csu chico campus tour

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Find us on campus Student Services Center, Room 130

Contact Admissions 1-800-542-4426 530-898-6322 [email protected]

Mailing Address Chico State Office of Admissions 400 W. First Street Chico, CA 95929-0722

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Experience life as a Wildcat! Our open house events are a great opportunity to experience friendly people, amazing weather, and see campus from every angle.

Future events

Register for our in-person and virtual events, held yearly in fall and spring. We host events in English and Spanish. Organizamos eventos en inglés y español.

Choose Chico (Spring)

This is your chance to declare yourself a Wildcat and let us help you start your journey right! Admitted students are invited to join us on April 6, 2024. Check your Wildcat email for your invitation! 

Summer Orientation

An activity all incoming students are expected to attend, don’t forget to register and plan to attend for early access to academic advising and course registration.  

Take me to orientation

Take the Next Steps

• How to Apply
• Take a tour
• Request Information

Contact Undergraduate Admissions: Call us Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., to talk directly to an admissions expert. Or use live chat during our open hours. No automated voice messages—we promise!

530-898-6322 , [email protected] .

Graduate Studies   |  International Students

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Find us on campus Student Services Center, Room 130

Contact Admissions 1-800-542-4426 530-898-6322 [email protected]

Mailing Address Chico State Office of Admissions 400 W. First Street Chico, CA 95929-0722

View on Map

Choose Chico

Saturday, april 6, 2024.

If you're admitted, you're invited! Join us for Choose Chico, our special campus event for admitted students and their families and friends. Invitations to register will be sent to your Chico State email address. 

Event Details

Check in begins at 8:30 a.m., and the event will be held 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. The day will include opportunities to connect with faculty from your major, connect with other incoming Wildcats, and discover the services and support offered at Chico State. You won't want to miss it! Check out our event program (PDF) for more details. 

There are a number of places to stay in Chico and Butte County that are convenient to campus. The Explore Butte County lodgings site is a great place to start looking. 

What to Expect

Kick-off the day with a welcome to campus and learn more about our student-centered community.

Learn more about our academic programs and meet with faculty from your major! Locations for each showcase can be found inside your event program.

Explore campus, the W ildcat Recreation Center , the Meriam Library, University Housing, and more!  

Explore student organizations and support services for Wildcats.  

Establish your community at Chico State and connect with other students who have decided to Choose Chico!  

Review the event program for the activities called Sesión en Español (Session for Spanish Speakers)  and Ayuda Financiera y Becas. Bilingual staff are available to answer your questions!

First Peoples Cultural Tour of Chico State

Honor and learn more about the First Peoples of the land that Chico State resides on with a cultural tour of the CSU Chico campus. The tour covers historical events, contemporary issues, and the building of the relationship between the Mechoopda Indian Tribe, the city of Chico, and Chico State. The tour has four major stopping points, which include:

• The Office of Tribal Relations : Working to connect the Chico State campus with Native American students to provide access, social, emotional, and academic support.
• The Tree of Peace : A redwood planted in front of Trinity Hall in 1988 in response to several racially motivated incidents on campus
• The Three Sisters : Crafted by Deborah Masters, the statue is based on Antoine Chekov’s play,  The Three Sisters , and comprises three women standing nine and a half feet tall cast in concrete
• Bidwell Mansion : Just a few blocks from Chico State’s main campus, the Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park stands as a memorial to John and Annie Bidwell, who had a complicated relationship with the Mechoopda people that had been living in what is now Chico for thousands of years

Art & Culture Walks

Downtown chico public art tours, downtown art benches walking tour, popular things to do in chico, bird in hand, equilateral coffee, naked lounge, ag goes urban: explore chico’s rich farm-to-fork scene, don’t miss the fun in chico. sign up today for the latest updates and events..

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Virtual Tour

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California State University - Chico Virtual Tour

Are you applying to chico state explore the campus using the virtual tour below..

Virtual tours are a great way to refresh your memory or to preview an on-site tour of California State University - Chico.

Why a Virtual Tour?

At the beginning of your college search, a virtual tour can be a beneficial tool to explore the campus before your visit. When you do visit the campus, be sure to talk to current students about their experiences. A student perspective is a helpful way to gauge your future experience when attending Chico State. Already took an on-campus tour? It's inevitable. All of your college tours will blend, and you might forget the appearance of California State University - Chico's library, dorms, or cafeteria. Use the virtual tour to jog your memory! With the interactive mapping tool below you can even explore the area surrounding the campus.

Use the resources below to start your virtual tour.

Using the Map

Click and drag the little orange person to a location on the map. Locations with panoramas appear as blue lines or blue dots when moving the orange person. The blue dots are panoramic views that you may swivel. The blue lines are paths that you can navigate along.

Panoramic View

You can "pan" or "swivel" the camera around by clicking on the image and dragging your mouse or finger. If you see a white arrow on the picture, you can click or tap on it to move in the direction of the arrow. This will also update the location of the little orange person on the map so you can get a better sense of where you are and what direction you are facing.

Continue Your Research on Chico State

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Admissions Innovates to Recruit Wildcats in the Virtual World

Admissions campus ambassador Diana Castellanos gives a virtual tour of campus as the community adjust to suspension of in-person instruction due to impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 in Chico, Calif. (Jason Halley/University Photographer/CSU, Chico)

By Jeff Logsdon

Everyone on campus knows why Chico State is an amazing place to go to school. When prospective students visit, they love the trees, Big Chico Creek, and the architecture. They frequently comment on how nice it is when friendly strangers say “Hi” to them. Whether talking with faculty, staff, or students, they pick up on the unique sense of community we build here.

We call it the Chico Experience, and it practically sells itself—if people can visit to experience it.

