My child is the same way regarding prestige! lol
Which one does she thinks has more prestige? University of Washington, Cal Poly or UC Davis? Being from Hawaii, I’m not sure.
NGL, UC Davis outside of California isn’t well known either on the East Coast or in the South. The other two are equally respected I would say. On the West Coast, they’re all known, but really only Californians know how UC Davis has really risen in the ranks.
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That may be a fair assessment – simply being the single flagship for each state (Washington, Wisconsin) gives them some high visibility. I do not think SLO has that much visibility outside the west coast personally, so maybe like Davis.
Still, we are trying to talk a lot about not falling into the prestige trap as the sole perceived criteria. Where do you want to live? How is your specific major viewed? What’s the student culture like? All of them are fantastic schools, so, trying to give meaningful weight to the other criteria (and name them explicitly) is how we’ere trying to compare.
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Cal Poly SLO has some really well-known blended 5-year (4+1) MS degree programs in many areas, including: CS, Architecture, Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Business, Accounting, Teacher Credentialing, etc.
Maybe @eyemgh can speak more to the effect on the graduation numbers. I believe his son received a masters in a 4+1 program. Or @Gumbymom
@eyemgh can address Engineering majors graduation rates better but I take graduation rates with a grain of salt. @sushiritto pointed out the SLO has several blended programs which could impact grad rates. Also students that change majors will often require more than 4 years to graduate. Statistically all 3 campuses graduation rates are very similar.
My D23 is in the same boat… Accepted at UW (w/ scholarship), Cal Poly SLO and UC Davis, but for Biology (Pre-sciences at UW). She plans to pursue a PhD. I work with quite a few PhD-level biologists and they all said hands down UC Davis or U of Washington over Cal Poly SLO. Cal Poly SLO doesn’t have the reputation or opportunities that UC Davis does. Cal Poly SLO is geared more towards getting a job after undergrad. We’ve visited SLO but not UC Davis (yet). Ugh, I think this is going to be a tough decision!
A few more comments about Cal Poly SLO.
My older daughter went to Michigan. I believe it was universal to her friends and roommates that few, if any, had heard of Cal Poly SLO back there. But here in Silicon Valley, where I live, everyone knows SLO very well.
D21 attends Cal Poly, she’s finishing up her Winter Quarter and the Spring Quarter will start 1st week of April. As an FYI, SLO will be changing over to semesters for the Fall of 2026.
D21 was “hands on” for her major immediately freshman year. She has gotten a wonderful part-time job working in the field she intends to make a career of and is also working as a volunteer in research project with some Cal Poly graduate students.
Just from my observations, including friends of D21’s in the Construction Management major, but the “hands on” approach seems very conducive to getting internships and jobs.
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I take these rates with a grain of salt, too 
I’m not concerned about the Cal Poly and UC Davis graduation rates; I know they are good schools. My concern was really this statement about UW. I don’t see data to back this up:
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I take graduation rates with a grain of salt too, especially for Cal Poly engineering. Some of the curricula are longer. My son’s ME degree was 200 hours, whereas the typical degree is 180.
The chair of the ME department at the time (2014) said there are four reasons students take more than 4 years for their BS, they change majors, they fail classes, they dodge time slots or they dodge professors.
Our son started in Calc III, Physics II, and tested out of Chemistry. He finished his BS and a thesis based MS in 5 years and was finished with classes in 4.5 years. Most of his friends graduated with their BS in 5 years, but they fell into one or more of the above categories.
So, I don’t think I’d consider it a pro or con of any of the schools listed.
What I do think is an absolute plus, and it’s been mentioned previously, is the teaching style. It is robust in theory, but nearly every class has a lab. Students apply their learning like they ultimately will in the workforce.
Cal Poly’s weakness, and it’s improving, is in cutting edge research. They don’t offer doctoral degrees, so there aren’t professors solely focussed on that. Would I trade that for lectures with 500+ students, and labs and discussions taught by graduate students? Not for engineering.
JMHO. YMMV.
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I agree so much on “where do you want to live?” It really changes the experience to be some place rural compared to a city. Nothing wrong with either one, but it’s a different experience that you’ll need to want and embrace.
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Spoken like someone who has never been to some rural place. 
None of those would really qualify.
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It’s all relative, my friend.
Yea, but there’s a LONG way to go from there in the rural direction, like Alturas. 
Los Angeles it isn’t, but it is in a county with almost 300,000 people and a major university.
Honolulu is the only city in HI that’s larger.
Student’s who are the most disappointed in Cal Poly are those from the bay and LA that feel like “there isn’t anything to do.” It’s important to know if you want that vibe.
IMO, San Luis Obispo is very much like Ann Arbor, one of the best college towns, but without the good D1 football team. 
https://amp.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article99380427.html
As for Seattle, I hear the weather is great in July. 
