Well Purdue is #62 on the National Rankings; It is Tier 1. http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/purdue-1825
Check out the colleges you’ve applied to on US News and see if they’re on the National Rankings. This will indicate how prestigious the college is and how their recognition is nationwide.
A few things. Big employers do hold CalPoly in high regard, my employer (global software company on the west coast) does frequent recruiting trips and as far as I can tell there are more CalPoly employees than Purdue graduates. This might be related more to the proximity of the school to my employer than to the intrinsic value of the school. Once you get the opportunity to interview or do an internship the only thing that matters is how well you do and not the school you’re from. And you do get the opportunity for those interviews at both CalPoly and Purdue, at least for Computer Science, Software, etc.
I interviewed and worked with hundreds of college graduates. I have seen some (not many) ivy league graduates struggle in interviews and on the job and I have seen absolutely brilliant and successful graduates from small, relatively little known colleges from all over the country. I do not know for sure, but I am not convinced you get better access to professors at a research university or that UCs have it better when it comes to getting into classes or changing into an impacted major. I have a friend at CMU (twice as expensive private college) who tells me it is easier but not straightforward to get in all classes you want as a freshman. Yes my daughter finished her freshman quarter with no sure thing on classes for the winter quarter, but now she has a good set of classes lined up, still keeping her on track to graduate in 4 years. And she gets to do her Math class with the head of the department and she loves it. He suggested to her minoring in Math and yes, it is likely to happen in 4 years. I am not sure how much access undergrads get to those Nobel laureates at UCs, who spend their time at conferences and having those masters and PHd students writes papers. I know a Purdue graduate who told me the first day of orientation they told them: “everybody, look to the left and to the right. Only one of the three of you will actually graduate from Purdue”. That’s the nature of the rolling admission system they have.
Is CalPoly better than Purdue or UCs? I do not know. Take a hard look at your situation and try to decide for yourself. Visit the schools, ask yourself questions about what you want, take a hard look at all other options you might have. Make your own decision based on that data, listen but don’t be swayed by the “cheerleaders” 
College is really what you make of it. Having to choose between Purdue and CalPoly is a fabulous problem to have, make the best of it and don’t look back. Good luck!
^^^^^ OP, read the above from iulianc. These are wise words.
The last thing -the VERY last thing - I would base my decision on is Tier 1 vs not-Tier 1…I’m not even sure what that means in the world of actuarial science. The best thing you can do is contact the actuarial department at Cal Poly and find out about recruiting there straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s not a business major, or a finance major, or a computer science major, or an engineering major. It is typically and primarily a math major with components of those other things thrown in. I am 100% confident that Cal Poly would have an excellent math department that is respected far and wide.
Find out about actuary recruiting there and make an informed decision. And remember, a savings of $15k + per year is a very compelling reason to choose Cal Poly. That’s $60 k over four years, not to mention travel savings for you, a Californian. I do love Purdue, and the actuary program is very good, but many more things should go into these types of decisions.
absolutely correct. The main decision is up to you, do your research and go visit the schools. In my opinion, I would choose Purdue because it is known nation wide and because of their ranking. I remember when I interviewed for Constant Contact in San Francisco, the Director of Engineering there did not know what Cal Poly was. The company only considers the top 100 schools on the National Ranking. Choose wisely.
My knowledge of actuarial science is limited. I have no idea how Cal Poly stacks up.
What I can say is that several points made on this thread are simply incorrect. The number of Nobel Prize winners says a lot about the PhD programs. It says NOTHING about undergrad. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the undergraduate experience is inversely related to the number of Nobelaureates on staff.
Rankings really mean nothing. They are easy to rig by the institutions and they are simply products of their methodology. It may or may not mean anything to your search. Look at rankings with a big grain of salt. If you do use them, make sure you understand what they are ranking. You must study the methodology.
Lastly the reason Poly doesn’t rank in the same realm as UCSB, UCB and UCLA has nothing to do with tier 1 vs. tier 2. It has to do with the fact that the USNews ranking methodology doesn’t score schools that offer PhDs with schools that don’t.
In the end, where you went won’t matter much if at all after your first job. The $60k isn’t something to scoff at, plus travel expenses to the Midwest won’t be cheap either.
Good luck!
Now i’m going to assume that you aren’t actually going to take into consideration people’s opinions or thoughts on this website. The best thing you can do for yourself is to do the research on your own. Take the initiative for your future and call the schools themselves and ask your questions. Do not listen to people’s biased or non biased opinions. Good luck.
comparing apples to oranges with the usnews ranking. CalPoly isn’t ranked among top tier universities because it is not a research university. UCSD, Berkeley, CalTech, Stanford, MIT aren’t even in the same bucket when trying to compare programs so it means fuck all when you post these rankings.
