best places to live for grad students (San Francisco, Berkeley: renting, condo)

[tarab108]

My boyfriend and I are thinking about moving to the bay area. He would be going to grad school at Stanford and I would be at UC Berkeley. Can anyone give us some advice as to best places to live?
The following are important: proximity to stanford and berkeley (though we're both used to commuting), proximity to fun, price, safety (in no particular order). We are open to both renting and buying, especially since these programs (Ph.D.) are so long, and renting is such a waste of money.

Thank You!

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by tarab108

My boyfriend and I are thinking about moving to the bay area. He would be going to grad school at Stanford and I would be at UC Berkeley. Can anyone give us some advice as to best places to live?
The following are important: proximity to stanford and berkeley (though we're both used to commuting), proximity to fun, price, safety (in no particular order). We are open to both renting and buying, especially since these programs (Ph.D.) are so long, and renting is such a waste of money.

Thank You!

This is a tough one . Castro Valley in the east bay or San Mateo in the west bay would be more or less central. Another possibility would be living near the BART/Caltrain station in Millbrae. BART trains go to Berkeley and Caltrain goes south to Palo Alto. All these places are reasonably safe but for "fun" (night life ?), you would have to go to San Francisco.

BART - Station List
caltrain.com - General Info: System Map

As for buying, it won't be cheap. You can get a condo for about $500K - a house will be a "little" bit more.

[hsw]

Presumably want jobs post-PhD.....strategically, would want to be in PA where many major decision-makers in SiliconValley live....besides, many of Stanford's most successful PhD "alums" are CS/EE PhD dropouts who pursued side-projects in various nearby start-ups, like google, yahoo, Sun, etc etc....

Not sure buying a place is necessarily financially smarter than renting....

[oaktownchris]

I'd pick San francisco. Its an easy Bart ride to CAL. For the Stanford student, driving is probably the only option, but the drive from SF to Stanford is very doable.

[cardinal2007]

You can live in San Francisco, a lot of Stanford grad students live in the city. the easiest place to live for a commute to Stanford would be Potrero Hill, then you can take the Baby Bullet from there to Palo Alto, and take the shuttle. If not that you can try finding a place in SoMA near the station. Taking Caltrain may be expensive but Stanford will give you $282 a year not to drive to campus, and you won't have to pay for a parking pass.

Parking & Transportation Services at Stanford University
caltrain.com - home
BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA, Muni, DPT)

From SoMA near the train station you can take Muni to embarcadero and take BART to Downtown Berkeley that will take about 40 minutes. Taking the Baby Bullet from SoMA to Palo Alto will take 37 minutes. From both you are near the universities, but you will either to walk 2 blocks and climb up a hill on the first case or walk for 20-30 minutes down Palm drive on the second. There are shuttles from each that would be useful.

At Stanford the shuttles are free to use for anyone: P&TS - Marguerite Shuttle

At Berkeley it will cost $1, or free with a UC Berkeley ID:
Campus Shuttles | UC Berkeley - Parking & Transportation