<p>@OsakaDad I appreciate your input on this. Your son has amazing stats and judging from your experiences, CP grads seem to be able to hold their own! I will take in all of the information you’ve provided me. </p>
<p>@ickglue Yeah I agree with you on the whole back pocket thing. I’ve got UCD, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, USC, Cornell, Brown, and even UoP to hear from. Tough decisions ahead!</p>
<p>Re: “well rounded education”</p>
<p>Note that Cal Poly SLO has the usual humanities and social studies departments like anthropology, art, business, economics, English, geography, history, music, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. So you are likely to be able to find humanities and social studies courses of your interest at Cal Poly SLO, if that is a concern to you. You may want to look at its [course</a> catalog](<a href=“http://catalog.calpoly.edu/index.html]course”>Catalog Home < California Polytechnic State University).</p>
<p>I will definitely look into that, now it’s going to be a waiting game. Wish me luck :)</p>
<p>Is cost an issue for you or your parents? When I was transferring to a 4 year college, I had trouble deciding whether to go to Cal Poly SLO or UCLA for Mechanical Engineering, ME. Ultimately my decision came down to cost.</p>
<p>I narrowed my decision down to SLO and UCLA. SLO would have required taking out a huge loan, while UCLA offered ~$10,000 per year in grants. Therefore I chose UCLA, and literally had my undergraduate tuition paid for by the grants every year. All I had to worry about was paying for housing. The financial aid by the UC system is pretty good when I was in college, but I don’t know how it is now (budget cuts). </p>
<p>If I had to rate the ME programs between both schools, I would rate SLO way higher than UCLA. SLO has a more practical approach with the many individual laboratory courses compared to UCLA which tries to integrate the lab classes into one. Also, UCLA has drastically cut down the amount units for tech electives over the years in order to get you to graduate faster. </p>
<p>The SLO design classes seem more complex than UCLA. I’ve seen some of the projects that my friends did at SLO and it made mine look pathetic. One or two of UCLA’s design classes required hands-on machining with machine tools, which UCLA no longer offers formal training due to budget cuts. I know CAL has you go through a few hours of training. I also had to do that in high school to make sure you don’t cut your fingers off or damage the equipment.</p>
<p>The only way to offset some of the differences in hands-on work is to join club at UCLA, like robotics and automotive. </p>
<p>When I was in community college, my engineering drafting instructor was a graduate from Cal poly SLO in Industrial Engineering. He commented that SLO is a really small town compared to the huge city that LA was. You drive around SLO with lots of space between you and cars compared to LA. Then there’s also the time he attended a UCLA basketball game and said, " geez, the amount of school spirit that you witness inside that arena is nothing I had seen at Cal Poly".</p>
<p>Since many students change their majors once they get into college, a well-rounded school is a pretty good idea. There are “weeder” courses in the early stages of the engineering curriculum.</p>
<p>@ zer0c123
I’m curious as to how you ended up in the engineering field. Did you have difficult finding a job and whatnot? As for cost, I’m going to be a first generation college student and my older sister got a full ride at a UC, so it seems like I’ll be in a similar situation hopefully. I have a desire to go to a big city, meet lots of people, and whatnot so the area of Cal Poly isn’t for me. A lot of people I knew last year attend Cal Poly as well, but ultimately if I get in anywhere else, it will be a tough choice. One of my teachers went to Cal Poly as a mechanical engineer and he had a job right as he graduated. He quit because it was boring, but he told me that Cal Poly is highly respected in California but outside of the state, it is nonexistent. He tried getting a job on the east coast and the company didn’t recognize Cal Poly as much, so I’m curious as to that as well. It’s going to be a difficult choice if I get in anywhere else 
one of my goals was to immediately have a job as soon as I graduate which would seem like a solid goal that I could achieve if I attended Cal Poly, but a part of me wants to go to graduate school, immerse myself in other academics, and all that other stuff. It’s tough!</p>
<p>OP,
If you want to know who are the world class universities, the look at this list. See, you can find Cal Poly in there. It is true that Cal Poly is nonexistent outside of California.</p>
<p>[QS</a> World University Rankings - Topuniversities](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010]QS”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010)</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>If you are interesting in Engineering then go to Engineering and Technology section to find out which school has the best engineering program in US and around the world.</p>
<p>@JSnoopy93 – choosing a school is a big deal not only because it will be the “brand name” that you will carry after graduation and into your career, but also because college will represent 4 to 6 years of your actual life (depending on what school we’re talking about and budget cuts in CA). Ask yourself, what school culture will you best fit into? What location and environment will you enjoy and thrive in the most? It is not all about the name – consider the experience as well.</p>
