Hello Everyone!
I am looking for some feedback on the Cal Poly Open House weekend. This year it’s slated for April 11-13th. Has anyone been in past years? Worth it?
Or, would it be better to go up and do the regular tours? You can get a general, college specific and a housing tour all in one day.
We are pretty serious about SLO as an option for attending, and I already have a hotel booked in case we decide to go.
All responses are appreciated. 
Are the dates for Polycultural Weekend confirmed? We’re planning to attend but I haven’t seen any dates posted
My apologies, I confused these two events. There is Polycultural weekend (which is by invitation only to subset of admitted students and Open house (which is open to all).
If your kid is still on the fence I highly recommend going and signing up for the whole experience. My older daughter got to shadow a student for a day and it was what nailed the decision to attend for her. Much better organized than what I’ve seen at any other school she was deciding between.
I signed up for the open house but I also signed up for a regular presentation and campus tour. I feel both are valuable.
We went to a ‘scholarship and honors day’ at U of Oregon and while it was nice it did not have the traditional presentation and tour which I think we really needed.
My daughter can’t be there for the open house weekend, so we are doing a regular campus and housing tour. Hoping it gives her what she needs to help make the decision, despite not having all the bells and whistles of the admitted students day. (Which she will get the next day at SDSU…)
Last year my daughter couldn’t make it to the open house nor the campus tour. However, she did know some undergraduate students who gave us a tour of the campus on a Sunday afternoon. Not all the buildings were open but we went in to as many as we could. It was the weekend before finals so there were students everywhere studying together in groups. Then she spent the night with one of them in apartments in Poly Canyon Village. Next day, she tried to go to visit kinesiology buildings which weren’t open the day before.She was planning on finding a professor whose office hours would be open. We ended up just stopping a student in that major and asked her questions. She turned out to be a 4th year so she had a lot of knowledge and took my daughter around the building. Then she gave my daughter her number so she can text her if she had anymore questions! We were all blown away by how friendly everyone was in spite it being finals week. She was also admitted to SDSU and attended their Honors presentation. It was a hard decision for her but in the end she chose SLO. My suggestions is that regardless which tour, try to find some students that your child can talk to so he/she can get a real sense if the campus would be a fit for him/her.
Great feedback everyone! Thank you so much!
@alwaysthesun We have the full day tour booked on March 22nd as well, the day before the SDSU honors tour day on the 23rd. We weren’t sure we could get from one to the next overnight, which is why I was thinking the open house weekend might be better.
For now, I think we will go to Open House, but also try to connect with students we already know up there and get a bit of a more personalized tour. Sounds like the students are great in attitude and success!
We are in the same boat as many of you - decide between SDSU Honors and SLO. Since we live in SD, it’s a proximity question for us too.
Thanks again everyone! Good luck out there!
Hi, my daughter got an invitation for Polycultural weekend. We looked around their website but weren’t quite sure (the dates are still last years too.) Does anyone know if this event is only for minority students? There is an open house the following weekend, so I thought maybe this is only for minorities. She has been invited to those types of events, that are geared toward diversity, multicultural, minority sort of things, at other colleges (and has attended some). So we thought this may be as well, but we couldn’t tell. She cannot attend the open house weekend, so when this invitation came, she now wants to go. We are out of state so we still have to figure some things ($$) out but I wanted to find out if anyone knew more about this Polucultural event. Thanks!
Hi, we just got the Poly Cultural Weekend invite too. The Cultural weekend is for minority students from what I understand. It also seems a more compressed schedule than the open house weekend - which is kind of nice, less time off of work/school to attend.
It seems to be a similar format that D has attended at other schools (she did Tulane’s multicultural fly in program, where they paid for her travel to New Orleans, and the program was very similar to SLO on site). We already had other schools we are touring on the 6th, so, we will be doing the open house the weekend after. But, the Cultural weekend looks good because the kids actually get to stay in the dorms.
I would say, if your D is interested in SLO, and you can swing getting there, it’s probably worth it. I will be interested in your comments on it if you attend.
Happy travels!
@sdscoutmom thank you so much! Yeah CP is her #1, but she got $ offered from other schools too, and she’s starting to wonder a bit. We have visited CP last year, and did just a normal campus tour. We liked the campus and the weather… I think this will be a hard decision for her. I honestly don’t know which school is better for her, since both schools she’s looking at seriously have, obviously, pros and cons. If she decides to visit I’ll keep you posted 
We went to Open House and I loved it. All the dorms were open for tours and the students who led us on the tour were able to show us an actual room in each dorm, which I am not sure you will get other times of the year. In my experience of standard college tours you rarely get a peek at actual living conditions inside the dorms and rooms. You also get special treatment by the school and your specific college - welcome events, lab tours, luncheon with professors and current students in your major. As a parent you get to talk to other parents, especially at the luncheon, and I was amazed at how many were alums and/or had multiple children attend Cal Poly. That meant a lot to me - I don’t think that level of loyalty to one school is common and it really stood out to me. I definitely think attending the Open House help my son make his decision to go to Cal Poly. Warning, it’s crazy busy and you should definitely take the shuttle bus to campus on Friday. We walked over 17 miles going on all the tours over the three days we were there and took a really good look at the campus so wear comfortable shoes.
@ocmom1000 Thank you so much for the feedback! I would like to see the dorms and know what her options are. Also, since the Anthropology program is a smaller program, I would like to talk to some professors and see the facilities.
So far, I have been super impressed with the parents and students on the facebook page, and get the feel that they are supportive of each other and have similar positive attitudes towards school. Agreed, families with multi-kids in attendance says a lot. I know a couple of families here in SD who are so happy with SLO that they want to send all their kids there. They are families that I greatly respect, and they have given me a lot of positive feedback and support.
I know one family who has a son graduating a quarter early right now, and they are just so so happy with all the aspects of the school. They are anxiously awaiting news about their second child’s admittance - pins and needles for them!