My mentor told me that location is an important factor in choosing grad school.  If you don't want to live there, then don't go there.  I've only visited LA once, so I can't give a very good review of the city.  The weather was glorious, the traffic was horrible. And of course, cost of living is pretty rough.  If you don't think you can see yourself living in LA, then visit U.Wash.

Never been to Seattle, but I've always heard great things about it. 

And remember to send emails to schools that you know you will be declining offers from. There are others in waitlist limbo. 

I'm into UCLA and UW as well. I've visited UCLA and am likely going to the UW open house as it's not far from me.

I can give you my impressions of UCLA from their October open house. First off, I am not a big fan of the part of LA that UCLA is in, it's very stand-offish, but I find LA fascinating as someone who wants to study architecture to retrofit suburbia and create more sustainable and lively communities. So I think UCLA provides a very interesting testing ground for this, despite the fact that their professors were a little cold when I asked a question about the changing role and need for sustainability as a focus in the profession (I think the response I got was "it's always been a focus").

The resources in Perloff Hall were adequate, but not exceptional, and the professors I met were all very engaging. The Suprastudio / new offshoot and collaborations with Disney, Cirque de Soleil, etc. were a big focus - so if you are interested in new tech and using Architecture outside of traditional professional routes, UCLA could be a very good fit. They are definitely hoping to push some boundaries with tech. I found the teaching staff to be very international in background as well, with a broad range between always-academics and very-practiced-teaching-on-the-side sort of folks.

Seattle is very much my type of city, so I can share thoughts on that if you haven't been. I'm a big fan of their west coast style and approach to sustainable architecture. UW seems to embody this from their website and the students work I've seen. Hopefully I can make it down on the 4th.

@AJ_Urbanist 

I went to that open house too and I remember you asking that question! And getting a half ass response of "Oh, well of course, everyone tries to be sustainable... that's implied"  -_- '   I call shinanigans on that.   When I mentioned this to one of my friends he said that UCLA doesn't focus too much on the sustainability aspect of design.  It may be implied or mentioned, but it is not a real "focus".

@AJ_Urbanist

I totally remember that statement made towards the end of the day when only a handful of students were around to ask questions. It was slightly answered with a snobby response...

I'm flying up to UW for the open house. As I don't know anyone there, it'd be great to meet up with a fellow archinector (is that a word?) while I'm up there.

Haha - it's awesome to hear it wasn't just me that was a little offput by the response to my question!

@Logan - I still have to see if I can get another day off work, but I'll let you know if I do head down. 

I didn't mention in my first comments, but another big +1 point (or maybe even +2 points) for UCLA for me is Dana Cuff and their citylab work. http://citylab.aud.ucla.edu/