<p>Hi everyone! UCLA decisions just came out and I found out I was accepted into the EE major ! :] however, i was also accepted to CPSLO for ED and that is the school i plan to attend for undergrad. Everyone, especially my family, is insisting that i made a mistake in applying ED. At the time, I was certain I wanted to attend CPSLO over UCLA. After all, Its rating on USNEWs was higher than that of UCLA's. Additionally, the starting salary of CPSLO grads are higher than that of UCLA's, the tuition is cheaper by about 7000, and the classes at SLO are much smaller than that of UCLA's. All these reasons convinced me that SLO was a better school for my major, but now im starting to doubt myself. I posted this thread more for reassurance, but I would like to know your opinions on whether i made the right choice! maybe the pros and cons of each school would be nice.</p>
<p>On what list is Cal Poly lower than UCLA? I’m wasn’t aware they were even ranked together, seeing as Cal Poly doesn’t have a doctorate program.</p>
<p>I went to community college in northern california, taking a lot of engineering pre-reqs. Most of the kids wanted to go to berkeley, but a good chunk of them also wanted to go to Cal Poly. I haven’t met, not saying they aren’t out there, and engineering student that wanted to go to UCLA. Now I go to school in Colorado, and I’ve heard people out here mention Cal Poly for engineering, but never UCLA.</p>
<p>I’ve always considered UCLA to be one of the 5 top-tier public schools… so don’t get me wrong, it is a great school.</p>
<p>I made the decision to go to a smaller, engineering school over a big state school because I liked the idea of being around like-minded people. If it were me, I’d go to cal poly in a heartbeat. Name recognition for undergrad engineering isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You like UCLA? Go there for grad school.</p>
<p>This is a tough one. What is ED btw? UCLA is one of the most recognized school in the world. SLO will give you an engineering job when you graduate whereas you’ll have to go looking once you graduate from UCLA. Is it easy to switch into engineering at SLO? I personally would go to UCLA, but SLO is a great choice too. I read an article a couple years ago that many people who were accepted into UC’s and SLO tended to go to SLO over the UC’s.</p>
<p>@noleguy33 It’s ranked differently on USNEWS but i looked at the school ratings on the right side lol. (based on a 5.0 scale i think) </p>
<p>@skbryan ED is early decision, which according to SLO is “morally” binding. </p>
<p>Now, I’m also faced with another diliema… I already submitted my SIR for CPSLO b/c it was due by Jan 15. However, i just noticed that at the moment SLO is offering me no aid… while UCLA is giving me a 15000 scholorship… If SLO ends up not giving me any money… i really want to change schools… I’ve read about people getting out of SIR’s for valid reasons and i’m really hoping to switch if neccessary. Has anyone heard of anyone doing something like that?</p>
<p>Do you want to go to grad school or right to work? If you’re more interested in just getting a BS than go to SLO–if you think you want a masters then go to UCLA.</p>
<p>Are you absolutely sure you want to be an engineer? If not then go to UCLA–they are better in everything else.</p>
<p>I would also check how long, on average, students take to graduate–I hear it is longer at SLO.</p>
<p>Lastly, It is harder to get into UCLA engineering than SLO–don’t know if that is a good thing (more intelligent people) or a bad thing (classes may be harder).</p>
<p>Both places are awesome, so whatever choice you make will be a good one:)!</p>
<p>The rating scale used to compare SLO and UCLA is different.
