Everything on the three schools that made the cut: what they actually cost at your numbers, where you can play tennis and ultimate, whether you can eat the way you eat, and how long each one makes you live on campus.
Applications open now, the first deadline is November 15, and this blocks Biola outright. Holly has to enter junior-year letter grades and sign the transcript. There is an email typo to fix in the same pass.
Owner: HollyThe rankings come out almost exactly inverted. Cal Baptist is the cheapest, has the best dorms, and is the best fit for how you eat. It also does not have a tennis program at all.
Since ultimate is a for-fun thing and all three cover that fine, tennis is the entire athletic question. That sharpens the comparison rather than muddying it.
One row per thing that actually differs between them. Green wins the row, red is a disqualifier.
| Biola | Point Loma | Cal Baptist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net cost / yr | ~$40,800 | ~$42,000 | ~$37,800 |
| Four years | ~$163k | ~$168k | ~$151k |
| Tennis | 8 courts on campus, free | 6 courts, plus Barnes nearby | No program, no courts |
| Ultimate low weight | Intramural pickup only | Travel team, more than you need | Open club, best matched |
| Whole foods | Worst fit | Good sourcing, weak reviews | Best fit |
| Dorms | Most basic | Ocean views | #13 nationally |
| Live-on rule | Until age 21 | Three years | Standard |
| Location | La Mirada | San Diego, on the ocean | Riverside |
| Division | D2 PacWest | D2 PacWest | D1 Big West |
The tennis school. Eight free lighted courts on campus and a coach who just won PacWest Coach of the Year. Also holds the single biggest money lever on the list.
The strongest tennis fallback. Six ocean-side courts plus the 23-court Barnes center two miles away. Costs the most, feeds you the worst, and locks you on campus three years.
Wins everything except tennis. Cheapest, best dorms, best fit for how you eat, and the only warm admissions contact you have. No tennis at all.
Short answer to "does that include everything": food and housing yes, books and travel and spending money no.
| Included | Tuition, mandatory fees, housing, and the meal plan |
|---|---|
| Not included | Books and supplies, transportation, personal spending |
| Size of the gap | About $8,300 a year at Biola, the only one of the three publishing both figures ($65,314 direct against $73,628 full cost of attendance) |
| Realistic all-in | ~$43k to $50k / yr |
| All-in over four years | ~$175k to $200k |
Read the bigger number as better information, not as the comparison being wrong. Indirect costs are near identical across three schools in the same state, so Cal Baptist stays cheapest, Biola second, Point Loma third, at the same margins.
The net figures elsewhere on this site are kept as the headline because they are the right basis for comparing schools against each other. This section is the right basis for budgeting. Books and supplies run roughly $950 to $1,100 a year at all three, and the rest is travel and personal spending.
Neither shows up usefully in any school's published cost of attendance.
You are a Washington student applying to Southern California. Three or four round trips a year at roughly $200 to $400 each, and no school's room and board covers any of it.
Applies equally to all three, so it does not move the ranking. It is just easy to forget entirely.
Biola gives you eight courts on campus free with a student ID. Cal Baptist tennis means a 15 minute drive to a paid club.
If you would keep a car anyway, this is a non-issue. If the car exists only because Cal Baptist has no courts, then insurance, gas and a parking permit narrow its $3,000 to $4,000 advantage.
If you read nothing else on this site.
You said ultimate is a for-fun club thing, and all three cover casual ultimate perfectly well. So ultimate does not separate these schools and should not carry weight in the decision.
What is left is tennis, where the gap is enormous: eight free courts on campus at Biola, six plus the 23-court Barnes center at Point Loma, and nothing at all at Cal Baptist.
Cheapest by $3,000 to $4,000 a year, best dorms, most forgiving scholarship renewal, and genuinely the best fit for how you eat.
If tennis is recreational rather than competitive for you, Cal Baptist is arguably the strongest overall choice on this list.
It wins tennis decisively and loses on food and dorms. Its missing ultimate club barely matters now that casual play is the bar, since intramural pickup covers that fine.
Its one wildcard is the Trustee Scholarship: full tuition, separate application, mid-January deadline. Winning it would make Biola by far the cheapest option on the list.
The two schools with the longest forced meal-plan exposure (Biola until age 21, Point Loma for three years) are the same two that rate worst for how you eat. Meanwhile the cheapest school is the one that would let you drop to a 35-swipe plan and cook in your own dorm kitchen.
That stacking is the real food story, not any single dining hall.
Cal Baptist's good ultimate club does not offset its missing tennis. Different sports, different needs: you are a rated tennis player, and ultimate is something you play for fun. It softens the blow, it does not remove it.
If anything this got sharper once ultimate stopped counting. Cal Baptist's club is the best matched of the three to how you actually want to play ultimate, and it still does not buy back a tennis program.
Everything above resolves once this is answered, and it is the one thing nobody else can answer for you.
Is tennis a sport you compete in, or something you play a few times a week?
Cal Baptist is effectively disqualified. No amount of winning on cost, food and dorms makes up for a school that does not offer your sport.
It takes cost, food and housing, and you play at a club ten minutes down the road. The missing program becomes an annoyance rather than a dealbreaker.
What is not settled, and who has to settle it.
San Diego, La Mirada and Riverside sit within about 90 minutes of each other. One weekend covers the entire target list, and there have been zero campus visits so far. That is the visit plan.
Biola's exact merit tier (they do not publish cutoffs), roster UTR levels at either D2 program, Biola dorm air conditioning, and Cal Baptist's 2026-27 costs. Cal Baptist's figures are 2025-26 while the other two are 2026-27, and all three need roughly 3 to 5 percent a year added to reach fall 2027. Niche rankings are student-opinion aggregates, not audits.
On ultimate: USA Ultimate registration, college series division and conference placement could not be verified for any of the three teams. All competitiveness language on this site is descriptive, taken from school and club sources, not verified USAU standing.