<p>True, Cal Poly is ranked among the best overall (regardless of category) in architecture.</p>
<p>"As for the professors, I'm not sure about Cal, but at UCLA, All professors, including nobel laureates, are required by university policy to teach undergrad classes. While it's still unlikely that you'll get a class taught by a nobel laureate, it's that possibility that if you have a real "go-getter" attitude that you can become associated with these great men. Also, while it's true that nobel laureates may make crappy teachers, what you really want them for is for their unique ways of thinking. They percieve things differently than the average man, a kind of not afraid to think outside the box thing, and it's That teaching that is truely invaluable."</p>
<p>Sometimes they even give nobel prizes to women!</p>
<p>I can understand going to Cal Poly for engineering/architecture. Otherwise, UCLA, Cal, UCSD, UCSB, Davis, Irvine >>> Cal Poly. I grew up in Arroyo Grande and I have a ton of friends at Cal Poly and while it is a good school for ag/engineering/arch, I don't think it's comparable with the aforementioned schools outside of these subjects.</p>
<p>We cannot forget business, being that most UCs do not even offer a true business major, it is very reasonable to say that Cal Poly has a better undergraduate business program.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how college of science and mathematics is rated in any university.</p>
<p>College of Liberal arts I'm not too sure of either.</p>
<p>Most UC campuses are great overall, Cal Poly has some specific specialization as a technical school. I would agree with you, other than ag/engineering/arch and possibly even business, I would attend a different campus.</p>
<p>I haven't seen ranking of science at the undergrad level for any university. I am in COSAM at Cal Poly, though, and have found it to be an excellent program. The level on focus on undergrad is far greater than that at davis, hence my decision.</p>
<p>twilightzer0 says: "UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD are way above Cal Poly. They're not even comparable. That's indisputable."</p>
<p>Please put the mind altering substance down. At an undergraduate level Cal Poly is <em>directly</em> comparable to those schools in Engineering. In fact, I got into all of those schools and chose to go to Cal Poly. Yes, I got into Cal, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB & Cal Poly. No doubt this is not the normal story for a Cal Poly student, but it certainly isn't rare. Of the few people that I've asked, I know quite a few with 1400+ (out of 1600) SAT scores. Simply on that basis, a rather large minority at Cal Poly is highly competitive with top tier colleges.</p>
<p>Why anyone would want to go to Berkeley with their 200+ person lectures and English challenged grad student discussion sections is beyond me. At Cal Poly I don't have discussion sections. At all. I can be on a first name basis with any professor simply by asking questions in class.</p>
<p>The method of teaching at Cal Poly is superior for highly technical subjects. End of story. The only thing that Cal has over Cal Poly in the undergraduate world is the caliber of the student (which is quite noticeable). That is not a good way to gauge the school itself. The labs at Cal Poly are good. Undergraduates use them. A lot.</p>
<p>Why would going to a school which teaches the subjects better be a hinderance to getting after getting into graduate school? That makes little to no sense to me - perhaps you can explain this a bit further?</p>
<p>I would defintetly say that Cal Poly has it's advantages when it comes to undergrad. For one thing, there are fewer students in a class at Cal Poly than the UCs. Also at a UC you are usually taught by a TA, where as at Cal Poly your taught by the professors.</p>
<p>yes, the selection rate at SLO for arch is better--if 6 per cent of the applicant pool is that superior to 8 per cent at pomona.</p>
<p>yes, the engineering programs for SLO are better--if the best non-doctoral programs in the west is that significantly superior to a top five school.</p>
<p>but then pomona has one of the top three hospitality programs in the nation, something SLO does not have at all.</p>
<p>bottom line: SLO is the best in the system. pomona is in the top five.</p>
<p>the analogy is akin to comparing UCLA to Berkeley.</p>
<p>I wouldn't boast soo highly of CSU Pomona. Pomona's architect program I agree is pretty good. Hospitality I agree is superior, especially while being ranked number 1 when it comes to food management and whatnot.</p>
<p>However, it ends there.</p>
<p>The analogy comparing Cal poly to CSU Pomona the same as Berkeley to UCLA is flawed. For one, Cal Poly's programs in all majors overall are competitive, though some are not the top of the caliber such as Architecture or Engineering, all have a pool of students that are the top. This is something the Pomona lacks. The majority of the students in pomona do not have a competitive background. In order to have such a competitive and advance program, you also need high achieving students.</p>
<p>The average gpa of CP incoming frosh for ALL colleges is 3.81, while more competitive colleges such as engineering are closer to 4.0.
