SMU vs. Cal Poly SLO

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am a graduating senior from southern California and I am having a hard time picking a college. </p>

<p>I have visited both campuses and really like both, but here is a list of pros and cons:</p>

<p>Cal Poly:
-Great school for academics +
- friendly, awesome people +
- Excellent undergraduate program (BRAE- Bio Resource and Agriculture Engineering)
- Much Cheaper than SMU +
- Very difficult to change majors-
- I would be earning a very specific degree, meaning I would be locked in to a very specific field -</p>

<p>SMU:
-Beautiful Campus + Social life+
-Wide variety of Engineering degrees available (EE/ ME)+
-Rumors of a "snooty" or "preppy" atmosphere" (everyone looked nice to me. :] )
- less recognition than other schools
- When I visited, I was given the impression that they were trying to a pump a lot of money into their engineering program. They looked like they were offering a ton of internships/co-op programs/opportunities to students in order to make a bigger name for themselves. With many different companies such as Lockheed Martin, Skunk Works, etc. I was told during the tour that 73% of engineering grads had jobs waiting for them upon graduation, and the other 27% being able to find jobs withing four months (100%). (To summarize, more networking/corporate opportunities)
-Smaller classes/campus
-Private School ( I assume more resources would be available for student use)
-More expensive (Currently, after scholarships, I believe its around 25-30k/year)</p>

<p>Paying for school isn't a HUGE financial strain on my family, but 150,000 dollars(SMU) is a lot of money compared to the ~~50k at SLO</p>

<p>I can picture myself at both schools, but i'm wondering if SMU really has these opportunities widely available for students as they claim that they do. I also got into University of Washington-Seattle, but it was very expensive (~40k/yr) with around 30,0000 undergraduate students. I do think that they have a great program there and a beautiful campus, so its not completely out of the question.</p>

<p>I would really appreciate your advice on the subject matter!</p>

2

<p>Go to SLO please - SMU is not worth 100K more than SLO - it’s not like it’s Harvard.</p>

3

<p>I could really use some input from you guys!</p>

4

<p>Cal Poly SLO has BRAE (agricultural engineering); SMU does not. So if you want to study that major, the choice is clearly Cal Poly SLO.</p>

<p>If you want to change to a different engineering major, you need to check each school to see how difficult it is to change major (check the school web sites, ask the schools, and check the school specific forums).</p>

5

<p>Well, one of the drawbacks of Cal Poly is that I feel i’m really locked into that BRAE major, on something a lot like it. At SMU, however, It looks like they have an expanding engineering program that offers many other majors ( Electrical Engineering, Mechanical, Comp sci,) that I could easily transfer into. I’m just wondering if its really worth the extra money. </p>

<p>to sum up:
Is Southern Methodist University’s Engineering program legit? Or is it all baloney/just for show?</p>