<p>I was looking at [College</a> Results Online](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■%5DCollege”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■) and comparing colleges. One of the things I noticed about Cal Poly that really stood out was the 4-year graduation rate. I’m comparing CP to other schools with good biomedical engineering programs, and most of them have rates in the mid-80%. Cal Poly is 22.9%, which seems super-low. It’s also got a 22.8% transfer out rate. Does anyone have ideas about the reasons for these? I’ve toured the campus and it seems like a really nice place to go to school – maybe too nice? Too much surfing and not enough studying? Help me out.</p>
<p>I would think it’s because it’s so impacted and hard to get classes, mainly GE’s. You obviously get priority for classes in your major, but the rotation schedules are really weird and make it hard to get classes if you get a low one. Out of 12 rotation spots, I was 6th this quarter, and then my next two quarters I’m 8th then 7th. That’s not very good. It’s only my second quarter and I feel like I’m already behind because I didn’t get into the biology class I need. (I’m in animal science)</p>
<p>Another reason could be that some people just take it slow, by taking the minimum number of units (12) to be considered a full time student. I just looked up the Bio-med catalog, and you need 198 units to graduate, and that’s only the classes that are required. So you would have to take at least 16/17 units a quarter to graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>In one of my classes last quarter we were told by my department head that Cal Poly was going to implement a new graduation timeline of sorts. He said you would only have your 4 years, and then possibly an extra quarter or two to finish all of your classes, and if you don’t then they just give you any diploma that you are eligible for. This sounds crazy I know, but that’s what he said. I don’t know exactly when or if for sure they are going to do this.</p>
<p>Are the state budget cuts driving the difficulty in getting classes? It seems like the general ed ones would have more availability. I’m shocked that not being able to get classes forces people to extend their graduation. That doesn’t seem fair.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard that athletes may get preferential treatment when it comes to course selection. Do you know if that’s true?</p>
<p>Biomed 4-year rate. 23% seems way too low. Biomed at CalPoly is a relatively new major. I wonder if that is causing the statistics to be skewed. IOW, the initial graduates transferred in from another major and had to delay gradution. That would really skew the number. </p>
<p>Preferred registration. Several groups at Cal Poly receive preferential registration because of the conflict between the activity and classes. I know that athletes, band, elected student officers and ROTC are given registration preference. There are other groups too. Being in one of these groups can definately help get the classes you need (of course, these activities also require lots of extra time committment).</p>
<p>Those statistics are school-wide and don’t single out any particular major; so I don’t think we can attribute the low number to the newness of the biomed program. Since biomed majors tend to go on to masters or PhD programs, graduating in five years for undergrad extends education to seven, eight, even nine years. That’s pretty daunting to have to pay for, and pretty old to be entering the job market.</p>
<p>Here’s a thread that discusses some of the reasons for the low 4-year graduation rate for engineers at Cal Poly.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cal-poly-san-luis-obispo/877352-b-s-engineering-takes-5-years-slo.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cal-poly-san-luis-obispo/877352-b-s-engineering-takes-5-years-slo.html</a></p>
<p>Remember, Cal Poly’s Engineering College accounts for quite a large percent of the total student body especially compared to most other colleges in California.</p>
<p>According to the Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis at Cal Poly, here are the College of Engineering graduation rates:</p>
<p>4 year 8.2%
5-year 48.5%
6-year 64.7% </p>
<p>So actually, the 4 year graduation rate for Engineers is much lower than the school-wide statistic of 22.9% quoted by the OP.</p>
<p>The budget cuts are definitely affecting the number of sections of a class that are offered, and so since fewer classes are being offered (especially GE’s) they are harder to get into. I was told by my English professor that it will only get worse next year - he warned us to stock up on units this year cause lectures will be let go and it will become even more difficult to get classes. The registration method is pretty screwed up too and doesn’t benefit anyone. It’s difficult to get out of here in 4 years. I’ve heard of a lot of people taking at least an extra quarter if not an entire extra year. However, there are some people I know who will be able to graduate early cause they took a lot of AP’s and were able to get some GE’s out of the way by doing so.</p>
<p>I’ve got a few of good reasons for this:
-Engineering is tough. Nearly every class requires more than the recommended 2 hours/per unit outside of class. Try to take 16 units of engineering stuff a quarter and most people will have some issues. It’s better to take things a bit slower if it reduces your risk of failing something.