In a typical year, Office of Admissions staff welcome approximately 20,000 visitors to campus and meet an additional 28,000 contacts through recruitment travel across several states—supporting an influx of 35,000 or so applications from potential Wildcats.

2020 is clearly not a typical year.

We were entering our busiest period for campus visits when California adopted its stay-at-home order in March, just as most schools go on spring break and students and their families embark on college visits. Between mid-March and mid-April, Admissions usually receives about one quarter of our tour visitors and we host Choose Chico, our spring event that brought over 4,000 guests to campus in 2019.

The application and recruitment cycles never stop overlapping in the Admissions world, not even during a global pandemic. My fellow staff members are committed to keeping Chico State top of mind and a desired destination for high school and transfer students. 

We know spending time on campus with students and their families is our most effective recruiting tool in helping them make the big college choice. So how do we share this beloved place in the virtual world?

We had to act quickly and get creative, but true to our Wildcat spirit, we were up for the challenge.

Ten staff members are continuing the work they’ve been doing since last fall to yield the incoming class for this August. Another seven staff are focused on recruitment for the 2021 application periods now upon us.

Since March, we’ve been managing an array of Zoom calendars with 15–20 interactive, live, virtual activities every week, open to anyone who wants a taste of the Chico Experience. They can participate in a student-led photo tour of campus, speak to a live panel of three students, or watch an Admissions counselor presentation. In May, we began offering drop-in virtual appointments with Admissions counselors. By the end of June, with our status as a Hispanic-Serving Institution in mind, we began providing the same tours and presentations in Spanish.

It’s important to us that new students and their families know that people at Chico State mean it when we say, “We’re still here for you.”

We reach small audiences with our Zoom events, and tour guides say the group size makes it safe for people to ask really good questions, which this year are going deeper than the classic, “What is the food like in the dorms?” Instead, they want to know things like, “What do you like to do in Chico when you get out of class each day?” and “Do you see people who look like you at Chico State?”

In hopes of reaching and engaging with even more students, our tour guides came up with an idea for Instagram Live tours, and surprisingly—or maybe not surprisingly—they are the most attended and engaging activities so far. We gained over 500 new followers within the first two weeks. Whether the guides are sharing the legend of rubbing one of the statues outside Ayres Hall for good luck or stopping to point out a squirrel, we’re having lots of fun with this format.

Instagram Live also allows us to shed constraints of large in-person groups, which take up a lot of space and move slowly. With the multiple tour guides and the magic of screensharing, we’re able to quickly switch from one tour stop to the next with zero walking time—showing off more of our beloved campus than ever before.

So far, we’ve added a quick stroll through the Arts and Humanities Building courtyard to point out its big windows, and we’re taking extra time to note the riparian scenery as we cross some of the nine footbridges over Big Chico Creek. In early July, we partnered with University Housing for a special tour of the interior of each residence hall with a steady audience of around 100 viewers. We plan to show off the Wildcat Recreation Center in late July, and, unlike in-person tours, we’ll be able to take our audience upstairs to see the group exercise rooms, cardio floor, indoor track, and a bird’s eye view of the pool. We’re also excited to experiment with taking our virtual guests beyond the campus core, like to the track and Nettleton Stadium. The possibilities are endless.

Admittedly, the sudden move to the virtual world felt overwhelming several months ago, but we’ve come to appreciate how the need to “make it happen” has removed many previous barriers to creativity and seems to be building excitement like never before.

These outreach methods will have a place in the work we do even when we return to work on campus, but meanwhile, we’ll continue to expand our virtual offerings with our many partners on campus who help us tell the Chico State story.

So, what’s next? Follow @ChicoStateAdmissions on Instagram and stay tuned.

Jeff Logsdon is assistant director of communication and campus visits in the Office of Admissions at Chico State. He earned his bachelor’s in civil engineering from Chico State in 2012 and completed his master’s in college student personnel from the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2014 before returning to support the next generation of Wildcats at his alma mater.

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Founded in 1887, California State University, Chico is the second-oldest CSU campus and one of the highest-ranked master’s-level public universities in the West.

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Library Staff Guided

Meriam Library frequently receives inquiries from off-campus groups interested in library tours. These groups include K-12 school groups (private and public), community college groups, and senior citizen groups. If you’re interested in a tour of the library, please contact Emily Amarel at [email protected] or (530) 898-6658 .

Special Collections inquiries can be directed to Ryan Browar at [email protected] .

Self-Guided

While our library is a public institution and welcomes visitors, we may not always have the staff or resources to lead guided tours for off-campus groups. Teachers or group leaders will need to conduct their own tour. Feel free to download the self-guided tour pamphlet , or click on the images below to access self-guided tour material.

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• Campus Calendar
• Academic Calendar
• Faculty/Staff Calendar
• Employee Announcements
• Student Announcements
• Submission Guidelines

Accessibility Information

Persons with disabilities who need accommodations or have questions about physical access may call the program sponsoring the event or call Accessibility Resource Center at 530-898-5959 .

Spring Musical: The Prom

Four eccentric Broadway stars are in desperate need of a new stage. So, when they hear that trouble is brewing around a small-town prom, they know it's time to put a spotlight on the issue…and themselves. Parents want to keep the high school dance on the straight and narrow—but when one student just wants to bring her girlfriend to prom, the entire town has a date with destiny. On a mission to transform lives, Broadway's brassiest join forces with a courageous girl and the town's citizens and the result is love that brings them all together. Winner of the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical, The Prom expertly captures all the humor and heart of a classic musical comedy with a message that resonates with audiences now more than ever.

Purchase tickets through the University Box Office, 530-898-6333.

[email protected]

530-898-5152