Hello, I’m currently attending Cal Poly SLO as a computer engineering major. I was wondering if Cal Poly SLO grads get into top grad schools like Stanford, UC Berkeley EECS, CalTech, MIT, etc? (For Computer Science and/or EECS)
Is there a disadvantage since I’m going to SLO? What GRE & GPA would make a competitive applicant?
@eyemgh can probably answer this better than anyone else.
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I prefer the old format of those reports because they combined the major and the destination school into one view. That way someone could answer the question directly.
Most Cal Poly Engineers do not go to graduate school. They are well prepared to work in industry and that’s what they do.
Of the ones who do, most do not go to big name schools. It isn’t because they are significantly disadvantaged (they are slightly and I’ll get to that). It’s because most stay at Cal Poly because it is so financially efficient.
My son as an example could have gone to Stanford. It was a two year, non-thesis based, terminal MS in ME. Had he done that, it would have taken 6 years total before joining the workforce. The Stanford degree was $50k per year. He was funded at Cal Poly. He was ahead, so he actually completed the 4+1 in 5 years and it was a thesis based Masters. The net effect of choosing Stanford over Cal Poly was that it would have cost him over $200,000 in tuition and lost wages. That was an easy decision to pass on Stanford and it certainly hasn’t hurt him.
This presumes terminal Masters, which is a little different than PhD. This is where a Cal Poly student, without intentional planning, can be a bit disadvantaged.
PhD programs care about three things, GPA, GRE (a little) and prior research. You don’t pick a PhD program based on the school name. You pick them based on the reputation of the professor who is doing research in the area you are interested in. It could very well be that Texas A&M or Wisconsin or wherever could be the best school and not any of the ones you mentioned. What they like to see is that you have some prior research experience, ideally aligning with what they are studying. This is where a Cal Poly student can be hurt. Because there isn’t doctoral research happening at Cal Poly, there are fewer opportunities to get involved.
If you are certain that you want to do a PhD, I’d look for campus opportunities to get involved in research or try to intern some place like a National lab.
Hope that helps.
I don’t know how true this is nowadays. I know someone who graduated from electrical engineering at Cal Poly and got into Berkeley for Grad school this year.
When CPSLO’s career survey results were under the old format, it looked like few graduates went on to PhD programs, except for physics majors where a significant number did.
@ucbalumnus, are you able to find the old format now or is that from memory? I can’t find anything in the old format after 14-15 even though they did it like that until about a year ago.
It is from memory from when I looked some time ago.