Saying Cal Poly is highly ranked is like saying you’re the #1 football team in the nation…club football, not professional football that is.
really, outside of CA CalPoly doesn’t have a big of a reputation as Californians make it to be. it’s well regarded in CA because of its engineering program and that the biggest tech companies are in CA as well. but outside of that, you are really pulling if you think it stacks up to other more reputable universities with established research programs, especially outside of engineering.
honestly in my experience with undergrad and college, i would pick the most reputable school with the best networking sources. CalPoly is not this, unless you are an engineering major planning to work in CA.
I guess that’s why Aviation Week and Space Technology named CP the best school in the nation to recruit aerospace engineers, ahead of Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and MIT, I guess that’s why CP is Apple’s #1 school, I guess that’s why the Alfred P. Sloan foundation picked two schools to jointly develop iPython, CP and UCB, I guess that’s why the Wall Street Journal puts CPs business school in the top 25 at #22 with Stanford at #16 and UCLA at #17, because Cal Poly is a backwater school that no one has ever heard of.
You are right about one thing @zinrokh, it is apples and oranges. You can pick a school that is known for its graduate school for undergrad, because that’s what the rankings are ranking, the graduate programs, and enjoy intro to computer science with 1000 of your closest friends (that’s how many students are in that class at UCB), never meet your professor and suffer through TAs who have little command for English, or you can choose a school with a great reputation for teaching undergrads, CP being one of them.
@eyemgh - Yes! you’re sure right, it’s apples and oranges. There is no way that Calpoly students are on par with MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Gatech. You can judge the quality of a college by the quality of students enrolled, it’s pretty much self-selected. I’m a Californian, live in Bay Area a.k.a Silicon Valley & 90% of my circle of friends
are engineers. Some of my friends’ kids, the best ones go to first tier UC (UCB, UCLA) & Ivy, the middle of the
roads go to UCSD, UCSB. A bit lower go to UC Davis, Calpoly. The bottom of the ladders go to SJSU, UC Merced,
UC Santa Cruz and community colleges.
Don’t take Wall Streets Journal article seriously,
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703376504575491704156387646?mod=WSJ_PathToProfessions_MiddleTopHeadSumm
Once I read that for Engineering rank : Iowa State (rank:14) beat Carnegie Mellon (Rank:21) , this article
is a trash!
@metalmonk28 don’t compare Purdue with Calpoly, they’re in the different league. I suggest Purdue, if 42K/year doesn’t make your parents’ financial future in a great distress. Otherwise, Calpoly is fine, if you plan to stay in CA.
@eyemgh - Calpoly is not Apple’s no.1 school. Check this out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/where-did-google-apple-college_n_1387567.html
Forgive me for jumping to the conclusion that the OP probably doesn’t qualify for CalTech, MIT, UCB or UCLA. If so, he probably wouldn’t be torn between these schools.
In your shoes, if it were my money, I wouldn’t spend an extra $20k/yr to go to Purdue. Fine school but, so is CP SLO - nobody is going to snub you because you graduated from CalPoly.
Totally anecdotal but, I know a girl from CA who was admitted to Purdue but denied by SLO (and Chico State) last year as a Bio major. Take that for what it is worth.
Also, It doesn’t snow is SLO… San Luis is a much nicer place to spend 4 years than anywhere in Indiana. Pick a day, pull up the weather in each community and tell me where you’d rather be.
@Kathsj, I can’t speak for anything but the most competitive engineering majors (ME, BME, Aero and CS), but the quality of student at CP as defined by the semi-objectives available, GPA and test scores is absolutely on par with the top schools. In fact, for those majors, CP was the most selective public in CA last year. This forum is littered with students accepted to UCB and UCLA only to be rejected by their “safety” school, CP.
As for your remark about Iowa State, their UG engineering program is HIGHLY regarded. My son was told that for UG Iowa State was better than Stanford. The person who told him that had a PhD in engineering from…Stanford. He was also told to choose CP over Cal Tech for UG by not one but two Cal Tech/JPL professors. I’m not saying that CP is the be all end all. Each person needs to decide if it’s a fit for their academic and financial goals. It is simply silly though to dismiss Poly because it’s a CSU.
