Pacific is the real deal in a way many West Coast schools aren't. Stockton is a working city, not a college town, which means your education isn't bubble-wrapped. The student body is diverse—economically, ethnically, geographically—and that's baked into why the school exists. You're not going to Pacific to find yourself among people just like you.
The engineering and business programs are solid, but Pacific's actual strength is in pushing students to think across disciplines. Pre-health students take ethics. Engineers work on sustainability problems in communities. It's a school that uses "liberal arts" to mean something, not as branding.
The reputation argument is real: Pacific won't open doors the way Stanford or Berkeley do in some fields. But once you're in the door, the education stands up. And if you're doing graduate school, the relationships you build with faculty matter more than prestige filtering anyway.