Why apply broadly. I think u have good chances at some middle UCs as I saw your stats in another post.
Most UCs are nationally ranked school while Calpoly SLO is regional top schools. Personally I prefer my kid go to those UCs over cal poly if cost similar.
SJSU has nice CS program & rank #1 in landing job in silicon valley after graduation (higher than ucb cs graduate)
Part of the rankings problem for Cal Poly is that it does not offer doctoral degrees. This keeps it out of the conversation about best national universities. To me, that’s only important if I’m looking for a doctoral program to enroll in or I truly need national name recognition. When comparing CSU’s and regional universities, Cal Poly is usually ranked near the top even when the other schools offer doctoral degrees. If all things were equal, Cal Poly would be rated a mid-tier UC by most analysts.
Cal Poly is much cheaper than a UC unless you live very close to one. It would have been almost the same amount of money ($2,000 difference) for my son to commute 25 miles to UC Davis as it is for him to live on campus at Cal Poly.
@UCBalumnus1, this is EXACTLY the mindset that gets people making poor decisions about their school choices, blindly following “rankings.” Do you know what the ranking methodology is for USNWR for engineering? It’s 100% “institutional reputation.” Where do engineering programs make their reputations? Doctoral research and faculty. The rankings have NO relevance to the undergraduate experience and they say nothing about outcomes, even for the majors that rank other things besides reputation. There are students every year who get into both Cal Poly and UCB choose Cal Poly. Why would they do that? They prefer small class sizes, taught by professors and not TAs and they prefer to have access to high quality facilities usually off limits to undergrads at research institutions. That’s why. I personally find it mind boggling that someone would pay to go to a school where Intro to CS has over 1000 students in the lecture. It’s the biggest lecture in the nation. There are LOTS of sheep VASTLY overpaying for an underwhelming undergraduate experience because all they did in vetting their choices was look at rankings. Caveat Emptor.
What @eyemgh said. I’d prefer my child to go to SLO over any UC and it’s a pretty simple matter–a focus on undergraduate education where professors actually teach.
I think I got a good data point for you.
Below is are the California Public Schools ranked by SAT composite scores of Freshman class. Extracted from USnews. Berkeley is not reported, but probably higher than these.
SAT composite.
University of California–Los Angeles 1300
University of California–San Diego 1271
University of California–Santa Barbara 1265
California Polytechnic State University–San Luis Obispo 1251 <===
University of California–Irvine 1204
University of California–Santa Cruz 1182
University of California–Davis 1174
San Diego State University 1114
California State University–Maritime Academy 1076
University of California–Riverside 1067
California State Polytechnic University–Pomona 1035
San Jose State University 1035 <===
California State University–Long Beach 1023
California State University–Fullerton 1022
California State University–Chico 995
Sonoma State University 984
University of California–Merced 977
San Francisco State University 974
California State University–San Marcos 961
California State University–Monterey Bay 952
California State University–Fresno 908
California State University–Stanislaus 905
California State University–San Bernardino 888
@rgosula, this is interesting data, but in many ways misleading. Some of the schools admit by college, while others, like Cal Poly, admit by major. There’s a VAST range between the most competitive and least competitive majors. Hence, overall statistics aren’t very useful. The average for the College of Engineering at Poly was 1467 last year. Computer Science is one of the most competitive admits, so it’s certain that their mean is even higher. I would imagine that to be true at both UCB and UCLA. It is a reasonable metric in measuring the overall strength of a student body, but its utility is questionable when it comes to divining meaning for an individual.
Edit: Upon further inspection, this data must be old. Every College at CP now averages over 1300, with the overall average 1391. Relatively, it might not mean much if all the other schools have risen too.
I just extracted it off of usnews. But maybe they themselves are outdated. I was just finding an “argument” for the OP to use with parents who care about rankings… I know it only means what it means.
For grins, I looked up the most recent acceptance stats. It makes @rgosula’s point very strongly! 
