more :) The apartments here aren't that updated, but it's pretty spacious and not shabby at all. Lots of trees and grass where you can play soccer! My only complaint is that there's so many random bugs that fly into the apartment ): Update: my roommate and I leave on the weekends so the apartment is empty for a few days every week. When I come back, I always find multiple spiders invading our kitchen sink and windows it's really creepy. I live in the 200s, bewaaare ); pretty sure they come in from the bushes planted outside the windows and doors. LEAVE ME ALONE )': UPDATE: ITS 5AM AND I FOUND A SPIDER CRAWLING ON MY PILLOW WTF THANK GOODNESS I WAS AWAKE OH MY GOODNESS WHY ME

Santa Rosa Hall is a two story residence hall on campus. It's one of the three "shorties" (along…read morewith Anacapa Hall and Santa Cruz Hall). It's also the one with the worst layout, with long winding hallways and unnecessary turns to get to your destination. The floors are coed, but all the boys live in the same hallways, and the girls live together in adjoining hallways. There's two living learning communities in Santa Rosa: Black Scholars (east wing) and the Wellness Floor (west wing). Dorm rooms are 169 square feet (13 by 13), most of them holding three people. There's bunk beds (XL Twin mattress), one lofted bed, three desks, and an extra clothes drawer for the third person. Closets are decently sized, with two drawers inside. In addition, there's shelf space above the doorway and inside the closets. Dorm service is every two weeks; they vacuum your floor and empty your trash cans. Bathrooms are communal style. Depending on how long your hallway is, you'll be sharing the bathrooms with thirty to sixty people. I never had to wait to use the shower, and it can get relatively empty since most people are out. The bathrooms are clean daily during the weekdays (less during the weekends). Since you're living with others, people do make a mess inside. Santa Rosa is the oldest dorm. The west side of Santa Rosa has major plumbing issues, they had to close the bathrooms for a week to fix them. Like the rest of the dorms, there's study lounges, kitchenettes, laundry rooms, and a recreation room. Sometime unique is that Santa Rosa has its own small gym on the second floor, and a Steinway grand piano in the formal lounge. Outside, there's patio seating and barbeque grills. The sand volleyball and basketball courts are also nearby. What's great about Santa Rosa is its central location compared to the rest of the dorms. You have great access to the other dorms, the dining commons, and the University Center. Across the street is the Psychology building. I have friends who enter the building to get to a dining common to save travel time, and they live in different dorms. It's also relatively quieter compared to the rest. If people want to play ping pong and Anacapa's recreation room is full, they'll come here because chances are it's empty. Depending on the incoming class, that could change any year.

One Mosaic was pretty great for our family. In particular, the walls were surprisingly sound-proof…read morecompared to Santa Inez, where my daughter stayed last year. My kid had a very good experience here and I would definitely recommend it. We did not have any problems and we got the deposit back. So far, so good!

Way overpriced like every single place in Isla Vista, and the country. 5.3k to live in a complex of…read morehundreds? Not to mention the sterile and dull beige interior. Not really sure what to expect when they are selling an essential commodity. Horrible company in a horrible country. GET OUT!

Met a great desk attendant. Jade did a 10/10 job helping me and listening to my woes. Would…read morerecommend, make sure you visit just for Jade.

San Rafael is a residence hall located west of campus. It's home to 600 continuing, transferring,…read moreor international students. The living learning communities here are Second Year Residential Experience (SYRE), Substance-Free, Wellness, Serenity, Multicultural Experience, and Faculty in Residence programming. There is also gender inclusive housing available. There's 1 seven story building and 2 three story buildings. Most of the rooms are doubles, joined together into an apartment-like layout. The suites contain their own bathrooms and living rooms. Like many other residence halls, there are study lounges and kitchenettes in the buildings. The complex is right next to the Loma Pelona Center, De Anza Center, and Carrillo Dining Commons. Carrillo is the best dining hall at school. It's also not far from the beach. San Rafael is also next to Isla Vista.

Santa Cruz Hall is a two story residence hall on campus. The building's layout resembles a swastika…read moreseparated in half. The rooms are along the sides, while the common areas are near the center, making the layout pretty effective. Boys and girls live on alternating wings on each floor.  The living learning communities here are Substance-Free and the First Year Residential Experience. Most rooms are triples. They are similar in overall size to dorms in Anacapa. There's bunk beds (XL Twin mattress), one lofted bed, three desks, and an extra clothes drawer for the third person. In addition, there's shelf space above the doorway and on top of the closets. There's also cleaning services; they vacuum your floor and empty your trash cans every so often. Bathrooms are communal style. You will be sharing it with your hallmates. There should be plenty of sinks, stalls, and showers.   Like the rest of the dorms, there's study lounges, kitchenettes, laundry rooms, and a recreation room. Santa Cruz is close to Anacapa and De La Guerra Dining Commons. It's also across the street from the beach, only a staircase away. There isn't much to say about Santa Cruz other than it's a quieter twin of Anacapa. Of course, that could change, since it depends on the incoming freshmen class. To me personally, it's more farther towards the ocean, and not as close to classrooms as the rest of the dorms.