- The engineering schedules have a LOT of dependencies. You have to complete a lot of stuff in order. Fail something, or fail to get into the class and it’s going to hurt your time to graduation a lot.
- Registration madness. Even when you have a decant rotation, it’s still something of a madhouse. Your rotation is something of a hunting permit, you are not guaranteed to have the classes that your flowchart requests at any given time. Good luck!
-Requirements confusion. There’s lots of confusion about which classes count for what. This can happen even if you regularly see the your advisor and have the policies almost memorized. For example, you are a year from graduating and you notice that one of your tech electives doesn’t count towards your degree.
-The GWR. This little trap catches many about-to-escape seniors. Which is too bad. I didn’t think it was that hard. In any case, start taking the test early to prevent it from being a last minute supervise.<br>
-Infrequently offered classes. Certain majors only offer certain classes every other year. If you fail to get into these classes, you may be delayed by as much as two years waiting for them to roll around again. Other departments do this on a year-by-year basis. The EE department is infamous for this. If you fall behind, the classes you need simply will not be offered until the next year. </p>
<p>So, what can you do to improve the odds of making it out ‘on-time’?
-Consider using your priorities to get into necessary series of classes or into prerequisites. This is tough one to judge though. It’s hard to tell which classes are going to fill up.
-Focus your GE efforts on area A if possible. This opens up many later GE classes, which you can take at your leisure.
-Learn to crash. If you have a lousy rotation, register for what you can then print out listings of all classes that you need and qualify for. Choose larger lecture classes if possible, these have the greatest chance of success. Then, simply show up for the first day of class. You would be amazed at how often the professor will let you in.
-Kill the GWR ASAP. My strategy was to simply start taking the test as soon as you can (I think you need GE area A and Junior standing). If you fail, try again! Of course, that was not an issue on my case… At least you have plenty of warning with this approach. You can PLAN to take the GWR class if necessary.
-Give up. Yup, you are going to be here at least 5 years and there’s nothing you can do about it. Embrace the suckage!</p>
<p>I appreciate everyone’s honesty. I’m evaluating public and private schools on both east and west coast. Also looking at Stanford, Northwestern, Clemson, Wake Forest, Duke, UVa, Princeton, Harvard, and Dartmouth. UVa and Clemson are also public, like Cal Poly, and I know they’ve got some financial pressures, too. I’m wondering if the private universities have as many budget pressures and problems with class availability as Cal Poly???</p>
<p>I’m also wondering if the quarter system may contribute to the problem. I’ve heard that if you get behind during the quarter, it’s really hard to catch up.</p>
<p>Maybe my son has been lucky, but he’s a 4th year Materials Engineering student and has NEVER been unable to get a course he needed to stay on track. Some of the GE’s are the hardest to get, but since they can be taken in any order, you just take one that IS available when your registration rotation comes around. Granted, that may mean taking an early morning or late evening class, or one with a less popular professor (one with lower student ratings), but nevertheless, he has been able to get through all the required classes so far, and should be finished with all major and support courses by the end of Spring quarter this year (his 4th year). Because he has had to repeat a few of the more difficult support classes, he’s a little behind on General Ed, and will still need 3 GE’s this summer to be completely done with his degree. Still, 4 years plus 1 summer is pretty good! (He also did take one GE class, Psychology, online last summer through our local Community College.)</p>
<p>As for the quarter system, you are correct. If you fall behind, it is difficult to catch up since the quarters are only 10 weeks long. I’m pretty sure there are MANY engineering students having to “re-do” courses that they fell behind in and were not able to catch up.</p>