<p>I would readily agree that Cal Poly’s reputation probably would not be well known in the East Coast. After all, it is not a doctoral granting national research university. Its reputation is solely dependent upon its teaching quality and the quality of its graduate. This will by default limits its exposure on the national/international academic stage. This challenge is by no means unique to CP, if you look at schools such as Amherst, Colgate, Swarthmore, William and Mary, Cooper Union, Rose-Hulman, or Wellesley, most West coast joe average person and high school student will not have heard of them. Even Claremont-Mckenna or Harvey Mudd are sometimes consider obscure in northern California! How about have your ever heard of Radcliffe college (its part of Harvard)? When people hear Colgate, they think toothpaste! Ironically, all of the schools I just named are considered some of the BEST in the US/world, most of them are considered superior to ALL the UCs, and even to some of the lower Ivies. </p>
<p>With that said, I don’t Cal Poly’s name is not limited to California, but rather limited to Western USA region. Its better than just CA, but it is still limited. But I think that will change over time because CP going forward will have at least 10% of its student population from out of state. But if you really want a nationally/internationally known U, you need to pick a national doctoral granting research university. </p>
<p>The list Gongho cited earlier is interesting, but I would take it with a large grain of salt because it only contains National Level Research Universities ONLY. </p>
<p>Also, it listed University of Cambridge as #1 in the world, sorry my family is from the UK and even we know it is not necessarily #1 in Europe, let alone the world. Cambridge is a confederation of numerous colleges and their quality varies substantially from one to the next. Also, the UK just had one of the largest funding cuts for university level education ever, student tuition was tripled, yes 3x, over night. Moreover, Cambridge’s endowment is no where near to any of the other TOP universities cited such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Yale, UPenn, etc. the list goes on and on. Without huge amount of $$$, a research university is just another pretty boat with no fuel. So rating Stanford below Cambridge, University College of London (HUH??? REALLY??), Imperial College (another HUH?), is just absurd. Moreover, how can Columbia be rated higher than Stanford, when Stanford is always consider to be Harvard’s West Coast opposite by Harvard students and faculty themselves ? </p>
<p>And obviously, you won’t find Amherst, Colby, Harvey Mudd, Claremont-Mckenna, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Cooper Union, and the like, either. Even though they are some of the most respected colleges in the US. So it is no wonder Cal Poly won’t be there.</p>
<p>Yeah good points indeed, my issue would be that I want several things out of college. Cal Poly’s practicality is indeed appealing and I’ve always wanted good prospects for a job, so Cal Poly’s reputation and whatnot would probably help me achieve this easily. On the other hand, I want to attend a world class university that’s well-rounded in everything and well known (not to be shallow or anything). With my stats, that makes it difficult but indeed I want to have the best opportunity possible-after all, most people go to college once or twice right? Anyways, as for Harvey Mudd, Claremont, etc I agree those colleges are very obscure but they are well respected. My friend got a full ride to Amherst and he’s very excited. A lot of my friends are trying to attend Harvey Mudd. As for the experience, I will have to visit Cal Poly but as I stated earlier, I want big city-big dreams type of thing. If only I had better stats, everything else would be easier! I’m pretty set on engineering but it’s tough to say because I might want to switch out of it and go into other fields and I want the security before attending a college that it is well-versed in many areas. At the end of the day, and again I feel that my stats aren’t comparable, but I want to reach the university with the most quality and prestige. It matters to me for some reason. I feel that if you really want something, you can achieve it. I feel that school has been easy thus far and I really believe I could handle UCLA, UCB, etc curriculum and if I can’t, it will be a needed wake up call because I’ve been a notorious procrastinator thus far :)</p>
<p>As much reputation as CPSLO has in engineering, there is no guarantee of jobs upon graduation, etc. If you have a 3.5 GPA, internships, co-ops, EIT, etc, a mechanical engineer graduate from Cal State LA will trump a 2.5 from Cal Poly SLO any day. That’s why they are both ABET accredited! So, if Cal Poly SLO is at par with UCLA, Berkeley… so are the rest Cal States because faculty get paid nearly as much (their union would allow such a large disparity between incomes), similar costs, facilities, undergraduate research, etc. Ladies and gents… keep perspective of things!</p>
<p>You have a good point there lol</p>
<p>Excellent school, respected education…feel proud!!</p>