Just because SLO’s number is “higher”, does not mean its a better school. The rating system is comparing SLO with other universities that do not offer graduate degrees.</p>
<p>Go to Cal Poly SLO. The tuition is cheaper, the classes are more personal, and job placement rates are a lot better than those for top UC schools: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1096816-counterintuitive-side-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1096816-counterintuitive-side-engineering.html</a></p>
<p>During a boom, UC students will still have to go looking for jobs. During a recession (or a boom), Cal Poly finds a job for you.</p>
<p>Now which one would you prefer?</p>
<p>UCLA is ranked #19 for USNWR Engineering Undergraduate schools with PhDs
CPSLO is ranked #5 for no PhD’s</p>
<p><a href=“as%20an%20example,%20other%20well%20known%20engineering%20schools%20ranked%20at%20about%20the%20same%20place%20as%20UCLA%20engineering%20are%20Rice,%20Texas%20A&M%20and%20Penn%20State”>I</a>*</p>
<p>this would equate to about the same rank for engineering for UCLA and CPSLO</p>
<p>this from Lima above would be good advice:</p>
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<p>Have you visited both Cal Poly SLO and UCLA? They are very different schools with very different style and cultures. </p>
<p>You need to pick the one that gives the you most sense of belonging and comfort. Ultimately, you need to be happy where you are, because it will be for at least 4 years! </p>
<p>As for getting out of your ED bind with SLO, if you can’t afford the tuition, it is a valid excuse to exit from the arrangement. No one should go broke paying for school. </p>
<p>I did my undergraduate in EE at Cal Poly SLO and my graduate at Harvard, and I have 3 younger cousins who did their BS EE engineering at UCLA. We are all happy with our choice of engineering schools. 2 of them went on to get their Master in EE right after undergraduate in UCLA, then went onto work in engineering. From speaking with them, there is mainly 1 glaring difference b/w Cal Poly and UCLA, Cal Poly’s career placement center is light years ahead of UCLA. I think this accounts for the better career placement rate and higher starting salary in Cal Poly. But otherwise, both are great engineering schools.</p>
<p>So pick the one that you can afford and makes you the most happy. Don’t worry too much about the rankings. </p>
<p>The only caution I would give you is that Cal Poly is brilliant at 4 fields of studies: 1) Engineering, 2) Architecture (#4 in the US for undergrad or something), 3) Agriculture (#2 or 3 in the US or something), 4) Business. Should you decide to not pursue any of these 4 areas, go to UCLA for the academics.</p>
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<p>Cal Poly’s impressively high job placement rate may be more due to the type of student (more career oriented), rather than the school finding them jobs. Certainly Cal Poly is well known enough to attract recruiters to its career center (but so is UCLA), but the difference may be more due to the students paying more attention to career prospects early in (including internships and such long before senior year), whereas UCLA may have more “grad/med/law school or bust”, “academic idealist”, and other similar students who pay less attention to career prospect.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this is mostly speculative, since UCLA does not have any career survey results available. (Cal Poly does have quite a bit of career survey information available on its web site.)</p>
<p>Hey alving017, I’m in the exact same position as you are (minus the ED, but I’ve always been set on Cal Poly until now, and I’m a mechanical engineering major). Either way you choose, you will be going to a great school, so congratulations on being accepted to both.</p>
<p>I myself don’t know which one I’ll end up choosing (especially since I never really considered UCLA since I doubted my chances of getting in), but I’d like to offer you my list of pro’s and con’s that I’ve come up with for myself after talking to a few people in industry and students at each schools (I have visited both), along with research on this site and on each school’s respective site.</p>
<p>Note: These are tailored to my individual preferences and this is what I have gathered from different sources, so not all of it may be the exact truth, just what I read/heard/infered. Also whenever I say Cal Poly, I mean SLO.</p>
<p>Here we go with the list:</p>
<p>Cal Poly ~ Pro’s</p>
<p>[ul][<em>]The hands on way of teaching ~ students I talked to had multiple lab classes each semester, something I really didn’t hear from UCLA students. The student who gave me the tour said she turned down Berkley because of this.
[</em>]There seems to be a strong industry link to Cal Poly. Every student I talked to (about 5) that was an upperclassman had an internship or is scheduled to have one in the summer. The career stats that is on SLO’s website also shows this link after graduation. I also talked with a hiring manager at a major company who praised cal poly grads, putting them in the top-5 as far as undergrads from any school goes. However, he himself was a Cal Poly grad, but nonetheless he was a hiring manager for a major defense contractor. I’ve also heard this from other people in the industry (there are a lot of engineers in my community).
[<em>]The location is beautiful. It was about 15 minutes from the beach and surrounded by mountains. Definitely an outdoor lover’s dream.
[</em>]The engineering facilities by far were the nicest on campus, as they seemed the newest
[<em>]The classes are generally taught by the professors, and kept to a smaller size. I also met one of the professors, and he seemed very proud and enthusiastic about the school.
[</em>]It has a D1 (not FCS though) football and sports. Plus a band and a multitude of clubs.
[<em>]There seem to be countless engineering clubs like concrete canoe, baja, etc that really give you that building experience. This seems really cool
[</em>]The total cost/year is lower by about 7-8 thousand/year.[/ul]</p>
<p>Cal Poly ~ Con’s/Neutral</p>
<p>[ul][<em>]The location. It really is in the middle of nowhere. The town is nice, but small. I grew up in New York and San Diego, so this would take a little bit of getting used to.
[</em>]I am neutral on the party/social scene. It doesn’t really matter to me that much, but I heard it’s pretty decent, and there is always something to do, despite the small town.
[<em>]The Campus is quite meh. It doesn’t really have a centralized theme, and it’s a lot of concrete (and a lot of old concrete).