<p>I am thinking about transferring schools (mainly for academic reasons), and so I took a tour of a private school in the midwest. They are definitely not having the same financial problems some public schools are having. I don’t know about all private schools, but I guessing that the majority of them are doing better financially than most public ones right now. California schools are getting hit especially hard though. Other states may not be so bad.</p>
<p>Catching up is not too difficult with the quarter system. If you didn’t take a lot of units one quarter, you just take more the next. What is difficult (at Cal Poly at least), is getting the classes you need. Sometimes this means taking a class at 7 am or one that ends at 10 pm. Sounds fun, right? And while there are plenty of great teachers here, the bad ones you can get stuck with if you really need to take the class can make your life a living hell (or at least make you really hate the class).</p>
<p>The 4 year graduation rate is horrible at Cal Poly. I wish I had known that before my son started there. I didn’t think to look it up before, my bad. The head of the mechanical engineering department quoted the 4 year graduation rate as 15% at the freshman orientation. </p>
<p>My son shares a house with 3 others, all different majors, one non-engineering. None graduated in 4. One (of the engineers) will take 4 years and 2 quarters, the others 5 years (this being their 5th year).</p>
<p>Budget cuts of 1.4 BILLION dollars to the CA college system (500 million to the Cal state system which Cal Poly is part of) can only make it worse. </p>
<p>So, when you hear the Cal Poly administration say “a private education for the cost of a public school” or something like that, don’t believe them. The cost per year for tuition at Cal Poly isn’t so bad, but SLO is not a cheap place to live. And you better plan to be there 5 years.</p>
<p>My daughter is attending a private engineering school on the east coast. Tuition is much higher but she got a fair amount of merit money to offset some of the difference. Cost of living is lower than SLO. And the school has a very good 4 year graduation rate. So, I figure it will cost me about the same, maybe a little less for her schooling compared to my son’s. When you couple that with her entering the job market sooner than if she attended Cal Poly, it seems like a winning situation. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, Cal Poly is a good school. I have worked with many of their graduates and they are good. Just go into it with eyes open.</p>
<p>My son was accepted to the UCLA School of Engineering for this fall. He elected not to go there, but when we went to the Open House for the School of Engineering last spring, just to check it out, we were told by the Dean of the School that the average engineering student at UCLA takes four and a half years to graduate, which makes me think it is more like 5 years. I agree with the above post. The budget cuts have made it almost impossible for a lot of students to graduate in four years. No matter whether you are attending a UC or a Cal State. This is why I am encouraging my younger son who is a junior now in high school to look outside of our state for other college choices. Especially since he is looking to getting a Phd in his chosen field and one extra year in undergraduate will just delay his graduate school time even more. He still wants to attend a UC, but we will have to see and take a look at it when his time comes. If it is four and a half years now, what will it be in two more years? This is why my older son is attending college out of state. Yes, we are paying high tuition, but they guarantee he will graduate in four years, his tuition if fixed at the freshman level tuition so at least we know what we are dealing with, and he can earn a masters in five years at his current school instead of a bachelors in five years. Makes perfect sense to me.</p>
<p>As of Fall 2010, here are the costs for CA residents (according to College Board):</p>
<h2>Cal Poly SLO for 5 years:</h2>
<p>tuition & fees: $6,480 * 5 years = 32,400
room & board: $9,992 * 5 years = 49,960
Total = $82,360 </p>
<h2>UCLA for 4.5 years:</h2>
<p>tuition & fees: $10,781 * 4.5 years = 48,514
room & board: $13,734 * 4.5 years = 61,803
Total = $110,310</p>
<h2>Univ. of Colorado Boulder (OOS public) for 4 years:</h2>
<p>tuition & fees (OOS): $29,493 * 4 years = 117,972<br>
room & board: $10,792 * 4 years = 43,168
Total = $161,140</p>
<h2>USC (private):</h2>
<p>tuition & fees (OOS): $41,172 * 4 years = $164,688
room & board: $11,580 * 4 years = $46,320<br>
Total = $211,008</p>
