Would UoP be more desirable to you than other potential likely or safety schools like UCR, UCM, and various CSUs (beyond SJSU and CPSLO)?
CPSLO is generally not considered a safety for anyone for engineering majors.
Cornell is generally considered a reach for everyone, although students at academically elite prep schools with dedicated college counselors may be able to benefit from their knowledge and connections to assess to a more fine level how likely it is to admit them.
The weird thing about Cal Poly is that every major has its own individual admission rate within the CENG, from Materials where nearly everyone gets in to CS where they accepted 4% last cycle. EE is easier to get into than CompE. It’s not as easy though to switch from EE to CompE as it is in the other direction. You’ll really have to put in some thought into which you apply for.
The good news is that unlike Cornell, admissions is based on a ranking algorithm. There really isn’t any squishy subjectiveness. The bad news is that your GPA is in the 25th percentile for the CENG as a whole and they are not taking test scores into account right now. Your strongest attribute won’t be factored in unless they change the process.
I’d probably pick EE, but I’m not you.
Good luck!
It would be helpful if CPSLO just posted the MCA calculation publicly (older versions have been revealed or reverse-engineered; see https://mca.netlify.app/ ) along with past years’ admission threshold numbers for each major (like what SJSU does). Then applicants can make better self-assessments of their chances before applying.
I’ve done some research on the majors I’d rather take at each school and this is what I got
SJSU - EE
CP SLO - EE
UC Davis - CE
UCSD - CE
UCI - EE
UCSB - EE
UCLA - EE
UC Berkeley - EECS
Cornell - ECE
Stanford - EE
MIT - EECS
Northeastern - I don’t know yet
I am thinking of adding UOP as a additional safety and maybe applying to Boston University, URochester, and University of Florida as other low reaches/match schools.
Good list of matches and reaches, but there is no other safety on the list that UOP can add to. Since the COA at UOP could be very high, I’d add a WUE public. Probably your favorite out of Oregon State, Colorado State and Utah. Good luck!
Try USC for EECE. It’s a good fit for you.
thanks for the suggestion, but I go there for state science fair every year and HATE the area
My son wouldn’t apply to any LA schools for that same reason. 
So I did some research (also trying to cap my school list at 16) and have thought of this list (please feel free to reassign some of them as matches/reaches/safeties, I need an honest assessment). Also make sure to tell me if this is balanced.
Safeties
My plan is to probably do Early Decision? at Cornell University (my top choice 100%) and Early Action at Northeastern University and MIT.
UCSC is probably a match, not a low reach. SJSU is probably a low match or likely for EE (not CS!).
No UCR? No other CSUs?
I wouldn’t personally have Western Washington on the list. If you want an alternate to Utah, I’d do Colorado State, Oregon State or Washington State.
Cal Poly got cut? It’s a pretty unique program. There’s a lot I’d dump before I’d dump them. That’s my personal bias towards small, professor taught classes with early and robust practical application of theory, but that doesn’t resonate with everyone.
Also, your list is heavily dominated by your rank based perception of quality. You need to think differently, more about what you want YOUR experience to be like. There are a few others I could think of, but it’s hard to imagine more polar opposite experiences than UCLA and MIT.
Cal Poly I cut for the reason of racism on campus:
I don’t want to go to a school where this is the norm.
also if I were a prestige focused person, I’d be applying to UPenn, Columbia, etc. I chose schools that I like the vibe/academic programs at.
What other good CSUs should I apply to? Long Beach? San Diego? Sacramento?
I could maybe add one more because it’s the same application.
I didn’t see the most recent. The student incident was widely condemned by the student body and school and not representative of what things are like at cal Poly. He was expelled.
If you really care about social justice and want to know, simply put any school and racism into a Google search and most will come up with something. It’s not a Cal Poly problem. It’s an American problem.
I’m brown and queer. Forgive me if I don’t want to go to a school that’s 65% white…
No apologies required! You should pick where you would feel comfortable!
That said, you should investigate the profiles of ALL of the schools you are investigating. @ucbalumnus has the cal public numbers and probably others too.
You might surprised, but Berkeley and Cal Poly have the exact same total percentage of Black and Latinx students 2/16 and 1/17 respectively, for a total of 18. MIT is also 17%, but there’s a more even mix.
Cal Poly is 54% white. There are fewer Asian students than at those mentioned above.
The unfortunate bottom line is that as a brown, queer, STEM student, the odds of feeling included are heavily stacked against you no matter where you go. All the more reason to dig deeply into what YOUR experience will be like.
yeah that makes sense… I still have a few months before making my official final list, so I will do more research. I still feel pretty intent on doing Cornell ED, as their engineering department has programs that I am interested in, good research opps and a 50-50 male/female sex ratio. Is it a good idea to ED there, especially considering that I probably have safeties like UofU and UOP that I’d do EA at?