Which CSU for Business Major?

<p>I'm a transfer student from SoCal, majoring in Business, and I'm looking at different SoCal colleges to transfer to by next fall.<br>
I'm interested in CalPoly Pomona because of the variety of Business majors it offers, but in looking throughout these threads, CalPoly is never mentioned as a suggested route, as opposed to its sister college CalPoly San Louis Obispo. A teacher recommended CalState LA, but again, it's hardly mentioned in these threads. So my question is, "Which Calstate offers the best undergraduate for a Business major?" Thanks!</p>

<p>None of the CalState colleges are particularly good at business. I couldn’t tell you which ones are better than others because none of them really have reputations outside of California. Are you sure you can’t aim for somewhere in the UC system? USC is #10, too.</p>

<p>SDSU is generally considered the best CSU for business.</p>

<p>openedskittles: Good job at taking the opportunity to slam CSU’s instead of answering ejchao’s very specific question “Which Calstate offers the best undergraduate for a Business major?”</p>

<p>According to rankings published by Business Week, the only two CA public colleges in the top 100 are Berkeley and Cal Poly SLO. Cal State Fullerton and SDSU are two to look at also. Below that they all kind of blend together, IMO.</p>

<p>Fullerton? lol</p>

<p>SDSU hands down</p>

<p>So in Business Week, what is other CA colleages in the top 100 besides the public ones?</p>

<p>Berkley is not a “CalState” its a UC. And Fullerton has a good program. The president and CEO of my company graduated from Fullerton. I work for a very large bank.</p>

<p>CalPoly SLO - more selective student body
SDSU - bigger, better program.</p>

<p>@jennyxl, other program besides public ones:
USC, Santa Clara U, U of San Diego</p>

<p>SDSU also has some advantages. It was the first CA AACSB accredited accounting program.
Additionally, SDSU claims:
“Student test scores on the CPA exam consistently rank among the top five in the nation. The Graduate Tax Program is considered by the “Big Four” accounting firms to be among the top 20 in the United States.”</p>

<p>CalPoly SLO hands down. My son was accepted to all the CSU B Schools and so we looked at them all carefully. CP had a 37% admittance rate this year and the average GPA for the B School admits was 3.86. With the “Learning by Doing” philosophy, CP graduates are ranked 11th in the country by recruiters as people desirous to hire. They also get killer internships. They have small class sizes and the professors give the students their cell phone numbers.</p>

<p>They also have the “Green Light” program: a fastrack to upper division classes. SDSU is probably ranked second. </p>

<p>My son decided to pursue business economics at UCSB and then an MBA, but I really think he should have gone to CP for business.</p>

<p>I’m not surre I’d take the above as gospal. While Cl Poly SLO, along with SDSU, would be tops in the CSU system, the kids we know there complain of huge classes, inability to get classes, have not gotten “killer” internships or jobs (aaccounting majors do best) and are incredibly frustrted with the experience.</p>

<p>Jenny, the best business schools in CA are not really business schools. For top jobs: Stanford, Pomona, Claremont McKenna.</p>

<p>Definitely Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.</p>

<p>-It’s as competitive to get in as the mid-tier UCs: Santa Barbara, Davis, & Irvine.
-There are only two public schools in California to rank in the top 100 business week undergraduate business school rankings: UC Berkley & Cal Poly SLO. Cal Poly SLO trumps all the other UCs for business. This is mainly because the other UCs have business economics and not business though. But basically if you want to go to a UC or Cal State for business, Cal Poly SLO should be your second choice to Berkley.
(<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?) - Cal Poly is ranked 64th. Definitely on an upward trend though. It’s a rising star.
-It’s in a gorgeous area right by the beach in central California in a cute town.
-It’s extremely cheap, since technically it’s a Cal State.
-It has a very good reputation not just through California, but nationally. The engineering at SLO is one of the best in the world, making lots of people know about it.
-They really teach the “hands on”, rather than the theoretical you’ll get at a UC, making it a hot bed for recruiters.
-Recruiters love Cal Poly SLO grads.
-Cal Poly has SMALL CLASSES (compared to UCs). Besides lecture classes, most classes will be about 35 kids.
-Great internships / jobs available.
-The business school at Cal Poly SLO graduates most students in 4 years.
-Cal Poly SLO has about an average GPA of 3.8… Pomona has like a 3.2 average GPA. Not even close in selectivity…
-I personally talked to the Dean of the business school at Cal Poly SLO and he came off to me as very bright and seemed to know what he was doing.
-I talked to a finance major at SLO who got a job at Goldman Sachs! I also heard many students gets jobs from Apple & other Silicon Valley companies.
-The business building is pretty new and quite impressive.
-San Luis Obispo is an awesome place to live for 4-5 years, it’s a great COLLEGE TOWN.</p>

<p>Second choice to Cal Poly SLO would be SDSU. They probably have a 3.5ish average GPA. They also have a larger program and a good international business program at SDSU. I would choose Cal Poly SLO any day over SDSU though unless you really are a city person.</p>

<p>Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is an AMAZING school. It’s considered an “Honorary UC” because it’s soo good. </p>

<p>Definitively California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Go Mustangs!</p>

<p>Even though my son was not admitted to the Marshall School at USC, he became good friends with the Asst. Dean in the process. She helped him to select his ultimate school and wants him to transfer to USC for sophmore year…which I doubt he will do b/c he loves UCSB.</p>

<p>With that said, she specifically told him to look at 4-year business Schools IF he wants to attend a Business School. The problem with UCB is that it is a 2-yr business school. You apply in your sophmore year for your junior and senior years and you may not be accepted. Just something to keep in mind.</p>