<p>So unless you have very LARGE scholarships or grants, Cal Poly is still by far the best VALUE, especially for Engineering, Architecture, and Business, as those programs are rated so highly nationwide. Additionally, it’s hard to beat San Luis Obispo on the Central CA coast as a place to live for 5 years of your life!</p>
<p>ralph4, what about the time and salary lost in the job market for the 5th year?</p>
<p>With the further $500 million cut for next year, how much will the tuition raise & how many faculty / class will be cut?</p>
<p>Does anyone know when will CalPoly announce the tuition for Fall 2011?</p>
<p>“ralph4, what about the time and salary lost in the job market for the 5th year?”</p>
<p>You have a point there. IF you are lucky enough to get hired right after college and make $60,000 that first year, you could argue that the foregone income should factor in to the cost of education. In the case of UCLA the $30,000 earned in half a year almost evens the score. But, in this job market, that is a big IF. Also, you would WORK 40+ hours a week for 50 weeks to get that $60,000. It’s not like it evens the score when comparing just the cost of the education. </p>
<p>And as far as “time” lost, I’m not sure that a one year delay of the start of 40+ years of work is such a great loss. When we toured Cal Poly, both our tour guides CHOSE to extend their time at Cal Poly (one to get a minor in Wine and Viticulture, and the other took a light load and some interresting electives) because they were in no hurry to leave SLO and enter the work-a-day world of their parents for the next 40 years.</p>
<p>I agree with ralph4, as a first year, I know many 5th year students ranging from engineering to business, and they were doing an extra year because they CHOSE to. They love Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo and did not want to leave.</p>
<p>My concern is the Cal. budget crisis in the next few years. How do the UC and Cal State systems control the problems of class enrollment & availability with money deficit.</p>
<p>My D is waiting for Business RD in SLO. She got accepted for a few private and OOS schools which have much higher graduation rates. With the merit-aids, she needs to pay around $30,000/yr. for them. X4 would be $120,000. But SLO x5 yrs. would be still less than $100,000 provided nothing change.</p>
<p>Any SLO business major can tell me the department’s 4 years graduation rate?</p>
<p>I got the 4,5, and 6 year graduation rates for the College of Engineering by calling Cal Poly’s Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis
( [Contact</a> Us - IP&A - Cal Poly](<a href=“IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo”>IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) ) who publishes the Cal Poly Fact Book found here:
<a href=“IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo”>IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo;
<p>Scroll down to pages 53-59 to find statistics about the College of Business.</p>
<p>I don’t have any pesonnal knowledge of the graduation rates for Business majors, but you can tell by looking at the flowcharts that Business majors have a MUCH lighter work load than all of the Engineering majors and they get to choose lots of free electives. Engineers get NONE of those. So one would assume the 4 year graduation rate for Business majors is significantly higher than for Engineers.</p>
<p>Business Administration flowchart:
<a href=“http://www.cob.calpoly.edu/undergraduate/files/2010/04/BUS-09-11.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cob.calpoly.edu/undergraduate/files/2010/04/BUS-09-11.pdf</a></p>
<p>Aerospace Engineering flowchart:
<a href=“http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/policy/forms/AERO%202009-11%20Flow%20Chart.pdf[/url]”>http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/policy/forms/AERO%202009-11%20Flow%20Chart.pdf</a></p>
<p>Keepchow, If your D is smart and a hard worker, I’m sure she could get through the Business program in 4 years. My son is about to finish up his Materials Engineering degree in 4 years plus 1 summer.</p>
<p>I guess no one can know for sure what effects the continuing budget crisis will have, but my guess would be that they will further limit enrollment making colleges even MORE selective in California. There is growing emphasis at Cal Poly on getting students through faster (eliminating the bottlenecks) as the longer it takes for a student to graduate, the more it costs the State of California.</p>