Daughter got accepted to city and regional planning. Anyone else? Any feed back regarding this major is much appreciated!
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Congratulations to your daughter! I have no feedback on that major at Cal Poly SLO, though I consistently hear good things about the university.
You might have better luck getting responses if you reframe your title. Perhaps something like, “City and Regional Planning at Cal Poly SLO: Feedback please!”
Best of luck to you and your daughter!
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What sort of feedback are you looking for?
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How hard is the major? How selective is the acceptance in it? Jobs post graduate.
It’s not a very selective major. This year they expected 115 applications for 29 spots. Assuming Poly’s typical yield of 33%, it would put the acceptance rate at 75%. That said, selectivity is not a measure of quality. It’s a measure of popularity. IT and Packaging is a similarly “easy” admit, and it’s also a great, off the beaten path, specialized major.
I can’t speak directly to how hard it is, as everyone’s perception is different. It isn’t a math and science heavy curriculum, relying more on things like creativity, planning theory, understanding code, etc.
I’ve seen grades once, from all majors, and they don’t seem to grade as harshly as say math and chemistry.
I can’t speak directly to job prospects either, but according to college scorecard, salaries seem good. There are just over 50 programs. Poly grads earn about the same as USC grads and a little more than those from Cornell.
Hopefully that’s useful. Maybe someone with more direct department knowledge can chime in.
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Very helpful! Thank u!
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Although the overall freshman yield has been around 32%, in the ten years or so preceding the pandemic, the yield in the College of Architecture and Design has been closer to 48% during the same time frame, per the Cal Poly Admissions InfoBriefs that you had linked to previously (https://ir.calpoly.edu/content/publications_reports/infobrief/index).
So, assuming this particular major’s yield is similar to the overall yield for CAED, then the calculated acceptance rate would be closer to 53%.
I just didn’t want folks to have an overinflated impression of the acceptance rate for this major. That being said, it is less selective than many other majors at Cal Poly.
Edited to Add:
Out of curiosity, I just ran a calculation the selectivity for transfer students. Cal Poly stopped reporting transfer student yields by college after 2018, but for the ten years up to and including 2018, the average CAED yield for transfers was around 64%. Cal Poly had a target of 23 transfer applications for 11 spots for the City and Regional Planning major for 2021, so the transfer admission rate is closer to the 75% that you originally estimated above for freshman, assuming that CAED yields are around 64%.
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It’s hard to know for sure what yield to use. It’s a very specialized major with only a handful of other school options. The yield is probably higher than the CP average. Given that the average for the whole institution was just over 30% last year, it will be one of the easier admits at CP. Nothing is a sure thing though. Every single major is impacted.
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But again, the historical CAED yields are higher than the overall Cal Poly yield, likely because the College of Architecture and Environmental Design is well regarded and popular among applicants who are seeking those majors.
I amended my original response, above, to note that the transfer acceptance rate for this major may be closer to the 75% that you were estimating for freshman.
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