UCSC or Cal Poly Pomona?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'v been granted to Cal Poly Pomona for Business Administration and UC Santa Cruz for Business Economics. I'm feeling uncertain of where I should go. </p>

<p>Of the two schools I like Cal Poly better. I liked the campus better when I visited and everyone seems to be more interested in Cal Poly more when I tell them where I got in, which tells me it may have better reputation. I wasn't sure when I applied if I wanted to do business or engineering, so going to Cal Poly leaves that option open in the future. I like that there are no restriction on Freshman having cars on campus. I don't like that it seems people consider the school a commuter campus, is there much going on as far as the social scene, parties, campus life, etc? The girls here looked hotter too. I grew up in San Jose and like that it's in SoCal because I want to get away from home. With financial aid Cal Poly will cost $300/year more and there is still ~$6500 which I have not been offered a loan to cover. Cal Poly likely has a lower cost of living.</p>

<p>UC Santa Cruz is part of the UC system so I assume it has some respect in Business Economics, though I'm not sure. Mechanical Engineering is not offered and UCSC is definitely not as well respected for their Engineering as CPP. I'm not a big fan of this campus, beautiful as it is it doesn't seem accessible, everything is spread around, and I don't like the hippy/environmentalist vibe. The school feels isolated, at least to me, from Santa Cruz itself and I dislike the idea of the system of colleges within UCSC. I'm graduating from a small school(<300 students) and want to go someplace big. I'm tired of seeing the same people everyday. Otherwise the location isn't bad, I'm not particularly familiar with Santa Cruz but I still feel it's too close to home. I resent that I would have to leave my car off campus and take the bus onto campus. I would undoubtedly have a car anyways since I live in San Jose. Everyone seems to say there is better social life here, less commuter. My dad even says he went to some great parties at UCSC while he was in school, so big plus over Cal Poly. If had to I could commute from my family's home in San Jose for save money. With financial aid it will cost me $300 less than Cal Poly and all the tuition not covered by gift aid is covered by $8500 in loans. </p>

<p>TL;DR: Can anyone offer some insight? Convince me why I should or shouldn't go either way? It will cost me roughly the same to attend either school, but $6500 of Cal Poly's cost is not covered by loans. If it weren't for this I would already have SIR'd to Cal Poly.</p>

2

<p>The answer is very obvious to me by your statements above. The key here is that you are going to be a business major. If that is the case go to CPP and never look back. The small difference in price will fade away as you progress in your career in business post graduation. You can not get a true business degree at UCSC – business econ is basically a social sciences degree with a technical twist. At CPP you will get a hands on education that will focus on real business. If you do not like the vibe at UCSC then do not go there. As far as CPP being a commuter school, in many ways it is true. However, there are many folks that live on campus and there will be plenty of opportunities to socialize and party. In fact, there are many nearby colleges including the famous Claremont Consortium (Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Scripps and CMC) among others. In fact, for freshman, if your home is more than certain radius away, I believe that you are required to live on campus. You will not be alone for sure! </p>

3

<p>It is unfortunate, but changing into engineering at the UC or CSU schools is not as simple as deciding that’s what you want and going to talk to somebody. There are required classes you need to take, a GPA screen, etc. Take a look at <a href=“http://www.csupomona.edu/~academic-affairs/programs/Documents/ChangeMajorReqHandout-2014-15_Final.pdf”>www.csupomona.edu/~academic-affairs/programs/Documents/ChangeMajorReqHandout-2014-15_Final.pdf</a> and it seems like they only accept change requests in the spring for the upcoming Fall. And the handout is not completely clear about what required classes you must have taken, but suffices to show that you’d need to start taking them as soon as you show up this Sept. Fundamentally if you don’t know by this Sept. that you want to be an engineer then it is unlikely you will be able to ever do so.</p>