I’ve heard many times that Cal Poly accepts more students than they can accommodate for.
The housing is supposedly so full that they have to build a new one.
There is no place to park on campus and they are now restricting freshmen from bringing cars.
What is your take on this? Should Cal Poly let in fewer students so they can actually provide accommodation for them instead of the students being just a number?
All schools accept more students than the can accommodate initially since many will not enroll but some years, more students enroll than expected like in 2013, where 800 more students enrolled than expected.
Also SLO and CSU chancellor have stated they plan to increase enrollment overall plus house more students on campus. Many CSU’s and UC’s restrict Freshman from bringing cars so nothing new.
If the schools plan to increase enrollment, then they need to build the facilities required to accommodate the increase along with staffing, faculty etc. before the increase, not during or after
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article56419725.html
To add to what @Gumbymom said, CP accepts about 300% more students than they can accommodate because only about 33% choose to attend. This is called yield. It isn’t an exact science, but it is pretty close. As was mentioned above, sometimes they’re surprised.
Does Cal Poly intentionally over enroll? Probably. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. What is troubling is how over enrollment impacts the student experience and the local community. As a cal state, CaloPloy Slo’s primary mission is to offer higher ed it’s service area’s population (SB SLO and M) counties; hence, the many eng and Ag majors. Talk to residents of SLO and current students. You’ll hear complaints about the university admin has unilaterally overstepped CSU mandate by spending an extraordinary amount of money marketing to out side the service area, negatively impacting the local community and student experience.
Hi there, I’d like to clear something up, Cal States are not meant to service specific areas as much as greater California. Marketing outside of California is necessary as out-of-state students pay a higher tuition and contributes more into the system to offset the cost of reduced education funding since the recession budget cuts. The state only gives enough money for a certain number of in-state students, the rest of in-state students are due to the extra funding provided by international and OOS fees.
@NLinsanity Actually California has a three tier publicly funded higher ed system. With each tier serving a function for the residents of CA. CSU’s mandate is to serve the top 33% of California high school grad’s focusing on the needs of particular service areas http://www.calstate.edu/sas/onestopkiosk/documents/CSULocalAdmission-ServiceAreas.pdf We can all agree that OOS and international students bring a diverse texture to the campus experience. However, introducing OSS to the pool was never intended as profit center. In fact the CA master plan outlined high standards for OOS students in an effort to ensure California received priority. “Undergraduate applicants to the state colleges and the University who are legally resident in other states be required to meet higher entrance require- ments than are required of residents of California, such out-of-state appli- cants to stand in the upper half of those ordinarily eligible.”
@Gumbymom What other CSU’s restrict 1st years from bring cars to campus?
But we all know that isn’t true, the UC system got caught admitting out of state students with lower stats over California students, because of the revenue. Many of the UC’s are over 40% out of state and international. Everything I’ve read indicates Cal Poly does this too.
@socalmom007 I have to agree. But it’s just speculation, since CPSLO does not disclose tiered admission stats. Someone with free time to burn could access the raw data under “freedom of information” California Public Records Act § 6250.
When Armstrong was hired to be President at Cal Poly he stated his intent was to grow the campus to 25,000 (it had a 17,000 capacity per their Master Plan. It did not matter to him as he increased the student population to more than 21,000 (from around 17,000) in 5 years. It is still growing about 1-2% a year, but the new dorm should help reduce some of the problems. This was a Cal Poly decision and he grew the population well above the CSU “goals”. Luckily the students make the best of it, and he is slowly realizing he needs to grow the number of classes and professors. Some embrace his decisions as more students get to attend Cal Poly, some are not so happy as he tends to act before he prepares the campus to accommodate the growth.
California schools have been forced into this corner (as have many other states) due to the massive cuts in state funding. Back in the day, a CA resident could attend college for next to nothing because the UC and CSU budgets were covered by the state. Now, partly due to administrative bloat and the facilities arms race, but primarily due to funding cuts, 45% of the CSUs budget it from tuition.
As the Mom of a current freshman daughter- extremely happy Electrical Engineer… there were a limited number of parking passes issued to Freshmen. They highly encourage using the great public transportation system and do a lot of carpooling. She did not take her car initially, but in November we looked into the parking pass situation. She applied to get a parking pass and received one 2 days later (at the time she was able to pick between 3 lots that had open spots). She likes having the ability to leave campus if she wants, but sometimes wishes she had left it at home.
At the time of housing application, she and her roommate (she met online) decided to try for a double room but were not expecting it- prepared for a triple based off of info from other students. They submitted housing applications on April 6 (they have to choose each other using ID numbers) and also requested their favorite 5 learning communities. They got a double room in their first choice learning community. It seems that if you submit housing request earlier, you have a better chance at getting the housing you want. Most of their friends had similar experiences.
She is incredibly happy, has made great friends, feels supported academically, emotionally and socially. The “Learn by doing” is incorporated everywhere. I can’t express how thankful I am for CP. Highly recommend and happy that daughter number 2 just got accepted.
I will say, as a graduate of a way more overcrowded CSU, SDSU with 33k students, Cal Poly has done a pretty great job of growing without throwing education out the window. Their faculty to student ratio is 19-1, not terrible for a public, compared to SDSU’s 28-1… which I find horrid.
OOS has grown substantially but I know of no CSU or UC campus even near 40% out of state (unless you consider UCSF which is a med school with no undergraduates), it is easy to find. At Cal Poly about 15% are OOS and foreign. Highest percent of OOS undergraduate students is probably Berkeley, with about 76% in state, higher percentages can be found in graduate programs, but overall 76% of all students are from in state, and 83.5% of undergraduates are from in state.
I’m not sure over enrollment is “bad”. Obiviously there’s a tipping point for over saturation.
Good info from @lovingmyfam . Learning the tricks to work around over enrollment, preparing ahead of time and remaining positive are strong habits for college and life.
Here’s an article that breaks down how the in state/out of state cerfuffle began: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-out-of-state-20140818-story.html
At UCLA out of state students comprise over 32% of the population, but out of state and out of country applicants comprise over 42% of acceptances, they were indeed admitting out of state applicants with lower stats than in state applicants.
As far as Cal Poly goes, it doesn’t have the out of state and international reputation to attract as many out of area applicants as the UC’s, and I think that’s a good thing for California students, it’s kind of a hidden gem.
The college of engineering is well known nationally and attracts quite a few out of state applicants. Poly does cap the percentage of the class they will allow to be from out of state, I think, at 18%.
For those wanting to know the residency of UC students this is the official site, you will notice that undergraduate programs have a much higher instate enrollment than if you take the entire student body. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance for CSUs try here http://www.calstate.edu/as/stat_reports/2016-2017/f_16toc.shtml
That’s for the whole UC system though, why would anyone pay out of state and international rates for the lower UC’s?