<p>Are they comparable to low or mid-tier UC's? If not prestige, what about education-wise? </p>
<p>Are Cal Poly or Cal Poly Pomona viewed in California as good schools?</p>
<p>Of course, UC’s and CSU’s are different in many ways and they both have different variables in terms of comparing them side-by-side but I’ll give you my IMO </p>
<p>The 4 Best CSU’s [Top Tier] that can be (in their right) be comparable to the standards of education given at the UC’s (above “low tier UC’s” such as Santa Cruz, Riverside, Merced)</p>
<ol>
<li>Cal State Long Beach (Flagship campus) [Good in all sectors of majors in this campus]</li>
<li>Cal Poly [Engineering, computer science, Social Sciences division]</li>
<li>Cal Poly Pomona [Specialized Engineering majors, CIS, computer science, Math, architectural division] </li>
<li>Cal State Fullerton [Social Sciences, computer science, math/accounting/econ, Business majors]</li>
</ol>
<p>(above is not a ranking from 1-4 but those 4 CSU campus are equivalent to those in Mid-tier UC’s or even High-tier in some respect)</p>
<p>Cal Poly is a very good school, they specialize in social sciences aspect of their majors such as political science, psychology, sociology, etc. They are also known for their engineering program/computer science program too but not slightly higher than the amount of ‘knowledge’ or opportunities for future careers present in Pomona.</p>
<p>Cal Poly Pomona is also a very good school in terms of engineering (mechanical, civil, etc.), architecture (namely civil), and their prestigious CIS program (Cal Poly Pomona was the first school in the whole nation to spearhead the first computer informational science program) that’s why there are so many corporate/government sponsorship present in the school’s career center (I still keep in touch with a FBI agent recruiter in the CIS program, co-joined with DHS and the DOD). But this school’s accounting/business programs fall short compare to Fullerton and not helpful people there at division.</p>
<p>But not to favor one school more than others, Cal Poly and Pomona is both excellent schools; just that Cal Poly is a bit more selective about admissions (I don’t know why, its not their prestigious).</p>
<p>Hope that helps</p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO is NOT known for its social sciences. It is known foremost for its undergraduate college of engineering (#5 in the US for non-doctoral undergrad), architecture (#4 in the US undergrad), agriculture (one of the top ag program in the US), and business (top 30 undergrad business school).</p>
<p>Due Cal Poly’s “learn by doing” approach to its undergraduate program, most of its graduates are very well prepared to enter and excel at their chosen field of profession with minimal additional training. And because of this, Cal Poly SLO’s graduate are highly sought after by industries, resulting in some of the highest starting and mid-career salaries amongst all universities in the US.</p>
<p>Cal Poly Pomona is a separate campus and unrelated to SLO. It inherited the Cal Poly name because it was once a satellite campus of SLO. </p>
<p>Because of Cal Poly SLO’s strong academic reputation across many professional disciplines, over 40k applicants seek admission to Cal Poly each year leading to all of its programs being impacted. As a result, SLO is able to set its own admission standards substantially higher than the rest of the CSU and on par with the mid-tier UCs (Davis, SB, Irvine). Due to this high admission standard, SLO’s reputation is often viewed as comparable to the mid-tier UCs, and even higher than mid-tier UCs in certain selective majors such as architecture, and engineering. </p>
<p>CSULB is not the flagship campus of the CSU. If there were a flagship campus, it would be SLO because it is widely viewed as best CSU campus.</p>
<p>Yes it is… LB is huge and the board of trustees meets there… the flagship was the one where the admiral hung out… there you go</p>
<p>CSULB and CSUF are not high tiered CSUs. I’d place SJSU and SDSU above them. This is coming from an Orange County local who got into both CSULB and CSUF and didn’t even bother applying to SJSU and SDSU.</p>
<p>SLO is the best of the CSUs in terms of prestige. After it there’s a substantial drop off. I do know that Pomona gets decent recruiting there though, even a few bulge bracket investment banks…</p>
<p>Prestige wise, the Cal Polys are really the only ones that have considerable prestige in themselves. They are definitely regarded as good schools.</p>
