Headlines of rape, murder, antisemitism and racism. Should a potential student be concerned?
Each college must publish a Clery Act report in crime on campus. I would look that up and definitely compare different campuses. As for hate crimes, unfortunately they happen at all campuses. Both my children at opposite sides of the country go to liberal diverse small colleges. Both have many incidents of someone putting hate stickers all over campus. And then there are other incidents of anti Semitic comments or symbols. Both colleges address the issues as they happen. Very unfortunate but it happens. Neither college has ever appeared in the news for these things so I wouldn’t assume it isn’t happening at campuses where there isn’t a new report about it
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My son graduated from Cal Poly this past June. I always felt Cal Poly was a very safe campus compared to most other schools and the latest rapes are unusual. SLO doesn’t have a ton of crime. There is a decent homeless presence in the town, but the campus is a decent distance from town. There is a good deal of bicycle theft on campus, though. WRT the rapes, it’s not clear whether the attacker is a Cal Poly student. If not, it would be unusual. The Architecture Structure area is in a secluded field up a trail some distance from the dorms. Any female would be wise to go with friends if they’re up there at night. As for the Poly Canyon apartments, you need a key card to enter the building and a key to get into the apartments. Cal Poly is a great school and the incidents you cited are few and far between.
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Crime statistics for all schools are available through through NCSE. I thing anyone should look up schools they’re interested in. They currently publish 2016-2018.
Rapes at Cal Poly were 5/7/5, for 2016, 2017, and 2018 respectively. During those same years, UC-Berkeley was 17/13/13. That makes sense, as UCB is a little over twice as big.
The shocking standout, so much so that it was featured in a prominent Washington Post article was Brown. They had 22/18/13 for those years, yet are far smaller than either CA public. Brown led the nation in college rapes in 2014, tied with UConn with 43.
Any campus crime is sad, especially rape. I think though if the OP is concerned about campus crime, there are a lot of places far worse than Cal Poly to look.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
Repost vis Sac Bee of the WaPo article that isn’t behind a paywall.
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This 5 year old article is focused on colleges attempts at lessening the stigma of reporting sexual violence.
“The data reflect what victim advocates say is a positive trend: Growing numbers of students who may have experienced a sexual assault are stepping forward to tell authorities about incidents that in years past might have gone unreported.”
When adjusted for size the student population the article lists the following…
“The Post analysis found these 10 schools had the highest total of reports of rape on their main campuses per 1,000 students:
- Reed College: 12.9 (reports per 1,000)
- Wesleyan: 11.5
- Swarthmore College: 11.0
- Knox College: 10.0
- Williams College: 8.9
- Pomona College: 8.5
- Bowdoin College: 8.3
- Gallaudet University: 8.1
- Beloit College: 6.9
- Dartmouth: 6.7”
The question regarding Cal Poly was related to violent sexual assaults that occurred on campus in the last 2 weeks with the assailant still on the loose.
Apparently some Cal Poly rape victims didn’t find the school supportive…
Clickbait headlines accompanied by provocative words like
[quote=“Catcherinthetoast, post:1, topic:3593099”]
Headlines of rape, murder, antisemitism and racism
[/quote] almost always lead to debates and arguments.
CC users can look at a Clery report for any college of interest and decide if the college is dangerous or not.
FWIW, I have no idea where Cal Poly appears in this list, but I am sure MANY people will be surprised to see that Swarthmore is #1. https://american-school-search.com/colleges/dangerous 
Closing.
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