Cal Poly is well known for its engineering and top rated architecture program.
It is well known for engineering, but it does not have the out of state and international reputation of the UC’s. A lot of my daughter’s friends are first generation Americans, their parents, predominantly from Korea and India, didn’t have Cal Poly on the short list at all because it doesn’t have the cache of many other schools. We think it’s perfect, and we feel blessed our daughter was accepted, but I think Cal Poly’s reputation is more of a local phenomenon.
Cal Poly’s entering class last year was 13% Asian. Compared to the mid tier UC’s that is quite low. So I suspect it is not held in as high as regard in immigrant populations.
The UCs and CSUs are flooded with applications. If they were private institutions, they could simply become more selective, which would be no problem. But the reality is that they are public institutions, and this means that they are under tremendous political pressure to remain accessible, which means squeezing in as many California residents as possible. This pressure is particularly intense at the UC schools, but Cal Poly and other CSUs are affected too.
There are 9 undergraduate UC campuses and 23 CSU campuses. Of those 32 schools, Cal Poly had the third-lowest acceptance rate last year, at 29.5%. The only public schools in California that accepted a lower percentage of applicants were Berkeley and UCLA. How do you tell the Legislature and the Governor that Cal Poly should accept fewer students, when the acceptance rate is already one of the lowest in the state ?
@socalmom007 if you adjust the parameters you can get it for each individual campus too. You can choose the data fields. You will see that the lower UCs don’t have as many oos for either undergrad or grad. I guess if it is best school they can get in, the few who choose Merced for example, must find it worth if, even if we don’t.
@socalmom007 the reason most oos and international don’t know about Cal Poly is that it is a Master’s college so doesn’t get on the best university lists most use. They are all Universities that offer PhDs. When people look at undergraduate ratings by major, then Cal Poly stands out but few know to look at that. Employers know the school which is why it is always near the top for earnings, and employment opportunities and value. It will never be number 5 on US News, even though it actually is rated number 2 Architecture (behind Cornell) and in the top 10 for most Engineering, with a few other top ratings. Definitely an interesting school. Many of my son’s first generation friends’ parents called me asking why he went to a state school, I too was not for it until I did the research.
@Corbett What we need to do is get the Legislature to add a new category and create another Cal Poly, many of us suggest it to be in the Salinas area which would be close to Silicone Valley and the original campus. Instead the CSU system keeps wanting Cal Poly to be more like a CSU while Cal Poly is the star of the CSU system and they should be trying to make the other CSU’s more like Cal Poly.
I actually got one of my daughter’s friends to apply by printing out the payscale.com ranking for engineering. Once people see how actual graduates fare, they’re more impressed with the school. We native Californians tend to know how good it is.
This is a little outdated (2015) but it shows how Cal Poly is highly ranked in CS and Engineering. http://www.businessinsider.com/best-computer-science-engineering-schools-in-america-2015-7/#50-digipen-institute-of-technology-1
We are getting a bit off topic, but rankings in general are HIGHLY flawed because their methodology is typically suspect. The Grand Dame, USNWR has a very simple methodology. It ranks ONE thing and ONE thing only, Institutional reputation as rated by other Institutions. The problem with this is that they are ranking the output of their graduate research. It has NOTHING to do with what the undergraduate experience will be like.
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but rankings in general are HIGHLY flawed because their methodology is typically suspect. The Grand Dame, USNWR has a very simple methodology. It ranks ONE thing and ONE thing only, Institutional reputation as rated by other Institutions.
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Unless I’m missing something, I think you have another ranking in mind.
USNWR says it uses several weighted factors, including:
22.5% graduation and retention rates
22.5% undergraduate academic reputation
20.0% faculty resources
12.5% student selectivity
10.0% financial resources
7.5% graduate rate performance
5.0% alumni giving rate
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings
@eetrojan, not for engineering.
Ah. Got it. I’m an electrical engineer and I didn’t even know that separate ranking existed.
If I asked you which one I’d like better, a Porsche or a Chevy truck, you probably say the Porsche. In reality though you’d want to know more, right? What if I wanted to haul wood, or to pull a boat? What if I weighed 350 lbs or only had $30k? That’s why methodology is important and no methodology is as important as what’s relevant to the individual student looking for the right fit.
The out of state student population at SLO is only around 85%. I can tell you that on campus it feels much lower than that.
As far as serving the local community, SLO does give some extra application points to local students and feeder CCs. This seems perfectly fine, but California should not feel the need to limit their schools to only california applicants, after all many California residents go to out of state schools too. It would be in their best interest to provide a diverse applicant pool and not limit themselves to just instate students.
You meant 15%, right?
Fall 2016 -
Geographic Origin of Freshmen:
San Francisco Bay Area: 30%
Central Coast (San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Monterey counties): 6.8%
Los Angeles area: 20.8%
San Joaquin Valley: 7%
San Diego area: 7.4%
Sacramento area: 6.5%
Other California Counties: 4.7%
Other U.S. states: 15.7%
International Students: 1%