I don’t say Calpoly is below par. It’s just not in the same league with Purdue, UCB, UCLA, MIT, Stanford, and the like. Calpoly rejected students who are accepted in UCB, UCLA , Purdue because Calpoly is 100% sure that it is only a safety in the eye of these high caliber students. Calpoly looks for students who are a match, a fit within their overall student’s profile. Their yield management staffs know that there is no way that these kids would enroll, especially if they can’t offer a pretty nice financial package since they don’t have large endowment fund. UCs have Regents scholarship (merit based) , Blue & Gold Opportunity plan/scholarship (need based), also Middle Class Scholarship program for households earn up to 150K/year. Calpoly has none, other than Calgrants (need based) and other really small scholarships (from alumni).
looks like i touched a nerve. As I said, pick a school based on its networking potential and reputation. Cal Poly has connections with the aerospace industry, but you’re not going to find the same connections trying to find a job on wall street. I’m an aerospace engineer at Cal Poly. The reason why Cal Poly has such a favorable reputation with Aerospace giants is because Cal Poly literally drives all their aerospace students to the front door of Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and NASA during Senior Design.
Apple#1? no
CP’s business school isn’t ranked near Stanford or Harvard. I had to scour the internet to find that claim but it turns out CP’s business major, not school, is ranked that high. Really? Ranking majors now? Let’s compare CP to Stanford based on it’s laundry services next.
unless you have taken undergraduate courses at other universities i would really think twice if you honestly believe CP’s undergraduate education is vastly superior to any other school. it’s slightly better, but not enough to fall for the propaganda of “learn by doing” i can confirm that at least 3 years out of the 4 years of coursework is identical to any other engineering program in the US. identical books, identical course layout, identical midterms. Cal Poly throws in about 3-4 extra lab sections for their degree requirement. it’s not a huge leg up. any person who did 1 internship while completing their degree vs. a CP student who did none is going to have a bigger “learn by doing” advantage.
oh, and by the way. Berkeley actually has a lower student:teach ratio than Cal Poly. plenty of cal poly classes are in the 130 student mark with wait lists of 70+. It’s student:teacher ratio actually is not any better than other schools.
@Kathsj, that’s a common myth portrayed about CP, likely by those who didn’t get in and simply can’t believe it. They convince themselves that they were too good for CP. It’s actually well documented that it is not the case. Poly admits on a strict algorithm with no human intervention. They don’t have a “yield management staff”. They never reject anyone with an MCA high enough to make their cutoff. If they did then they wouldn’t have average GPAs and SATs for the engineering department that they do. Remember, those averages are pulled DOWN by several engineering majors that admit well over 50% of their applicants. There is no Tufts Syndrome at CP. So, is Cal Poly in the same league as Purdue, UCB, UCLA, etc.? It depends on what you are measuring. The “ranking” system that we all know, US News, has in interesting methodology for undergraduate engineering. It is based 100% on institutional reputation as determined by other institutions. Where are engineering reputations forged? UG education? Nope. Doctoral research programs and faculty.
@zinrokh, I misquoted, according to Wired in 2014, CP was in the top 5 for Apple. As for the business school, of course CP isn’t Harvard or Stanford or UCB. I threw that in there mainly tongue in cheek, but semi-seriously to show that CP business is in some national discussion circles. Remember the OPs original question, is it worth $60k more, not including travel expenses, to get an UG degree in actuarial science from Purdue vs. Cal Poly. Somehow it devolved into a CP bash session, mainly centered around the simple fact that it’s a CSU.
My contention certainly isn’t that CP is the best anything in the land, but that it isn’t worth $70+k more to go to Purdue and that it is every bit as good as the UCs for SOME undergraduate majors.
@zinrokh said it best.
@Kathysj I am a Financial Aid Director at a Northern California High School and you are incorrect about the Middle Class Scholarship only being available at the UCs. It is actually part of the CA Commission that funds Cal Grant and is available at BOTH UCs and CSUs. Also, there are several merit/need based scholarships at Cal Poly and other CSUs that rival the Blue/Gold and Regent (impossible to get–witnessed first hand). Students have received full tuition at Cal Poly that have graduated from my high school.
Regarding teacher:student ratio being superior at UCs is also a myth, as I had a UCB freshman that returned during break just today that said she will have to crash 3/4 classes next semester. A Tulane student complained to me over break about difficulty in getting classes as well, and he is paying over $60K/year for that…
They are all crowded. Cal Poly is an absolute bargain at $20K/year, and it has an excellent reputation in most industries. I counsel all my students to seriously pay attention to ROI when it comes to choosing your college. There really isn’t another school in California that can come close to Cal Poly for the amount of money.
Go to the school where the student body in your field of interest is at a higher level intellectually, you will be challenged there.
My friend got rejected from Cal Poly SLO with a UC GPA above 4.0 and a 2320 SAT. How do you explain that?
My younger son had 4 friends apply last year for ME with 4.0+ GPA’s and 2200+ SAT scores. All denied and they are going to UCLA (2), UCSD (1) and UCSB (1). Just never know??