<p>Is it worth going to the open house? What happens during the open house, particularly for engineering majors? If anyone has an experiences with the open house, I’d love to hear about them.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, did you hear back? I am an applicant for the department of engineering eagerly awaiting a reply. Just curious as to know if you heard back!</p>
<p>I think it is worth it. It was when my older son (who is now a sophomore) knew he had made the right choice. We met with the Dean from the EE Department and really got a feel for the school. They had housing tours, a Friday night social event for the prospective students, a parents coffee, etc. It is very well run. My younger son will be a freshman at SLO last year and I am very happy I am able to attend again. I personally know a few students who decided after Open House that Cal Poly was the right choice for them.</p>
<p>I feel it was worth it! My daughter wasn’t able to attend since she was at a choral festival with her h.s. jazz choir. So I went! And, I’m glad I did. This was in 2010. I texted her and sent her photos as I walked all over campus. I chatted with students at their various booths on Saturday. Was able to see some of the dorms. I really enjoyed listening to the professors share about her major. And my favorite thing was the Parents Coffee on Friday night. I was VERY impressed with the Cal Poly Parents Group and the WOW leaders! What a great bunch of people! I highly recommend Open House if you can make it!</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>@dubbledub I was accepted in December ED for materials engineering.</p>
<p>Michael2 – YOU MUST GO TO THE OPEN HOUSE!!! It was a fantastic and life changing event for our family. Let me tell you why. First, we were not sure that Cal Poly SLO was the right choice. We had already attended the admitted student days at UCLA, UC San Diego and Cal Poly Pomona. We had also toured and my kid had interviewed Harvey Mudd and had a good idea of what that was like. Additionally, my kid had also been accepted to UC Santa Barbara and a couple of other UC’s. So, we had a lot of choices. It was now up to Cal Poly SLO to sell us on the school.</p>
<p>UCLA gave us half a day and a box lunch and basically told us how great they were and that my kid was lucky to get accepted. There were practically ZERO student presentations and absolutely ZERO lab tours. The things that we did see were unimpressive and quite frankly they came across as haughty and elitist. UCSD gave us 3/4 of a day and offered us a pretty darn good program. In fact, at that time UCSD was at the top of our list. They were smart, the facilities were state of the art and we got to meet students that talked about the school unrehearsed and openly. It was impressive, but I was really taken aback each time questions came up regarding lab time and a hands on approach. It seemed like the profs were avoiding answering questions directly about these issues. One professor, the head of nanotechnology, told us outright that lab time was not directly related to her class and that hands on learning was what the clubs were for. I was completely dismayed by that answer. She even went so far as to tell us that she saw the school’s primary role as preparing the students for grad school not to get a job. Some of the profs got downright defensive when Cal Poly SLO came up in conversation – it really made me wonder. Cal Poly Pomona was nice and we felt comfortable. In fact, my kid said that he could have seen himself going there. But something was missing. They had everything that we wanted, but not quite there – can’t really explain it.</p>
<p>Then came Cal Poly SLO. The Open House was 2 1/2 days. The first night we went to the SLO Farmer’s Market and checked out the Cal Poly booths and information tent. We had a blast and the food was great! Then it was go, go, go all the next day on campus. The students were front and center and actually ran the entire event. In the main gym there were projects everywhere on display. There were monster robot wars, prototype vehicles, all kinds of cool stuff on display. The students were there explaining everything that was going on. The orientation events were awesome and the marching band was just plain cool and very talented. Dr. Armstrong gave the right speech – not too long and not too short and emphasized the students and their experience. Then we all gathered in a hall for my son’s major and the Dean of that department did something that we had not see before. He introduced himself and his team of professors and then he introduced a panel of students. He then said that who we really wanted to talk to were the kids not him and his “stuffy” professors and turned the discussion over to them! We loved it! The students were smart and engaged and fielded every question that the audience had. Then went on a campus tour for my son’s major and saw lab after lab after lab. We spoke to professors in their labs and classrooms. We ate on campus, we toured the open booths set up by clubs, fraternities, sororities, bands and sports teams. The next day we saw the tractor pull and capped it all off with a real intercollegiate championship rodeo with bull riding, bronco riding, calf roping and every other rodeo event that we could imagine. We were blown away.</p>
<p>After two hours on campus the first day my kid turned to me and said, “I’m sold!” We then went home, got online and declined all other offers and accepted Cal Poly SLO. Any regrets? Absolutely none whatsoever.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. It sounds like the open house was a great experience in absolute terms so I think I’ll probably go even though I already know that Cal Poly is where I want to go.</p>
<p>One tip – make sure that you attend all the events including the initial orientation. Also, go on you major’s tour and then crash another tour for a different major for perspective. We did and had a lot of fun. We went on the General Engineering tour and then invited ourselves to the Electrical Engineering tour. No one seemed to mind and we learned a lot about another major. (We also got free ice cream too!!)</p>
<p>Also, under no circumstances should you miss WOW Week in the Fall. It totally set the tone for the entire year and my kid developed friendships that he still maintains. You are one lucky kid – I consider this school the best engineering program in CA. In my personal opinion it tops all other schools both public and private. At SOAR in the summer, I met a Chinese family where both parents were engineers. The mother and father had met at UC Berkeley and the father then went on to Stanford for his master’s degree. Yet, there they were enrolling their son at Cal Poly SLO. Why? The father confided in me (laughing at the memory) that when he got his first job after Stanford he was hired along with a Cal Poly SLO grad and it took almost a full year of on the job training to catch up with him.</p>