This is great advice actually - while not exactly true (there are cloudy days for sure!) anywhere significantly south of Vancouver has much better weather (further from all the mountains). South Surrey, Tsawwassen, White Rock, all great places. And, all near a border crossing, and thus cheap gas, dairy and other groceries. Point Roberts, while quite pretty, has less shopping than the other border towns though.

To any of the USA poker refugees that are still here, and not in Vegas, this weather is more like normal. We usually have pretty decent May-June with at least 10 to 15 nice days. By the time late June or early July rolls around, more often than not it is sunny and beautiful. The weather doesn't begin to suck again until mid October.

Touch wood....

crime capital of canada? lol where do you get this from...pretty tame here....no legal live poker however

http://www.ctvvancouverisland.ca/201...us-in-country/

So much fail here.

First of all, I wouldn't call it a "party school". It's probably average party-wise.

Victoria's downtown is great for a smallish city, especially during the school year (Sept - Apr). Highest number of restaurants per capita in North America (or something like that), very walkable, very decent bus system, esp for those living at or near UVic. Great nightlife for a city this size. From the sounds of your post, you stuck to the dorms - if so, this is your loss.

As for kids "not smart enough" to go to UBC - that is total BS. Believe it or not, Victoria is a decent sized city, and a lot of the kids here don't want to leave the island to go to school. I am one of these. I graduated top of my class in high school (number one out of 300+), and I could have gone anywhere in Canada (or the US for that matter). I went to UVic. And I loved it. UVic also has a top 3 law school in Canada, a very good business program, and the best astronomy program in the country.

I don't even know where to begin wrt calling Victoria the crime capital. I have never witnessed a crime, I do not know anyone who has witnessed a crime, and I don't know anyone who has ever been a victim of a crime (robbery, assault etc). Anecdotal yes, but no one ever feels unsafe in this city. One of the reasons for the ranking is that Victoria proper is actually quite small and is where all the undesirables congregate. Still it is incredibly safe. Saanich is at the bottom of the same crime ranking, and guess where UVic is - the border of safe Saanich, and the safest place on Earth - Oak Bay!

Victoria is an incredible city. It's like Vancouver, without most of the dirtiness, crime, overpopulation, disgusting residential architecture, infill housing, ghettos, gang violence and unconscionable rioting.

read link above about crime. Party school in terms of what other schools surround it. If you honestly could of gone to any school in Canada or USA and chose UVic you're either lying or brain dead. Lots of natives on island too whic I try to avoid..

Here's another FYI. Rain totals for Vancouver, Delta (Tsawwassen) and Victoria:

Vancouver: 1588 mm
Tsawwassen: 1008 mm
Victoria: 607 mm

Another reason Victoria is the best city in Canada.

I read the link - it treats Victoria and Saanich separately, which is unfair to the region. Saanich has almost twice the pop of Victoria.

Like the link said, Victoria's jump in the rankings was due to a string of commercial robberies by the same guy in one time frame.

"Lots of natives on the island" - that's all you need to know about what your opinion is worth. First of all, natives make up less than 4% of Victoria (and way less than that in greater Victoria). Second, I'm pretty sure Tsawassen has way more than that anyway!

And no I'm not lying nor braindead. UVic's a great school. I'm proud to have a degree from there. And I got to save money by staying at home, I graduated debt-free, and I've gotten to live in a great city. Eight years later, I wouldn't change a thing.

Yeah but we isolate them to a reserve they know their place

Most of my friends who avg 70% in high school taking arts and just party everyday sums up my opinion on UVic I don't care what anyone else thinks just saying what I know.

If you want to party a bit UVic is the place to be. Wouldn't wanna live there.

An 86% average was required to get in when I applied. But that was nine years ago.

It was an awesome day today, went for a run by First Beach and into Stanley Park - seemed like half the City left work early to be outside, take in the sun and hang out in the comfortable weather.

Then hopped on a plane to Vegas where it was still 100 degrees at 9 pm

thread's gettin' serious... ya'll assimilating nicely eh? i'm jealous as ****

to be fair, I have also been told that UVic is a party school. I've never been there, but that was its rep when I was looking at Universities ~7 years ago.

As for the "not smart enough for UBC" bit... all I know is the people in my grad class who went to UBC were on average much smarter (obv using the high school grading definition of smartness for the purposes of this discussion) than those who went to UVic...

so I find the stereotypes previously mentioned (but denied by the Victoria resident obv) to be consistent with my past experience as a Grade 12 student looking into postsecondary education

and yeah the weather's ****ing awesome right now

Thx for all this insight. I've still heard almost nothing negative about Victoria. Is it that insane that I would live in dorms for the first term? (single room and international dorm fwiw) I'm 21 (3rd year) and obv don't know anyone from the area, so I figured I bite the bullet for 4 months, get situated, and hopefully find some ppl to rent off campus with for term 2. Are dorms that wild?