Kid was accepted into UCM (Bio), UCR (Bio), and Cal Poly SLO (Nutrition) and hopefully accepted into UCSC. So tell me about the good bad and ugly of Cal Poly wth respect to:
a) Academics
b) Area
c) School in general
a) Great!
b) Gorgeous!
c) Unique!
What major?
Nutrition. Tell me more details about a,b and c please!
I only have second hand experience (working with CalPoly graduates and friends’ kids attending) so I will let students and parents of students give you a better idea. Calling @sushiritto and @eyemgh.
a) “Learn by doing”: lots of hands on experience. Small classes. Focused on undergraduate education.
b) Central California. Surrounded by hills, close to the beach, beautiful weather.
c) The only complaints I’ve heard of are food related. I’m thinking this is changing (for the better). It’s also a very popular public school and will have the inevitable scramble for class registration etc.
What are your student’s long term goals? Bio and nutritional science are related but could lead to very different career outcomes.
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My D17 graduated in 2021 and my S23 was accepted today! We absolutely love everything about SLO!
a) Academics- rigorous! D17 received a high quality education but was definitely challenged at every turn.
b) Area- doesn’t get much better for a college town. Gorgeous scenery, lots to do. Awesome downtown, ample hiking trails, kayaking, exploring, etc…
c) School in general- great onboarding with week of welcome. D17 found her people and made lifelong friends. Pandemic sucked. Remote school was isolating, definitely put a damper on senior year, but I would bet that’s true for many schools. Forgot about food- it was a challenge for my daughter as she was a vegetarian at the time. Definitely a con according to my daughter.
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Thanks. How are the dorms for freshman and the food.
My daughter ended up in Poly Canyon Village as a freshman, I think it’s usually upper classman housing as it’s apartment style. It was amazing. She had 4 girls in a 4 bedroom apartment. Across the hall there were 8 boys in the same 4 bedroom and they seemed to love it too. It was a trek to main campus. Food was a struggle, but having a kitchen helped. My daughter found it difficult to juggle time between classes and long lines at dining options. Overall, great freshman experience. There are a lot of housing options, definitely try to tour.
“Onboarding” or WOW (Welcome Week) is fantastic. Students are put into WOW groups of about 20 students (possibly by college/major) and do all sorts of fun activities before classes start. It’s a great way to meet people and make new friends.
Class registration can be a negative, though as a freshman, a student will be blocked into 1-3 courses (no registration necessary, you’re already in them), but not a complete schedule. So, getting into popular courses, like COMS 101, or courses in your major, in freshman year is much easier.
My D21 is a current sophomore, but junior standing with AP credits, which helps tremendously with class registration, since the more units completed, the earlier you can register for classes.
D21 was #3, IIRC, on just one WL (Chem) so far though first 2 years. And she obviously got in being #3. Having said that, high demand GE’s and other popular courses, like various Chem courses, for example, can be harder to get into until you accumulate completed course/units.
In terms of food, my D21 loves Shake Smart, which makes acai bowls. There are food trucks that park on campus M-F, Indian, BBQ, etc… A student can use their dining dollars. The food is very good, but expensive.
The new(er) dining facility, which is changing names (now Vista Grande, changing to 1901, the year SLO was established), is OK to good, but not great. However, there’s also currently a Jamba Juice, Chick-A-Fil, Einstein Bagels, Scout Coffee, Subway and Starbucks on campus too. And a market, which sells food.
This coming Fall, a new dining facility will open with chains like Panda Express, The Habit and a newer/bigger Chick-A-Fil. Cal Poly is definitely working on their food offerings over the past few years.
The downtown and beaches (Avila, Pismo) are excellent. The academics are outstanding. Learn by doing is awesome. A student starts taking classes in their major immediately too. My D has gotten a research internship with some grad students and more importantly a local PT job in her major and hopefully future career. She loves her job.
The other negative is off-campus housing, but that’s after the two-year guarantee. You can get off-campus housing, though not it’s not super bountiful, but it’s expensive. Not unlike UC towns of Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, etc.
The newer freshman dorms are called Yakitutu, but everyone wants those. Honors students get Yaki. They’re nice, mostly or all triples, and they’re noisy. The other freshman dorms are older or just old. My D21 was placed into a double in Yosemite and while it looks like concrete prison, it’s pretty nice inside and quiet(er).