For Pomona, the average gpa is 3.17.</p>
<p>Berkeley and UCLA are both similar being close to 4.0, unlike the wide gap of CP and Pomona.</p>
<p>I believe Pomona is a great university with alot of promise. However, their student body is the problem. They need to become more competitive and obtain higher achieving students. I'm from SoCal and I know alot of people easily going to their Pomona's engineering programs with gpa's under 3.0. These lower achieving students which make a large portion of Pomona's body is bottlenecking the university's ability to have challenging programs, be competitive, and earn respect among the highly ranked universities.</p>
<p>first of all, what is your source of entrance GPA? according to the office of institutional research (data of which is firewalled from the general public but available to systemwide faculty and staff) the CPP average GPA for fall 2006 is 3.36, not 3.17, and as i understand it 10 programs at pomona are currently closed for admissions and seven more, included undeclared majors, are closed for winter 2007 admissions.</p>
<p>secondly, since when did the chancellor's office or the campus change its name? and did SLO get changed to CSU-SLO at the same time? that would be the biggest story in the system in years given that california has only two of the nation's six polytechnics and brags about it endlessly.</p>
<p>as has been reported above, i and the majority of posters on this board agree that SLO is the flagship campus academically in the system. i personally believe it is superior to several UC campuses, and that always gets the UC crowd going on these boards. but i have a problem when some of you want to start placing SLO several standard deviations ahead of the rest of the system. try placing various majors in business or communications or the humanities at SLO against every other department in the system and see how your points stack up.</p>
<p>this is not meant to be an excuse for why, as you say, pomona has not earned much respect--surely a debatable point among many southern california businesses who hire and rave about pomona grads--but as noted many times prior, each campus in the system is required by state law to admit all eligibles within its Tier I service area. for pomona, that means letting in high school graduates from low scoring school districts such as pomona unified, baldwin park, el monte, and fontana. these admits drag the quality of the student body down, and as a result pomona always will have this albatross unless state law is changed. this is also true for other excellent urban campuses such as those at long beach and san diego, both of which also are among the CSU top five.</p>
<p>I am sure i can find data supporting why each of the schools you compared SLo to is better. Also , The data you have provided doesn't reflect any regionally or nationally recognized rankings (ie US news, Princeton review...not even tier 1). I am sure SLo is a great school, but you cannot tell me that 48% of people admitted to both Cal and SLo chose SLO. Sorry.</p>
<p>The data was collected and interpreted by a third party. I'd say it's pretty accurate. Whether you'd like to believe it or not is another matter, but Cal Poly SLO is indeed a fantastic school with a fairly refreshing approach towards teaching the science and engineering disciplines. </p>
<p>To break things down and say Cal Poly SLO is straight up inferior to UC Berkeley would be doing both schools a grave injustice, as there are far more factors to consider than the amalgam of prestige and hearsay you've formed in your mind about either school.</p>
<p>You are comparing apples and oranges. Two totally different learning styles. UC's are not for everyone even if you area qualified and admitted to UCLA or Cal. Cal Poly SLO is a top notch school as are the UC's. Almost everyone I know that graduated from Cal Poly got a job out of school, this cannot be said for those I know who have graduated from UCLA. I guess it depends on your area of study. The UC's are able to offer programs that Cal Poly cannot but many require grad school after graduation where as Cal Poly prepares one to work after graduation with their "learn by doing" philosophy. Many still get their masters after that. It usually works out know matter where you go to school. If you area a person that is bound to be successful, it is my experience that you will be succfessful not matter where you go to school.
A school name doesn't always mean a successful person IMO.</p>
<p>agreed, and a topic much discussed on this site. you can't compare schools with different missions other than anecdotally.</p>
<p>but you certainly can compare the two cal poly campuses since their academic programs and missions are almost identical. and from both direct and indirect data and personal observation they are going in opposite directions. the north campus continues to climb while the south campus at pomona appears to be in a tailspin. even the engineering programs have slipped to 32d in the us news poll after being in the top ten. business is in a total state of disarray and science doesn't even have its main building operational. only hospitality remains strong.</p>
<p>a lot has happened on the pomona campus, giants, and almost none of it very good. they've been without two deans for two years. new project construction is months behind. students are in classrooms without chairs. equipment doesn't work. one dean has had four grievances filed against him. and now the highly popular ag dean is calling it quits. only the collins school and arch seem to be immune but there are cracks even there. i was shocked to see pomona continue to slide overall and even in engineering as mentioned above, and the faculty seems certain to be going on strike, the largest in the history of american education.</p>
<p>other than that everything is great at cal poly pomona.</p>
<p>Wow back in 2001, the schools may well have been close in terms of competition. I read an article once about 2003 admissions for undergrad at Cal, and the number they were lamenting how their admissions could only admit 33% of qualified applicants. Compare that to 23% now and you get an idea. SLO was always that mysterious school that I thought was a private (Still thought so when I was applying and didn't bother with CSUs) but that everyone at school would talk about, mostly on par with schools such as Irvine and SD. Personally, I think the higher tier UC's (UCLA seems to be taking quite a bashing on this thread XD) are better choices, because very few people can say that they want to do engineering their entire life, and a career change would require the prestige that Cal/LA/SD have to offer. If you're dead set on being an engineer with an undergrad degree and working your way up the ladder, kudos to you. If you're like a lot of the rest of us, then it may not be the best decision to put all your eggs in one basket.</p>
<p>As for business, I'm very interested in what constitutes a real business major. I applied an alternate major as business for UCLA, but after I did, someone that graduated from our school last year and went into business was saying how UCLA doesn't have a real business major and such. Business majors after all would require an MBA to be effective anyways, and higher learning would most likely need to be accompanied with a more competitively ranked school.</p>
<p>On a final note, I must say that the way SLO students and alumni are defending their school on this thread really seems to say something about school pride. When a similar thread about comparisons was posted on the UC forums, the people there were pretty weak in their defense of their respective schools. From that alone, it seems that the atmosphere at SLO is >>>> other schools.</p>