@Fisherman99 D went to CalPoly - S to UCSB.
CalPoly has been under pressure for years to rectify their politically unacceptable high number of white students. They have ‘massaged’ their points system in an attempt to make CalPoly better fit the ‘desired’ picture.
CP struggles because it’s strongest programs are engineering and accounting. I will let ya’ll guess which ethnicities/genders are and aren’t attracted to these majors.
Perhaps even more so elsewhere, based on forum chatter.
Why is it that, when a student needing big merit scholarships shows up with high stats, the go-to recommendation from most posters is University of Alabama Huntsville, even though the same student could get even better scholarships at Alabama A&M (across town), Tuskegee (private), and Prairie View A&M?
I’ll bet a big percentage of CP’s Ag programs are white too.
Asian students are not over represented at CPSLO. Odd for a school in California known for engineering…
^^^ Partially due to the ag program (forgot about that one) and because of prestige outside of CA. The assumption being a degree with a UC stamp will be recognized by all in the know, all across the US. A degree with the Cal Poly SLO seal is assumed less prestigious on the US/world stage.
As for selectivity and rankings…the acceptance rate to the UCSB mechanical engineering program was 12% the year my son attended. It’s dropped even lower since then.
Wow pragmaticmom, post #602 is really disturbing to me. I am sorry if you don’t want to send your kids to a campus that isn’t white enough. We were discussing how there aren’t enough space for California kids who were exceptional academic students, I guess that would be OK with you if they were shut out and Asian? Maybe we should reserve a few spaces on the basketball team for good Asian players so that Asian California families would feel more comfortable at games? I hate to be so sarcastic but if you are bypassing Riverside because of the ethnic makeup of the students, that is really sad.
@dietz199 What year was it 12%? I heard about 15% 3 years ago
@19parent Actually, for my kids, the racial composition of the UCs were a positive factor. We have lived in the south and the midwest, as a minority, so seeing students who look like us (Asian) is a plus. My post was an attempt to see this preference in reverse, recognizing that everyone has a preference and if it’s okay for my kids to want to be around more Asians, it should be okay for whites to be around more whites. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest someone else’s preference is wrong. I didn’t intend to be disruptive or to disturb anyone’s conscience - actually the opposite. I welcome the discussion because I think it’s constructive to learn what other people think when they evaluate a campus, and if the abundance of Asians are a turn-off for non-Asians who would otherwise embrace the UCs.
“CP struggles because it’s strongest programs are engineering and accounting. I will let ya’ll guess which ethnicities/genders are and aren’t attracted to these majors.”
@dietz199 …of course!! And guess who is partying, enjoying that " perfect, beautiful location", and surfing on the beach much more while those “other” ethnicities/genders are studying harder in the library consistently as well lol? Would be so nice if people would just own up and say they don’t want to attend a “certain” school due to racial factors if that is really an issue rather than “beating around the bush” constantly!
Thanks pragmaticmom for responding. That helps me see where your statement came from. The way I read your thread made it sound like we somehow have to be more sensitive about the comfort of white Californians to feel they fit at UC more so then other ethnic groups. African Americans are consistently underrepresented (3-5% on every UC campus). I don’t think any caucasian student has to be concerned about lacking numbers because they aren’t a majority of a campus, if they do, then that is too bad for them, they can choose other private or OOS options.
Diversity was and is an important factor for my kids, both for selection of high school as well as college. That includes racial,ethnic, and socio-economic diversity.
Talk about racial stereotypes. Just wow.
The reality of life is that culture is more important than race. This has been proven, statistically and experientially, time and again. Upper-middle-class blacks often find themselves sharing more similarities with the same class of whites than they do with poor blacks, even while experiencing tensions within their individual identities. Entire works of literature and films have been created around such realities. Thus, race is not always separate from culture but culture is often a distinct and more important dynamic.
It can be both enriching and isolating to be a minority, culturally, but it is a valid factor in determining “fit” within any campus, of any system or private college.
I know some white students who feel much more at-home in some white-majority campuses than in other white-majority campuses because the campus culture may not be at all, in some cases, what the student relates to vis-a-vis his or her upbringing, or vis-a-vis something very different the student wants to explore in college.
Many of my Asian students are from 100% Asian high schools, and some of those are seeking much more diversity in college campuses than they have experienced to date. I think that’s pretty healthy, actually. Silly me.
@PragmaticMom Sorry, I don’t mean to derail the discussion but I just want to clarify that there is a difference between avoiding or choosing a campus based on its racial/ethnic/economic composition and choosing a campus where one will be tolerated or, dare I hope? appreciated. When people look for colleges that are a good fit for Jewish kids, they are looking for places where their kids will be able to be openly and freely Jewish. That includes wearing a kipah and having the ability to eat kosher food. It is not a matter of avoiding any particular group of people. I am sure that this holds true for members of other faiths and for members of minority groups who worry about discrimination and with good reason. We just want our kids to be safe.
I worked on the UCI campus for over 30 years. I saw it change from a mostly caucasian campus of 9,000 students who really wanted to be at USC or UCLA but didn’t get in, that primarily lived in Newport Beach or lived at home and only drove in for classes, to a campus with a vibrant, smart, engaged student body with a very diverse population, yes a little higher represented in asian students, but also a good number of caucasian and hispanic students and very diverse socio-economically. I remember one day showing a colleague from Iowa around campus. He blurted out “wow, you certainly have a lot of international students on campus”… I replied, “actually we have very few. They are mostly from California”. Yes the state is not perfectly represented, but I think we have a wonderful mix of talented students.
@youcee S started in 2013. I guess it can vary a bit year to year. At that time they had a few too many students and were trying to get back to the optimal class size.
. I can reassure you that the UG engineering programs are just as difficult at CP as they are at a UC. True though…at CP you can access the beach while at UCB you can access an … um…urban (?) environment. And yes, CP students are ranked consistently ranked as one of (if not THE) happiest student body.
Wow. What a long thread. I just wanted to say that DS was accepted to Cal Poly SLO last year. We thought it was a great school. He was admitted to all the mid-tier UCs, but shut out of top UCs. Ultimately, he chose to attend UC Irvine. Name had nothing to do with it. He had already attended private k-12/ high school where the student population was predominantly white. He was just not comfortable at Cal Poly and didn’t think it was a good fit for him. Of course, then I see things like this http://www.sanluisobispo.com/latest-news/article208302439.html and it’s no wonder they have a hard time attracting minorities.
When I say “not comfortable”, I mean he is not into the frat scene which seemed to dominate the campus.
According to https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg05_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=666 , only 7% of men participate in sororities and fraternities at CPSLO. Of course, fraternities often do have more visibility than their actual presence, particularly when one of them or a member acting in a way associated with the fraternity gets caught doing something stupid.
Nope. According to their campus paper, it’s more like 20% of their student body. And to their credit, even if there is heavy partying, they do raise a lot of money for charity.
http://mustangnews.net/cal-poly-greek-life-raises-450000-philanthropies/
From that article, looks like one fraternity raised nearly 60% of the total raised by the sixteen IFC houses. 88% of the USFC raised money came from one house out of seven.