Hello! I’m Ryan from the Bay Area. I come from a middle class family. I’ve chosen both UCI and Cal Poly Pomona as possible contenders for college. I’ve submitted acceptance of admissions to both because I just got off the waitlist at Cal Poly Pomona about two weeks ago. It’s been a huge struggle as I don’t know which one to go. I’ve only gotten loans from my financial aid and I don’t believe that UCI will give me any more money. I’ve received minor scholarships that will cover a few textbooks but that’s about it. Do you think that Cal Poly Pomona will provide as much of a college education if not better than UCI in terms of affordability in terms of college experience? What are the students like? What are pros and cons of both campuses? Thanks again
You CANNOT accept both! This is a huge no no. You are putting your admission in danger. If you accept a waitlist offer you have to decline the first school right away. Your acceptance of Cal Poly means you are declining UCI you can’t accept them if you were not. Straighten this out tomorrow.
They don’t coordinate admissions at all but, you are hogging two chairs. They kind of force your hand with the wait list and short window to make up your mind. It would be best to cancel the one you don’t want soon. You will, likely, loose your deposit at the other school.
Since cost seems to be a major concern, i’d pick CP Pomona. It is a very good school and you’ll save $5k per yer or more. They also have a 4 year graduation guarantee you should look into.
Good luck.
If money is an issue, CPP is a great alternative. Here is a link for the 4 year graduation pledge for CPP:
https://www.cpp.edu/~academic-programs/graduation-pledge/
Thanks everyone for the insightful information. I know these two schools are great schools for engineering. I will get to them by June 6 as I have a campus tour reserved for Cal Poly Pomona. The reservation window for orientation for UCI is June 10. So afterwards, I will make the final decision. It’s been a lot a help 
UCI is overall a better school than CPP, but if costs are a concern (ie., if you need to borrow more than the 5.5K in federal loans), then CPP is a good alternative. If UCI is affordable, I’d stick with UCI. Visiting is a good idea at this point.
Post #5, I don’t think so. The UCI student that I knew didn’t do well technically, cheating on exams, sleeping with professors to get jobs. Better school, not really, not in my own opinion. I don’t think we should blanketly promote any UC as better than any CSU. If anything I think it’s at the same level, a tip to CPP for engineering. A tip to UCI for Computer Science.
^You can’t take one particularly lousy example of UCI student to represent the entire student body! 
Now I was wondering because I forgot to mention MYOS1634 that I was going to be an aerospace engineer major. Do you know any background as to how these two may be similar or different besides being hands-on and research. Because ideally, I would like to work at NASA AMES labs or JPL in the future. What do you think is a good option. Also Dr. Google, I understand that, but I do agree that a school can’t be represented by one lazy student. Thanks everyone.
Also, I’d like to mention that schools today are quite expensive. Like it’s 34k per year with everything included for UCI and 17k for Cal Poly Pomona. I think both colleges are substantially expense definitely. Middle Class with a total of income together for both of my parents being between in the 100k-150k range, I guess its really hard to get a grant or anything other than a loan. Hopefully I can make it through this.
You’re worrying for no reason. The difference in how your career goes as an aerospace engineer is going to depend on what you do in college, not something special either of these will deliver. Now if we were talking Caltech vs one of these, that’s easy. But any differences between these 2 schools pale in importance compared to you. You might as well flip a coin for all the school really makes a difference here.
Do you work hard to get good grades? Take part in student clubs to get some experience that helps you land internships? Get to know some profs, both so you can get some leads from their industry connections and get strong recs? Nobody at either school is going to lead you to success, its going to be up to you to figure out what/how the best students do and then do the same things.
mikemac. Definitely, my average GPA is 4.03 weighted in high school and I’m treasurer for two of my school clubs. I’ve played clarinet for 5 years and have played bowling competitively for 8 years. I also volunteer at my library every Monday and help fundraise for my class. Thank you though for the awesome words. It really helps to just express my stress in an area where I can get some feedback. It really does help.
Post #7, of course not but what proof do you have to say UCI is better than CPP.
Post #8, I’m an engineer that have worked in some aerospace companies including JPL and CPP is better regarded there than UCI.
I just hate to go on CC and people who are supposedly college counselor tell students the opposite of what in real working life. It’s does no service to the students who are trying to decide.
I’ve already seen that in the transfer forum.
Dr. Google. Surely I regard both schools as really great and I’m still deciding whether research or hands on is my thing. Thanks for the insight most definitely. I will take that into consideration
Hey, OP. I work for a large public works agency. We recruit heavily from CPP (and CP-SLO) b/c students are ready to work from day one. Lots of interesting developments lately at CPP - a new president who seems accessible and friendly to students. The hospitality school is undergoing a significant expansion. CPP is also home to a student-run restaurant, a working farm, a fantastic market and the hidden gem, the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, if you have any interest at all in sustainability: http://www.cpp.edu/~crs/. There’s an honors college too.
I have less firsthand familiarity with UCI, but I understand that it empties out on weekends.
Ryan, one of my brother went to UCI for a MS in Mechanical engineering so I don’t have a biased either way. The UCs may provide a little bit more research and probably less hands on. But some students might not want to do research even if they go to a research university. My kid is one of them, even though her college is known for research. Even for CPP, if you do well there, you will still be able to go on to do PhD at a top UC if you want to. There is nothing to stop you. I know one person who was good friend with my brother. He went to CPP and then went on to PhD at UCLA and later became a sort of technical executive at one company. At CPP, you will be taught by professors, some of them graduated from Caltech and MIT even. I can’t vouch for any other major there but I know for sure they have great engineering programs at the two Cal Polies.
For your choice of major (missed the part where you said you’d be going for engineering), I’d go with CPP - stronger in that field and cheaper to boot (especially since engineering is not prestige-conscious but “actual hands-on work/get stuff done” conscious and CPP would be high for those).
I agree with DrGoogle that CPP won’t hold you back in any way - work hard, do well, don’t hesitate to ask for help as soon as you see a slight slip in understanding, use office hours, get involved on campus - Take the 4-year pledge and don’t look back ! 
(UCI is a mid-level UC, CPP is not a top-level CSU, so there are lots of differences that make UCI overall better than CPP. If you look at peer quality, which correlates to a very different graduation rate, research, or campus environment, UCI is better - even if I admit some of its students tend to be more brand-conscious than I’d wish, that’s how far I’ll go with broad painting. I still wouldn’t characterize it as technically poor and ethically challenged because of one bad apple DrGoogle happens to know. For Business, UCI is much better than CPP for instance. However for an engineer, CPP is an excellent choice, far cheaper than UCI and with strong technical content, lots of hands-on learning, and for a strong student, such as OP, who takes the 4-year pledge, the odds of not graduating on time are much lower than for most.)
Note: I’m interested in the relative commuter-ness vs. residential nature of CPP vs. UCI. UCI tends to be a suitcase school indeed, certainly more than many UCs, whereas CPP tends to be more residential than most CSUs and things have been changing fast there, so can anyone shed light on this aspect?
I just used that extreme example to make a point that it’s the person and not the school. For other majors, like biology, neuroscience, premed type, UCI wins. Same with Computer Science. My nephew and niece went to UCI and turned down UCLA because they got Regents, back when Regents paid them money to attend.