[</em>]I’ve heard the food is quite horrid. I like to eat, so yeah…
[<em>]It seems to be difficult (but not impossible) to switch majors. Also, cal poly isn’t really known for anything besides engineering, business, architecture, and agriculture, so it’s not the best place if you aren’t positive about your major. I’ve heard all other programs are quite average too.
[</em>]The demographics are neutral for me, since I’m a white male, but they are very skewed towards white, and it is something like 55% male.
[li]The 4 year graduation rate for engineers is is something like 20%, so expect to be there 5 years. [/ul] </p>[/li]
<p>UCLA ~ Pro’s</p>
<p>[ul][<em>]It’s UCLA. There is a bunch of prestige associated with the school, and it is way more well known to the commoner (from my experiences) than Cal Poly. I guess 61,000 applications can speak for themselves also.
[</em>]The campus is absolutely amazing. It really has that college campus feel that I felt Cal poly was sort of lacking.
[<em>]The surrounding area is pretty interesting and seem to be a fun place to be. A lot more alive than SLO, but also very different since it’s part of LA. It has that big city feel that I’m used to
[</em>]UCLA is top ranked for a lot of its programs, so switching majors would not cause trouble in the long run. I also haven’t heard any horror stories about trying to switch majors, so that’s a plus.
[<em>]The engineering department seems well regarded in terms of ranking, and my friend in the program speaks very highly of it.
[</em>]The school seems less vocational and more like what a college is stereotyped to be. Just my opinion.
[<em>]I heard the food is great.
[</em>]It has the big name in sports - Basketball, football, and pretty much every other one. The students also generally have a big sense of pride about their school…
[<em>]There are many Nobel recipients at the school who would potentially teach your classes. That’s amazing to think about.
[</em>]It is a research university [/ul]</p>
<p>UCLA ~ Con’s/Neutral</p>
<p>[ul][<em>]Neutral: After speaking to the people in industry, including my hiring manager friend, UCLA engineering doesn’t seem to have the recognition that SLO has.They didn’t say anything bad, they actually spoke very highly of it, but it didn’t seem to have the same stigma attached to it. I attribute this to the fact that SLO teaches practicality and teaches its students to be in the industry, rather than preparing them for grad school or research.
[</em>]A lot of the students are there to go to grad school, and the undergrad education doesn’t seem to be as stressed compared to SLO which solely teaches undergrads/master degree students.
[<em>]There don’t seem to be as many hands on clubs as at SLO.
[</em>]The class sizes are a lot bigger, especially in the lower division courses. My friends have had enormous lectures, but they do have the additional classes it seems with a TA
[<em>]There aren’t as many lab classes.
[</em>]The 4 year graduation rate is bit better I believe.
[<em>]It costs a lot. ~30k per year, but that’s what loans/scholarships are for, right?
[</em>]The housing situation seems to me like you are almost guaranteed a triple room. Could be a pro or con. I personally don’t mind.
[<em>]The demographics are much more balanced, and are more like my current high school. It seems to be about 35% white, 40% asian, and the rest mixed.
[</em>]The party scene seems to be good. There also seems to be a lot of things to do in the city of LA also. Again, this is neither a pro nor a con for me.
