How could you have been more successful than a full time offer at Apple and admission to Columbia? Partime/Fulltime stand in for God? 
Most families of high achieving Asian students I know do not consider Cal Poly, mainly because it doesn’t appear on the national university rankings and isn’t well known outside of California. Just like all the other publics here it has race blind admissions, the lower diversity rates are simply because those students aren’t applying. I’m not sure what exactly Cal Poly can do about that. My Hispanic kid felt very comfortable on campus.
Very informative @NLinsanity congratulations on your many opportunities in the future!
Yeah I’ve heard Cal Poly doesn’t appear on the national rankings because almost all of Cal Poly’s programs are undergrad and the national ranking are mainly based on grad programs. According to Cal Poly students the focus on undergrads is nice. It means they get more time with the professors.
Thank you everyone who chimed in. My D finally decided today! Relieved… she’s going to SLO
Got cut off, but after clicking Accept, there was not a follow up page to make a deposit. I hope she didn’t click Decline accidentally.
CP’s Hispanics ratio is around 15%, which is on par with most UCs. Asian is just above 10%, which is way lower than UC (most around 40%). Even Harvey Mudd, which is not a national univ type either, has about 20%. Ivy like schools typically have about 15-20% Asian. This is despite CP’s strong hold in Asian’s favorite Eng/CS programs, and in state of CA. Maybe it’s the name/status or lack of, maybe it’s the location, maybe it’s the more conservative climate at SLO, maybe it’s just that paltry existing 10% that got other Asians think twice. The OP’s argument that his Asian name (but not being Asian) helps him stand out more in CP than UCs, is a stretch at best to convince other Asians to come, and probably irrelevant to most Asians anyway. I mean how many Asians there do stand up comedy. I read somewhere in this thread that says CP is more diversified than UC. What? 60% of CP is white 10% Asian, while UC B/LA/SD is more like 40% Asian, 30% white. The rest of groups are similar. Why is CP more diversified? There seems to be come cult like spinning going on for CP…
@AnxMom2021 check the housing tab, one your housing portal is available you register for housing and make a 2k deposit there.
This is my first post! D accepted admission today too! Thank you all for the helpful info. We are thrilled with her decision to join the CP community.
Reputation amongst Asian Families:
Yea, none of that I disagree with. Those are all reasons I’ve heard for Asians not coming to CP and even considered myself before coming here. CSU is also on a different application form, so people applying to LA/B tend to click the box for every other school so eventually there’s a trickle down of the population makeup to the other UCs. I believe the trend is changing at CP though (the freshman class of 2015 was 17.2% Asian)
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article39538512.html
Standing out:
I believe there’s a gap in our messages. I’m not saying that standing out is an incentive to come to CP but a result of my own subjective experience when comparing to the predominantly Asian high school (42%) that I went to. I don’t believe I changed much as a person, but I do know that I the lost the high school elections and had a lot fewer friends/people who had heard about me before meeting them.
Diversity:
I might be wrong, but I believe what they were arguing is that the population doesn’t match what the real working world looks like. Anything outside of Silicon Valley tends to be a closer match to the population at CP and, even then, you can look at the executive board at Apple and see there’s only 1 person of color in a company where the tech staff is 20-30% Asian.
https://www.apple.com/pr/bios/
Maybe its a glass/bamboo ceiling but I hope in this American and opportunistic heart that its due to a lack of political savviness and maneuverability resulting from self-segregation. I’d like to add CP still doesn’t have it as correct as the Ivy’s in my opinion (most private schools like Stanford/Harvey and etc average 20% because they factor race to have a good balance of diversity but that’s a separate argument).
Cult Spinning:
Bruh, I’m already going to another school and even complimented UCB for being better with engineering. What more are you looking for?
@NLinsanity, is Cal Poly bike friendly? And if so, what type? My son will be a freshman living in the dorms next year and will not be allowed to bring a car. On a scale of 1-10, how necessary (or just useful) is a bicycle for getting around campus and the town?
(Scale Scoring: UC Merced would be a “1” and UC Davis would be a “10”)
@AMCdad, There’s no need for a bike first year. You walk everywhere on campus (campus is hilly) and can take the bus into town (Poly students ride free). Once off campus, a bike is very helpful, if he lives fairly close to campus.
@NLinsanity No I think someone mentioned UC’s 40% Asian is an indication of not being diversified as CP, where white is close to 60%, and that’s when I thought, man, that’s some spinning for CP. Of course some would argue that to say CP Eng/CS is better than all UCs except for UCB is some kind of spinning too. I know many top Asian kids in my area don’t even bother to apply for CSU/CP. But at least the latter is debatable. Now you seem like a promising young man in engineering and perhaps beyond and I wish you luck, but I’d caution your reasoning on diversity esp. as you are an Asian yourself.
It’s dangerous to suggest that it’s a plus (or even that’s the way it should be) for CP when it’s racial composition reflects more of overall population. Maybe for some Asian parents/kids it is preferred that’s fine. Many don’t and nothing wrong there too. There’s already movement in CA to try to remove color-blind policy on college admission, arguing the policy results in 40% Asian on UC and that is not reflecting California’s racial composition. At the same time there’re Asian groups claiming Ivies discriminating them over less qualified applicants from other ethnic groups. Not saying what’s right or not, but you can see the implication. BTW, in Silicon Valley (or west coast overall), where the majority of CP Eng/CS graduates would land after graduation, the Asian tech workforce counts 50%+ easily, if you also include immigrants, just saying.
Thanks, @eyemgh. Once again, you have provided useful information. I appreciate it.
@AMCdad, my son is a freshman living in Cerro Vista. He bought a bike part way through Winter quarter and it was super handy in being able to get down the hill to his 7:00 a.m. class on time! He has liked having it. Two of his roommates (he’s in a 6 person apartment) also have bikes, so it does get kind of crowded since they all keep them inside the apartment.
@berkeleymom4 how do they get them back up the hil??? :))
@socalmom007, good question! I’m guessing the fittest of them actually ride, but walking always works. It would be amusing if there were just a pile of abandoned bikes at the bottom of campus.
@socalmom007 and @berkeleymom4, biodegradable, single use bikes…you heard it here first.
Bike walker for hire, $20/week. Daily one-way trip to anywhere on campus. 
Thanks, @berkeleymom4. I think we’ll just send him without a bike and let him figure it out once he’s lived there a bit. If he ends up in triple, there wouldn’t be anywhere (inside) to store a bike anyway.
@Just4Years
I think you’re referring to my post when you keep saying someone said Calpoly is more diverse than UCs. It’s post #25. Go back and read it again and tell me who’s doing the spinning now. And since we’re talking about diversity, you can easily lookup the makeup of fall 2016 freshmen enrollment for UCSD, UCI, and UCB and come away that +50% are Asians. CalPoly’s white enrollment for Fall 2016 was 56.6%
http://www.ir.calpoly.edu/enrollment-first-time-freshmen
IMO One of the biggest reason why CalPoly is great (yes it’s great!!) and successful is the makeup of the student body regardless of ethnicity. Kids genuinely want to be there for themselves (and I’m sure they had many other options) and not for the sake of their parents happiness. A happy student, more often than not, is a successful one. And also, I’d much rather have my kid work with his fellow classmates than against them 