<p>But different CSUs may have prestigious departments or schools (can’t give examples because I don’t know much about specific CSUs) or have great job placement. The UCs were designed for research and the CSUs for preparing their students for the workforce. So you may find many programs that have lots of opportunities for internships and high job placements. For example, SFSU has a credential program that gives all aspiring high school science or math teachers absolutely free tuition (for the credential, a 2 year program) and GUARANTEED job placement upon graduation. I don’t know any more examples of this, but I am sure they exist…and I’m sure they exist a lot more than in the UCs. So if you know you want to get a job that either requires a specific undergrad or 2 year grad degree (other examples might include nursing, social work, comp sci, gis, engineering), it might be in your best interest to save some debt and go to a school that might have a higher job placement program.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is networking and internship/job opportunities. I’m inclined to believe that schools located near big cities will have more internship and job opportunities, and the networks will be stronger because students will be less likely to move away. So just based on that, I would say that SFSU, SJSU, SDSU, CSULA, to name a few, would be a better choice than UCR, UCM, UCSC, and possibly even UCD. They might even be better choices than Cal Poly SLO…SLO is so boring and I highly doubt most of the students stick around after graduation. Student networking is probably much weaker when the students disperse immediately.</p>
<p>LB is huge as in campus size?</p>
<p>Charles Reed, the chancellor of CSU, is the one who called Cal Poly SLO the flagship campus, it is not my personal opinion.</p>
<p>
I think this is a greatly valued point to make. A specific industry or company can recruit from many colleges and still be considered “actively” recruiting there. Unfortunately, that may mean 1 visit/year, which isn’t as beneficial to the student as, say, having that industry or company centrally located down the street from campus - which would mean they can recuit any day, all day, and if not, then the student can go to them.</p>
<p>SLO would not be a good option in that regard. SJSU and SDSU have populations nearing the million mark and carry the weight of a comparable economy with them, like SJ being dubbed “The Capital of Silicon Valley”. In fact, I know I read somewhere that one of the big tech company CEOs said he likes to hire more graduates from SJSU as the entry-level engineers than from any other school in the CA Bay Area - a group which includes UCSC, CSUEB, a bunch of privates that have their own Engineering schools like Santa Clara and Stanford, and some would consider UCB in that geography as well.</p>
<p>I don’t see a company taking a whole lot of time to go 150+ miles to recruit when they have a comparable place to do so right in their backyard. Even national companies don’t go to top schools more than a few times a year when those schools are so far out of the way and they can get the same quality of prospective employees locally - even harder is the sell to the applicant when relocation expenses for the position are not paid, which they usually aren’t. Even worse when a student has a certain expectation of a high income right out of undergrad because they went to a more name recognized school.</p>
<p>What you said is true if the school is very localized.</p>
<p>Many of the leading engineering schools are located in some obscure area. E.g. University of Michigan, UIUC, Cornell, UVA etc. the list is quite long. Ultimately once the school has established a solid reputation, especially in technology, firms will go out of their way to recruit from there. </p>
<p>SLO’s leading corporate recruiters are Google, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Raytheon, Cisco, and Apple. It doesn’t suffer from any professional placement problems (full time gig or internships), in fact, it has one of the strongest job placement track record in CA and even the US. Many students choose Cal Poly precisely for this reason. </p>
<p>Amongst public universities in the US, Cal Poly’s starting and mid-career salaries are only beaten by Cal, and UVA. That says a lot.</p>
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<p>The mix of majors likely has a lot to do with it. Cal Poly SLO is heavier in pre-professional majors like engineering, architecture, business, and agriculture than most other well known public universities; its overall school average pay of graduates is not brought down by legions of biology and humanities majors.</p>
<p>Yes, Cal Poly SLO is a very good school if you want to study one of the majors it is well known for, and its graduates have a high job placement rate (note that it is one of two California public universities with a detailed career survey; the other is Berkeley), but be careful of using overall school pay averages in comparisons.</p>
<p>
The exact same thing can be said about SJSU. In fact, I think it goes without needing to say that all of those companies you just named have their HQ in either SJ, SC (Santa Clara), or Cupertino (which is a 4 mile drive on 280 from SJ or SC). The bunch would also include Yahoo and NVidia among many others. SJSU students have almost unlimited access year round to these places. Students from a school like SLO, I guarantee you are not having the same level of access. How this would affect job placement may be determinant of the individual student.</p>
<p>No one is denying that SLO is a great school, in many facets, just that if compared to other CSUs and UCs there can be some noted cons.</p>