My son is a student at Cal Poly Pomona and I have been stopping by CC for a few years to offer some experiences for those considering Pomona. My son transferred to CPP in Mechanical Engineering in Fall 2016 and I can share some of his experiences.
If you are a commuter student it is a good choice.
If you are coming here from outside the area it would be a good choice if you are enrolling into engineering or one of the unique majors they offer and are known for.
If you are looking for that somewhat fictional fantasy college experience that party schools have you will not find it at Cal Poly Pomona. CPP is mainly a commuter school and the place is empty on the weekends. There is not a lot around the campus as it is away from Pomona downtown. It is actually on the outskirts of town.
** Those considering the school for engineering **
4. If you are coming for engineering it is the most respected school along with San Luis Obispo among employers in California. My son has gotten some amazing internship offers. Last summer he worked at Northrup Grumman and the engineers there were mostly Cal Poly graduates.
5. Employers send recruiters from all over the country to the engineering career fairs. Many of these companies will only recruit from a handful of schools, with Cal Poly Pomona being one of them.
6.The engineering academics are brutal compared to other universities. If you want to get out quicker go to a UC. While it is more expensive at the UCs, they fail fewer students and you have a better chance getting out in four years. Pomona (and San Luis) will be 5-6 years to get out. My son worked with a student from UCSB and there the professors curved classes to a B average. Not the case at CPP as the professors in mechanical engineering have no problem failing the entire class. It happens too.
7. Engineering is heavily impacted and getting classes can be hard. You have to be flexible, which is a bit easier when you live on campus.
8. Only 1 in 4 of freshman will make it through the engineering program. If going for engineering make sure you are prepared. If you struggled in advanced high school math or barely got by in advanced college math you won’t make it here.
On point 3, the location not being in downtown Pomona is a very GOOD thing. The Walnut, Diamond Bar, Chino Hills area it is snuggled up against is much safer than downtown. On point 8, I wonder if it has anything to do with the caliber of student accepted to the school. Things are different now, but in the past you haven’t needed a 4.0+ GPA & great test scores to get into their program. I wonder if CP SLO engineering has similar outcomes to what you’ve described.
Agreed about point 3. DT Pomona is not a desirable area to live near.
I also suspect that as the caliber of students increase the % of kids succeeding will also increase. Also, if I ever learn that a college professor failed an entire class (if that actually happens) I will personally visit the Chancellor/Dean and make that professor’s life a living hell. They get paid to teach, not fail. If they can’t teach at least a majority of the class, they need (forcibly if necessary) to find another job.
I don’t think SLO dropout rate is as bad because the caliber of student getting in there is higher. In time we think Pomona will improve as the school gets more challenging to get into. My son had a 4.25 gpa out of high school and could not get into SLO. Although they have a higher caliber student at SLO, the education is probably the same. His first year my son participated in the Rose Float club and met some of the SLO engineering students. My son came away that the brutality was pretty similar. If anything, it takes longer to get out of SLO.
When my son transferred into Pomona, his first semester he took intro to mechanical engineering. Most of the class was made up of freshman and from his observations most of these kids were not going to make it. They were not academically prepared out of high school for an intensive engineering program.
One thing about CPP is the mechanical engineering department teaches the base engineering coursework for the entire college of engineering. This includes statics, dynamics, and materials. After you get through these, each discipline takes over the remainder of the education. A good number of these mechanical professors are academically brutal and function as gatekeepers for the entire college. That has caused some bitterness among students from other disciplines because once they get through these guys, life gets easier for them.
My son came in with a 3.85 out of community college and is now a 3.7. Most students receive Cs in their engineering classes, the ones that try real hard get Bs, and then there are few As. Then there are certain professors that are known to fail most of the class and students try to avoid them at all costs. These few bad apples created bottlenecks in the mechanical department because students wait out until these professors are assigned to different courses.
On the positive side the school will bring opportunities. California employers recognize the two Cal Polys provide well qualified engineers and graduates are highly sought after. My son has two internship offers for this summer with Union Pacific and again at Northrup Grumman to choose from. Getting one good internship is a victory, but getting two is amazing. Employers don’t care if students came from SLO or Pomona, they are treated the same in the working world.
The take-away is the Cal Polys are not a cake walk, but the end reward is quite a trophy. A few times a year I ask my son if he is sorry he is going there. Most of the time he says he wish he went to a UC because his life would not be so stressful. However, last summer during his internship he said he was glad he went there as he saw the respect he received from other engineers because of where he went to school.
My husband is a Cal Poly civil engineering grad working locally and my son was just accepted. The value of an engineering degree from CPP is very respected in the engineering industry. The hard work will be worth it! We are all very fortunate to have a great, affordable school nearby.
I was a transfer student as well. I actually applied to some other out of state schools,too. I was able to find a lot of useful information and somehow unbiased reviews of schools but it was kind of hard to find anything about cal poly pomona. So, I’ll make some points and hope someone like me in the same process will read this thread.
Pros & Cons:
+It has a reputation. The career fair has many companies and you can get internships.
+It has a very diverse student group. You can meet all kind of people. It might seem like a vague point but you will deal with all kind of people in work life.
+some teachers are good. They are on the practicality side of the spectrum where UCs might seem very theoretical.Companies value that.
+aerospace program is quite good and has connection to big companies.
+cheaper
-massively under funded at the moment. They are building a new admissions building for $80m. During my orientation, we needed to register classes. Almost none of them were available. The professor said they don’t have money to hire people. You can pledge the 2 year program if you think you can finish but be aware of many extra classes this school forces you to take. Taking classes is a big stress cause.
-education quality is so so for theoretical classes. Some professors are notoriously bad in terms of teaching or personality. Read the reviews but pick out the failure ones because they blame everything on others.
-weirdly, intro classes were stupidly hard and teachers do whatever it takes to fail the class. My friend’s class average was 0.5/100 for a 200 level class. It’s a method to reduce the number of the students because they are just too many students.People everywhere!!! Take them somewhere else.
No TA etc.
-Thinking about grad school? Go to UC for sure.
In conclusion, I can say it has a good reputation overall. They just really need to hire high quality lecturers because you get what you pay for but you still find great professors if you can register. Hope it improves after they finish the money sucking construction stuff.