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My D22 was all about prestige until about 1/2 way thru junior year and then luckily started realizing prestige did not mean as much as fit. By the time it was application season she dropped so many of her top choices to apply to because with prestige came a more in your face social pressure/competive vibe (we picked up on while on campus tours and social media sites) to be a perfect 4.0 student at any cost among some of these universities instead of we are all in this together vibe so let’s support and hold each other up. Being successful obtaining a CS degree was more important to her than enduring a college experience at an Ivy or Georgia Tech and worrying if she would sacrifice her mental health just for prestige if she was lucky enough to be admitted. Plus, after Covid she wanted to be at a university with happy and active students in and out of the classroom and an engineering program with social and engaging students. Cal Poly was always a top 3 for her and held steady in that spot the whole time but never #1 until summer before her senior year. As application season was looming over her head and the reality of college setting in she did some soul searching where she would fit in, thrive, be the most successful in obtaining a CS degree and have a handful of job offers before graduation…and the only answer for her was Cal Poly!!! I knew Cal Poly was the place for her and so thrilled she felt that way, too. She had so much pride in herself after being admitting to Cal Poly as a Software Engineering major and listening to her gut.
She didn’t want to be a blurry, nameless face in huge halls listening to lectures with 200-500 other students. She wanted small class size and hands on learning accompanying the theory she just learned since she has been a hands on learner/engineer since birth. She didn’t want to be 1 of 20k engineers or 1 of 5k CS major vying for professor’s attention or assistance because the ***** network is so huge/worldwide and ***** alums hire *****’s. She didn’t want to go lectures, labs or office hours with TAs because the professor was too busy working on their research (or pressure the university places on professors to produce published research/papers/books) to hold their own lectures, lab or office hours. She wanted professors whose passion/job was to teach, interact with students and have prior/current industry experience not just research and academia experience. She didn’t want to fight for placement into a CS program after being admitted to the engineering college her freshman year while taking hard courses in Calc and Physics on top of adjusting to college life and adulting. She didn’t want to wait until 2nd or 3rd year to take CS courses in college after taking AP CSA and an honors data structure course in high school. She wanted to stay fresh on all her language/coding skills she learned in high school and take CS classes day one not a year or two later. She didn’t want to wait until the summer before 4th year to be qualified/competitive enough for her 1st internship. At Cal Poly majority of CS/SWE students obtain internships the summer between 2nd and 3rd year because they get a leg up on their major classes by starting day one.
I can go on and on about all the pros of Cal Poly because I am sure I have missed a lot but the ones I listed are pretty unique to Cal Poly or a large public with 20k+ undergrads. The cherry on top she realized her top choice is a very prestigious, unicorn of a university that is very well thought of in industry and academia for their teaching approach and preparing their graduates to be ready day one one after graduation and starting salaries that rival any Ivy grads. When we met with Dr. Lupo (Department Head of Computer Science) last spring our mouths dropped when he told us the starting salary of SWE majors last year. I have never heard of such a high starting salary from all the unversities we researched and followed via university website starting salary stats posted, Reddit and CC. Let’s just say the starting salary employers pay for Cal Poly SWE grads is the most prestigious amount I have heard of😉!
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Cal Poly is the mystical unicorn, the hidden gem, the secret society to some if you live further east of Colorado. Unless, you are in the know and if you know…you know😉.
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I get labeled (maybe rightly so ) as being unobjective, because our son is an alum. After all, we know the schools our kids chose, and for the most part, that’s it. There is a tendency to want affirmation of their decisions.
That said, Cal Poly does seem to be a fairly unique institution. It is large enough that it has amazing engineering facilities. There’s more square footage of engineering facilities that many campuses have in total. Yet, the largest engineering lecture hall is just over 100 seats. Calculus is capped at 35. Physics, 42. Every class has a lab. The labs and discussions are taught by full instructors, most with PhDs. At most schools vibrations and rotational dynamics are just math classes. Not at Cal Poly. They have labs. They have not one, but multiple wind tunnels, including supersonic capability. CubeSat was invented there and still based out the the AE building. The club scene is extremely robust. All of this and more, is for undergrads.
When my son was showing his senior project (done with 2 others) on industry day, one of the groups asked them “which part of this did you guys do?” They assumed it was a multi year project. They told them that they’d done all of it, in a single year. They visitors shook their head in disbelief, and said “this is why we recruit at Cal Poly, the other schools aren’t doing work like this.”
Add to that, it’s in an idyllic location!
So, there are many ways to get there, but I am a huge fan of what Cal Poly is doing.
Off the soapbox. 
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Can you pl. share that secret number 
I’m using a rubric that scores from 1-5 for the below criteria (use mine or make your own) and average it out with equal weightage (or customize). Pick top 2-3 choices and debate in the house or ask someone from industry wrt employability (or academia wrt graduate studies).
- Cost (tuition, housing, scholarships)
- Cost Premium (over your lowest option as baseline, transportation costs)
- Univ ranking & Honors College (us news/other or a tier system, honors college impact)
- Major ranking (maybe grad rankings are more reliable)
- Research/Co-Op options (due diligence on website, information sessions/videos etc)
- Student Life ranking (niche + alumni, covers competitiveness & housing options)
- Student’s Personal Choice (no explanation needed, covers vibe, fit etc)
Did I miss anything? Does someone have a good way to evaluate college choices?
PS: use CC/reddit to collect missing information
One more for Cal Poly: Why choose Cal Poly for Computer Science? | by mckoder | Medium