CP is a very good school. I think you need to evaluate your options in terms of cost and fit. If you really want to stay in California I don’t think you can go wrong with CP. It is difficult to get into (engineering) because they don’t accept a lot and their algorithm for picking students can leave some wondering. My son applied to their BME program and didn’t get accepted. However, he got accepted to UCSD and Johns Hopkins BME programs two of the top in the country. In the end he decided on Northwestern and loves it. We will end up paying about $27K a year including travel (family income over $150K). Trust me you need to shop around. Private schools are more willing to give out grants and you can up going to a NU, Johns Hopkins, etc for the same cost of CP. Good luck!
@metalmonk28 and @Gumbymom, My son was accepted to ME with those same high stats, so they don’t simply cull the top because they don’t believe they’ll attend. Typically those type of rejections are one of two things, over hyped GPA like reporting schools weighted GPA rather than their Cal Poly calculated GPA or they missed a required class for admissions. Performing/Visual Arts (or what ever that one is called) is the one that can trip up the high achievers that typically avoid classes seen as “fluff.” It’s an automatic rejection with no leeway and no appeal. Another way is lack of math rigor. No calculus is basically a death sentence for engineering admission. Taking math through at least one year of calculus nets 500 bonus points on the MCA. That’s 10% of the total 5000 possible. You just never know by looking at simple things like a self reported GPA and a test score. Suffice it to say, there was a reason. They weren’t rejected because they were “too good.”
@cmms123, CP’s low acceptance rate for BME is more of a function of having only a few spots rather than being a great program. I think all of the programs you mentioned are likely better BME programs but have higher acceptance rates. ME and Aero on the other hand have LOTS of spots, but are still very selective since they are such strong nationally recognized programs.
I think I would rather go to Ohio State. I just received notification of my $12k/year scholarship which should bring the total cost down to $31k which isn’t too much pricier than Cal Poly SLO.
Congratulations on the scholarship! OSU is an amazing place. Cannot go wrong there.
You can’t go wrong either way. They are very different though, one not being better, just different than the other and thus one more suited to a particular student than another. OSU is much bigger. With that comes the perks and drawbacks. It also has four real seasons. It gets much hotter and much much colder than SLO. Some love the static weather of slow. Some long for variation. In any case, congratulations! 
Thanks! Yeah I’m sort of used to that with close to 15 years of living in the suburbs of Minnesota. I’m definitely more suited to the big college culture!
I just received my decision to Cal Poly SLO. I was waitlisted as a Stats major.
My top options as of now are UCSB(if I can get off the waitlist-Actuarial Science) and The Ohio State(Actuarial Science).
Ohio State will give you the big college fun experience - hard to pass up. Nothing like a big conference school for the whole college package. UCSB and CP very different than OS. Go where you feel you fit and will enjoy these four years that go really fast!