<p>USC, SCU, LMU and USD all have great B Schools, but they are private.</p>

<p>Good point SDMom.</p>

<p>Yeah USC is a great school. USD has also been doing really well recently. I was deciding between SCU & Cal Poly SLO and choose SLO. But SCU is a great school too. You can also take the more theoretical approach and take business economics at a UC like UCSB and get a great education too.</p>

<p>You mention LMU… USD & SCU were ranked in the top 50 on BusinessWeek. LMU didn’t even make top 100… I have heard mediocre things about LMU business… Chapman is decent. Also, these private schools are VERY expensive.</p>

<p>Back to the best Cal State for business, I forgot to make one point. Cal Poly SLO is a residential campus that offers the full college experience, while most other Cal States are commuter schools. Cal Poly has a charming, relaxed, easy-going, “SLOw Life” feel to it. However, SDSU has the big city life, if that’s what you’re looking for. And while both SDSU & SLO have pretty big party scenes, SDSU has a big reputation as a party school which might be bad for employers & general reputation.</p>

<p>I would rank Cal States for business:

  1. Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
  2. San Diego State University
  3. Fullerton (got a brand new really nice business building - heard they got a great accounting program)
  4. Long Beach (getting actually pretty hard to get into)</p>

<p>(LB & F tied for third.)</p>

<p>If you can’t make it to one of those four, I would say you should go to a community college and aim to transfer to UC Berk or USC.</p>

<p>Lots of other Cal States are decent for business too… not to exclude any, but to name a few other decent options: San Jose, Northridge, Chico, Pomona, etc…</p>

<p>Speaking in favor of SDSU again.</p>

<p>People here are saying Cal Poly SLO is better than SDSU for business. While that may be true in specific majors within business, it is NOT true of Accounting.</p>

<p>I’m not sure what part of business interests the OP, but if it is accounting then i highly recommend SDSU over Cal Poly SLO.</p>

<p>There are only 5 accounting programs in California that are accredited by the AACSB:</p>

<p>California State University, Fullerton (California)<br>
San Diego State University (California)<br>
Santa Clara University (California)<br>
University of San Diego (California)<br>
University of Southern California (California) </p>

<p>Notice anything missing? Cal poly SLO is not on there. Fullerton is the only other CSU that is and that isn’t even close to SDSU. Again, SDSU was the first accounting program in California to be accredited by the AACSB</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aacsb.net/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AACSB&WebKey=5E69A86E-6455-457E-A159-D89A31C7FF73[/url]”>https://www.aacsb.net/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AACSB&WebKey=5E69A86E-6455-457E-A159-D89A31C7FF73&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In summation, if you want to major in accounting then I would highly recommend SDSU over Cal Poly. Any other Business specialization and Cal Poly probably wins.</p>

<p>I’m not exactly sure about accounting. Perhaps you may be right. Both are excellent.</p>

<p>I remember hearing that since Cal Poly is business accredited, it didn’t bother to go ahead and get the accounting accreditation. Many Cal Poly accounting students get jobs with the Big 4 accounting firms. The accreditation doesn’t really mean that much…</p>

<p>Look who else is missing from accounting accreditation: UC Berkley! So… obviously the accreditation doesn’t mean that much… I know that Cal Poly SLO has a great accounting program though… I thought it was better than SDSU’s but not sure exactly where they stand.</p>

<p>Got a job doing what at Goldman Sachs? Lets not mislead, no CSU grads are in line for front office Wall Street jobs.</p>

<p>He was president of the Finance Club and I think the top finance student in that graduating class. Obviously an exceptional student. He got a job as an analyst / associate I believe. He said typically the top finance student each year will get a job with Goldman, and that’s it. 1 a year haha. Still very impressive though.</p>

<p>This should give some ideas of job prospects for Cal Poly grads.
<a href=“https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2008%20-%202009[/url]”>https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2008%20-%202009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>SDSU Notable Alumni in Business:</p>

<pre><code>* Norman E. Brinker (Chili’s Grill & Bar)

  • Thomas E. Darcy (Corporate Executive Vice President & CFO SAIC)
  • Norm Fjeldheim, Chief Information Officer, Qualcomm
  • Eric Fremont (Verizon Communications, Senior Vice President- Strategy & Planning - Information Technology)
  • Jack Goodall (Former President, Jack in the Box)
  • Alan Gold (Founder and CEO of BioMed Realty Trust, Inc.)
  • Jerry Halamuda (Color Spot Nurseries)
  • Ron Kendrick (Union Bank of California)
  • Linda A. Lang (Chairman & CEO Jack in the Box)
  • Art Nicholas (Nicholas-Applegate)
  • Bob Payne (Multi-Ventures, Mission Valley Hilton)
  • Ralph Pesqueria (El Indio Restaurants)
  • Sol Price, founder of Price Club (later merged with Costco)
  • Frank Riolo (CEO Viejas Enterprises)
  • Ralph Rubio (founder, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill (f.k.a. Rubio’s Fish Tacos))
  • Robert Svet (Chairman & Founder The Eastridge Group of Staffing Companies)
  • Jim Sinegal (Costco) Chief Executive Officer, Time Magazine’s 2006 list of The 100 most influential people
  • Don Ritchey, Jr (Lucky Stores, retired)
  • Vince Ferraro (Vice-President of Worldwide Marketing, Hewlett-Packard Company)
  • Susan Nowakowski CEO of AMN Healthcare, Inc.
    </code></pre>