They will try to place students of the same college into the same complex, subject to a student’s preferences for the living communities. A student won’t know ahead of time where all the CENG, CAFES, CAED, CLA, etc. majors are being placed. SLO keeps that a secret until housing is released.
I don’t have much to add.
Most love Cal Poly because the classes are small, emphasize theory, but always apply what’s learned in labs or projects. Plus, it’s in an idyllic location.
A few don’t like it though and it’s usually the same demographic, those from the bay or LA who aren’t into outdoorsy stuff and find there’s “nothing to do.”
My son received a great education and has had a wonderful career.
Don’t get caught up on dorms. He was in a red bricks triple and is still good friends with his 1st year roommate.
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Would these be the courses listed on the 4 year plan for your major? For a student coming in with APs, they might place out of these courses… is this taken into account?
Yes. At least for my D21. She was blocked into mandatory courses for her major freshman year. She’s in CAFES.
I split your statement up, because in my D’s case, she had mandatory freshman courses that you couldn’t use AP credits to get out of, but were blocked into.
And I honestly cannot remember if SLO blocked freshman into the higher level courses in major, where you could use AP credits to place out of, in my D’s case those would be Chem and Bio classes, as examples.
Just looking back at her freshman schedule, it appears she was blocked into a higher level Bio, since she took and scored well in AP Bio. I cannot prove it, but anecdotally, comparing my D to her freshman roommate and friends on her floor in Yosemite, D21 was blocked into more courses freshman year than the others and she had more AP credits coming in than them.
But honestly, I’d call Cal Poly and ask to be sure.
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Do you know if lower division science classes are offered every quarter? If a student used their AP credit to get out of a class, would the next class in the sequence be offered every quarter?
I ask because SLO has very defined schedules which I think really helps. However, if someone were trying to doctor their major in order to fit in other requirements, and courses were only offered certain quarters, that could be a problem.
One would hope that at least the really common ones are offered frequently (for example, most schools offer Calc III in Fall semester for the people coming in with Calc BC credits). I haven’t checked to see if the other obvious ones would be offered, though (in my kid’s case, the next courses in the Physics and Chem sequences). It should be searchable on the web site somewhere?
The quarter system UCs usually offer lower division courses 2-3 quarters/year. Students taking courses off sequence should check to make sure that all of the courses they need are offered the quarters they plan on taking them. For example, if Bio ABC is a normal sequence but BioC is only offered in spring and fall, a student using their AP credits for Bio A would take Bio B in the fall but not be able to take Bio C in winter.
I can probably dive into SLO course catalogs and figure it out. I thought @sushiritto might know because he has a child there.
SLO is unique in how they map out each student’s major. There may (or may not) be much room to take courses out of sequence.
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I’m a he. 
I think most common physics, Chem, bio and math courses are offered every quarter. But my D has mandatory in major courses that aren’t “common” and those courses aren’t offered every quarter.
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Sorry about that.
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In terms of “ugly”, there was this recent thread: Concerns about Cal Poly SLO race-related incidents . There did not seem to be that much consensus about how much of a problem that was, although some stats mentioned in the thread indicate that CPSLO is an outlier compared to other CSUs and UCs in terms of undergraduate SES and race/ethnicity distributions.
What’s the racial makeup of the university?
See post #11 of the linked thread.
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Dorms vary widely from older to very new. You choose a learning community (college, lifestyle, etc.) and the dorms for that learning community are announced later, so you can’t aim for “the new dorms”. DS wound up in the “Red Bricks” which is a bit difficult for him, but a lot of kids love them because they’re very social. DS did get great roommates. He’s looking forward to the on campus apartments next year so he can have a door for his bedroom and a chance to be alone. But that would have been an issue no matter where he wound up. His other two top choices were CPP and SDSU. CPP puts all the freshmen in the new dorms, but SDSU has a wide variety of dorms just like Cal Poly and some look pretty similar to the Red Bricks.
Food really isn’t great, but there are options and DS is starting to learn how to find them. They’re building a new dining area with chains, but it isn’t open yet. It’s opening next school year I believe. The food situation will be a lot better once it’s open. DS has discovered some really great restaurants off campus, but as a result he’ll have a lot of dining dollars left on his account to roll over to next year. But he’s in the College of Engineering so he has to live on campus anyway. We’ll just buy the cheapest plan and have him use up his dollars from this year. The good new is that DS is motivated to learn how to cook. That’s a goal of his this summer.
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