The top students are our high school don’t seem to apply to CPSLO. It’s interesting to see the list of acceptances they publish every year for our IB program. The program is heavily Asian American and there are kids who look like they’d be great fits applying and getting in and going to UCI or UCD and SLO isn’t even on their list. It was my D17’s top choice of the state schools she got in to and I would have had no hesitation sending her there.
@VickiSoCal, it is kind of weird thing with Cal Poly. At the high school where I teach, we had 19 kids accepted to Cal Poly and eight of them were in our top 10 students by GPA. We have two of our teachers (husband and wife, coincidentally) do a great job of selling CP SLO to our kids from our design and technology academy. However, at my son’s high school across town, very few of the top 40 or 50 kids applied to CP. They only had a handful of kids accepted at Cal Poly, but had more than that accepted to Ivy League schools. Clearly, many of them were qualified and simply didn’t apply.
Certainly bright students from somewhere must apply. Otherwise they wouldn’t have an average SAT higher than all of the UCs including Berkley and UCLA.
Davis is 37 percent Asian American. SLO is 11 percent. Thers is a bias against it.
@eyemgh, you are of course correct. It’s just that it seems to be spread unevenly amongst the schools in my area. More of a curiosity than a concern.
@VickiSoCal, that is a significant difference. Part of it might be the different demographics of the local areas. Vallejo/Fairfield to the southwest and Sacramento metropolitan area to the east are some of the most racial diverse cities in the country. The Sacramento and Solano County areas have Asian populations of about 14% where the SLO County Asian population is under 3%.
None of that factors in how many students apply to both schools from out of the area. Clearly, each is very popular outside of the local attendance areas.
That’s an interesting point. I’ve had this conversation with my son regarding the uphill battle CP faces with increasing their diversity. When more than just white people started going to college in larger numbers, they typically went to the schools closest to where they lived. SLO County was pretty homogeniously white. It’s set up a Catch 22, very few minorities go there, because very few minorities went there. I think with Asians, there’s an additional barrier, and that’s the heavy dependence on the affirmation of rankings.
@eyemgh, in my experience, there is also a subtle bias amongst the counselors and school administrators I have worked with. The primary focus of our instruction is college-preparatory. EVERY student in our district (60,000+) is expected to finish an A-G curriculum and be college ready. Obviously, that doesn’t happen, but a sincere and diligent attempt is made. This then leads to an emphasis on UC readiness in an “Aim high and you won’t fall as far” kind of thinking. Counselors constantly push for UC-readiness and administrators trumpet the UC acceptance numbers in an almost competitive manner. This can then lead to a status-oriented mindset amongst some parents and the top 20% of students. It’s almost a mark of shame to go to Sac State. Even UC Merced takes a beating for not being “UC” enough. It is unfortunate when I see students taking out far more significant student loans than necessary to attend a UC over a CSU, especially when they major in a non-research oriented field.
For comparison, UCSB (about 90 miles away) is about 20% Asian American.
A number of people would rank CalPoly SLO similarly to UCSB for some majors. The nearest high school to UCSB is about 7-8% Asian, but the other high schools in the area have significantly fewer Asians. The Santa Barbara area is mainly split between white and Hispanic.
So, you can compare Calpoly’s 11% to UCSB’s 20% to determine whether Asian students are attending SLO less that equally qualified students of other races. I’d agree that there is probably a perception among Asian parents that SLO is not as highly ranked because it is not a UC.
Whereas I as a white parent who has lived in California 48 years was totally comfortable with SLO as a highly ranked school particularly with a STEM kid looking to work in industry for awhile at least directly after graduation. I placed it above many UC’s in that regard. And our chemistry department tour only re-enforced that.
There is a definite demographic appeal to CP SLO. Whenever I tell any of my teacher friends/co-workers that my son attends Cal Poly, they almost all say a variation of the same thing; “That’s great. A UC education at a CSU price.”
Coincidentally, it also demonstrates the educator bias I was talking about earlier.