[li]It’s in LA…yea, not the prettiest or cleanest place around.[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>Ok, well that’s it, so hopefully it has been a help to you. You should really look into the schools and visit each one before you make your decision, and make sure to try and get as much info as you can, whether it be from adults in the industry or from current students. Trust me, you learn a lot from that.</p>
<p>As for your ED predicament, well I advise you to contact Cal Poly admissions. I thought it was binding, but you never know. Just make sure to be positive about your decision before you try and back out of it, because you never know how well that will turn out.</p>
<p>Good luck, and maybe I’ll see you at UCLA or at Cal Poly next fall!</p>
<p>/Wall of text</p>
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<p>You have to be careful with 4 year graduation rates in this case. Do they mean “graduation after 4 calendar years” or “graduation after 12 academic quarters”? If a lot of students do internships lasting longer than a summer session, then they may take longer than 4 calendar years to graduate, even if they actually spend 12 academic quarters in school.</p>
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<p>Cal Poly is in Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision (D1 FCS) for football. The well known college football teams like UCLA are in Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).</p>
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<p>Yes, kind of weird for an engineering-heavy school in California…</p>
<p>I can’t see why anyone in this situation would pick UCLA. Think about it, the two main purposes of college are to get an education and to increase your job prospects. Cal Poly leads in both fields; they have smaller classes, greater emphasis on undergrad education, and plenty of opportunities to join engineering clubs. As for job placement, almost all Cal Poly grads find work before graduation or shortly after (UC Berkeley, which is a bit better than UCLA, has a job placement rate of less than 50% in most engineering majors).</p>
<p>Go SLO and never look back.</p>
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<p>I believe the internships were all summer-long programs, but I’m not too sure. One thing to note though - one of the students I talked to was on track to graduate in 4 years, however she was taking a 19 credit course-load this semester and came in with 4 classes covered with AP credits. She also had an internship over the summer I believe, but nonetheless, 4 years seems possible. </p>
<p>One thing however that was said to me was that they have to do a senior year project where the “class” to do this is only offered in the fall quarter, if I remember correctly, and spans the whole year. This was pointed out as a big inhibitor of the 4 year graduation rate by one of the students I spoke with.</p>
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<p>Oops, that was my mistake. I meant not FBS. One thing to note though, I read on a site that cal poly is scheduled to move to the Big Sky conference in the next few years, which is a good thing since some major teams came out of that division in the past. They are apparently also taking strides to try and be included in the FBS system, so they might potentially be there in the future.</p>
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<p>Yea. I found these stats on wikipedia (yes, I know, not the most credible source) for SLO if they are any help: 65.2% white american, 10.7% asian american, and 24.1 % other demographic groups. </p>
<p>At UCLA they are: 35.5 % White American, 32.3 % Asian American, and 32.2% other. I found these on the UCLA website.</p>
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<p>That means that you want to plan your course schedule carefully so that you have fulfilled the course’s prerequisites by fall senior year. Same for any other required or highly desirable course for your major that is only offered once per year.</p>
<p>Here is a [suggested</a> schedule plan for Cal Poly mechanical engineering](<a href=“http://me.calpoly.edu/media/uploads/resources/ME_2009-2011_Flow_Chart.pdf]suggested”>http://me.calpoly.edu/media/uploads/resources/ME_2009-2011_Flow_Chart.pdf). And similar for [UCLA</a> mechanical engineering](<a href=“2010-2011 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Curriculum”>2010-2011 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Curriculum), but note changes in [this</a> FAQ](<a href=“http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/undergraduates/mae-department-curricular-reqs/mae-faq]this”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/undergraduates/mae-department-curricular-reqs/mae-faq). At both schools, these indicate an average of slightly more than 15 credit hour units per term. (However, if you figure out which courses are more or less work than their credit units indicate, you can try to load up on the less work per credit unit courses in the overload terms, and take the more work per credit unit courses in the non-overload terms.)</p>
<p>You can find various stats about the school from the common data sets (go to the school web site and put “common data set” in the search box).</p>
<p>thanks everyone for your posts!!! its been really helpful. At this moment, I’m still set on attending SLO,but has anyone gotten any financial aid from SLO yet ? or are scholorships and aid coming out later?</p>
<p>I can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would attend SLO over UCLA!! You will find a good job regardless of which college you pick. The difference is…</p>
<p>UCLA is ranked #13 by ARWU…in the world. It is one of the best research universities in the country and even has an international reputation.</p>
<p>Although they are both well known in California…you will have a hard time marketing your SLO degree in, say, New York or Boston.</p>
<p>I agree with JamesMadison that UCLA name recognition is bigger than Cal Poly’s nationally. I think name recognition wise even people in Podung USA will have heard of UCLA.</p>
<p>But once you get to East Coast like NYC and Boston, the name is just meh or okay. You have to remember that East Coast is the backyard of all the Ivies (Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Yale, Cornell etc), MIT, and all the Little Ivies (Amherst, Colby, etc).</p>
<p>Let’s just say UCLA name won’t necessarily get you into a Wall street job, not that Cal Poly can either.</p>
<p>So I guess everyone is stuck in the same boat compare to the likes of HYPMS…:)</p>
<p>Ask 10 managers of engineers who they would hire in So Cal: Cal Poly SLO vs UCLA. 9 out of 10 will say SLO. The program is that strong. Go to UCLA if you wish to continue on in Controls for a PHD. Since most people don’t know what that even means, you’d be better off at Cal Poly.</p>
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<p>soccermike, sure no problem, we will do that…</p>
<p>now</p>
<p>Why don’t you ask 10 CEO’s of top corporations in So Cal and ask them who they would rather hire for a Vice President’s job, Cal Poly SLO vs UCLA?</p>
<p>oops, forgot, it would never get to this point, because the CalPolySLO engineer would still be working as a low to middle level engineer.</p>