help! UCs...Cal Poly...or privates?

College Search & Selection
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Cal Poly shouldn't even be in the mix compared to your other options... it is a great school for certain areas of study (engr, ag, biz), but the humanities departments pretty much exist only as a peripheral consideration to fulfill lib ed requirements.

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<p>I generally agree. Both Cal and UCI have national reputations for their English programs. I don't happen to have the current US News graduate school rankings in front of me, but if you checked them, you would find that both schools are highly ranked (top 10 or top 20) in this field. If you want to go on to graduate school in English, you can safely assume that the committee reviewing your grad school application will instantly recognize and respect an undergraduate English degree from Cal or UCI. This would be true even if you applied to grad schools in (for example) Massachusetts or Virginia. </p>

<p>Cal Poly has a solid reputation in the Western US for engineering and agriculture, but is not known anywhere as a humanities school. The average English professor in Massachusetts or Virginia would probably have little, if any, knowledge of Cal Poly.</p>

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<p>^^ exactly. From what I've found, Cal Poly's mainly known for engineering and architecture. Thus in the humanities field, Cal Poly has little recognition.</p>

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<p>I think UCI is in the top h best grad schools for Creative Writing/English. </p>

<p>Seriously, don't write off UCI. It's an amazing campus, and an excellent Lit school, more so than Cl Poly (which is all science driven). </p>

<p>That being said, your educations will be what you make of it. You could go to a big school with a great reputation, and waste your education. And you could go to a smaller unknown school, and get the most out of it. It's just whether you can see yourself there. If Cal Poly is the right fit for you, go for it, and take advantage of all the opportunities there.</p>

<p>Good luck, and try not to stress too much. Grad school is really what matters.</p>