To fairly compare CP SLO to UCs, I use mid GPA & SAT from 2017 admission and calculate MCA (GPA & SAT only)
MCA (GPA & SAT only)
UCB 3694
UCLA 3694
UCSD 3631
CP SLO 3599
UCSB 3573
UCI 3558
UCD 3547
Keep in mind CP SLO use Super Super Scoring for std test, so number still inflated here ! Best guess is that CP SLO in same league as UCSB, UCI & UCD.
High school teachers have lots of influences here. My D’s AP calc & STEMs classes teacher all from CP SLO & convinced her CP SLO is great school even though she has never visited campus.
@UCBalumnus1, Cal Poly uses 9th grade marks, but still only counts 8 honors/AP/IB classes. The weighting is thus substantially diluted. The max GPA in Cal Poly’s calculations is far lower than the max possible at any other UC or CSU. They cap their GPA at 4.2. As a result, comparing GPAs is meaningless.
Did anyone ever consider it might be the more rural location of SLO? Cal Poly Pomona has a large Hispanic and Asian population. Whites are third,at about 20%. Many immigrants come from urban centers, and don’t want to attend school in a remote or rural location. As such, they tend to apply to the universities in more urban locations.
In our high school, 9th grade class not weighted, only 10-12 grade classes weighed.
Super Super Scoring easily add 50-60 points to SAT Average, and ~2 points to ACT.
All are relative here & use with grain of salt.
@UCBalumnus1 How a high school chooses to weigh GPA is irrelevant. It’s a matter of what the respective colleges do. All of the UCs and CSUs recalculate high school GPA throwing out whatever weighting system the high school does in favor of a metric that is equal across all schools. Cal Poly is the only one that uses 9th grade in their calculation. The issue of Super Score is valid though since the UCs use best single sitting.
SLO county is 69% white (not Latino), 22% Latino, according to https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanluisobispocountycalifornia/PST045216 . It is 89% white inclusive of those who are Latino.
While CPSLO is a “destination school” for engineering majors across the state, it may have a more regionally based student population in some of its other divisions, such as the College of Agriculture, Food & Environmental Sciences. (Regionally in terms of more from rural areas.)
Note that the a-g requirements are mostly the same for UC and CSU, so pushing the a-g requirements prepares California high school students for both UC and CSU.
CPP also has about half local commuter students, while CPSLO has very few (presumably since there are not that many people who live within commuting distance of CPSLO).
However, for lower income families, CSU financial aid policy strongly encourages attending a local CSU, since there is no adjustment for living on/near campus versus commuting from home, unlike at UC. For many lower income families, the cost comparison can end up CSU commuter < UC < CSU resident. Since nearly all CPSLO students have to live on/near campus, CPSLO often ends up being disadvantageous in costs compared to UCs and commuter CSUs for lower income families. CPSLO is by far the lowest in Pell grant percentage among frosh (13.2%) and all undergraduates (20.1%) among all California public universities.
@ucbalumnus wrote: Note that the a-g requirements are mostly the same for UC and CSU, so pushing the a-g requirements prepares California high school students for both UC and CSU.
Yes, A-G applies to both. It’s the second part of that quote that emphasizes UC over CSU-- “Aim high and you won’t fall as far”–that emphasizes the UC requirements. It’s just a common message on our campus and in our district. Many of the high school English classes write the UC essays as part of the curriculum in senior year and there is huge emphasis on taking AP classes. All of that favors college preparation in general, but we emphasize getting to competitive UC levels in GPA and SAT scores. It’s just about setting the bar high. It’s just a way of assuming that a kid aiming for an “A” grade is more likely to end up with an “A” or a “B” while a kid aiming for a “B” is more likely to end up with a “B” or “C.” It’s a way of trying to keep the kids from settling or coasting.
That being said, on my campus, Cal Poly SLO is lumped in with the UC’s and UOP as comparable, high status schools.
I guess if you are comparing SLO to Los Angeles or San Fran, yes, it’s rural. But it is far from “the middle of nowhere”. It isn’t as fast paced but it has access to shopping, restaurants, hiking, the beach, arts, transportation, etc. One of the biggest things going for SLO is their connection to businesses and alumni. My cousin graduated with his masters in 5 years. In his 4th year he was recruited by Amazon (CE) for a summer internship (fully paid including housing) and his 5th year he accepted a position with Intuit making twice as much as I do straight out of college.