Median SAT
1465 Stanford
1391 Cal Poly
1390 UCLA
1385 UCB
1360 UCSD
1330 UCSB
where did you collect this data?
since we are throwing out rankings, check out the high school rankings according to SAT:
http://schools.latimes.com/sat-scores/ranking/page/1/
UC publishes freshman profiles every year. The report the 25th and 75th percentile. I took the average of the two in order to get the median. Cal Poly published the 50th percentile. I got Stanford from the Common Data Set. I linked UCLA below.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/ucla/freshman-profile/
I have been in several UC campus & Never experience “over 1000 students in the lecture”, mostly 100-200 per class.
Its important to look at cost to attend & school location, reputation and rank when choose college:
(1) cost: for most california low to middle income family, net price to attend UCs almost same as CSU
so check with your parent & calculate your net price.
(2) college location, reputation & rank
According to: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings , the ranking is based on:
There are reasons why UCs ranked very high. I would go to UCs if admitted, but respect others choices.
My D has similar stats & interested in cal poly slo too (mostly influenced by high school teachers (lots from cal poly)). It’s fine with me. I like cal poly MCA to figure out your chances versus guess UC admission chance.
So apply broadly & calculate your admission chances and cost to attend. Don’t fall into love with one school !!!
Work with your parents & make wise decision.
@eyemgh It looks to me like the UC and Cal Poly values are the midrange of the accepted students, not the enrolled students. The Common Data Set for each school lists percentiles quite a bit lower and that reflects the students that are actually attending. The 2016-2017 CDS numbers at Stanford are even higher than you listed - wow!
Edit: @rgosula’s data in post #24 is what I see when looking at common data sets.
In general I agree with most things said here, I highly recommend you pick your school based on the best possible outcome for your career. Sometimes the college you go to will certainly help it, and UC will especially help if you land in academia, but in my experience in the tech industry and based on research I’ve seen published, it does not make much of a difference in industry longer term.
Just a data point (from 2013) to the specifics of @UCBalumnus1 statement about intro CS class size at UCB.
http://www.dailycal.org/2013/09/03/how-big-is-uc-berkeleys-biggest-class/
“This fall, CS61A has more enrolled students than any other undergraduate course at UC Berkeley, with a roster of a whopping 1098 people.”
This link has a nice graph suggesting the class has grown to over 1,300 recently:
http://www.t4a.org/a-students-perspective-on-expansions-in-computer-science-education/
@youcee, I accidentally pulled the data from the Stanford CDS from the prior year. The equivalent year is 1480 for the 50th percentile. Stanford is one of the rare schools where the data between admitted and accepted will be virtually identical. It’s because their yield is very close to 100%, so the accepted students are the admitted students. My presumption is that the data for Cal Poly and the UCs is for admitted students as they refer to it as a class profile. Accepted students who choose not to attend are not part of the class (at least the way I make sense of it).
That was my presumption too, but I don’t think it is correct based on the CDS data they all report.
In India and may be in some other countries, polytechnic means a 3 year diploma after 10th grade. May be that’s the reason for not liking the term.
@srk2017, very perceptive. That could indeed be the issue. In the US “Polytechnic” is presumed to be the same as “Institute of Technology.” I doubt they would have any issue with MIT or Caltech. 
If it helps, you could show your parents the latest USNAWR rankings. Cal Poly SLO is the number one Public university in the West, while SJSU is sixth.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-west/top-public
@Mom2Engineers I actually do not find that to be useful from a Ranking point of view. Being the best of a group that does not include the other ones that you are comparing it with. But just comparing CalPoly with SJSU it is usefull. That is why a posted the SAT scores, to put them in a common ranking.
College rankings are specious at best. They have HUGE problems, not the least of which, they can and have been gamed. The bigger question is, do they rank what’s important to YOU. The answer is probably most always…no. If you want to read a beautiful article on the subject, look no farther than the incomparable Malcom Gladwell.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things