<p>wow–never heard of registration like that–for myself or two older kids who are in two different colleges. Do you have a certain number of units you are allowed to sign up for? Thanks for the head’s up about how to use priorities! :)</p>
<p>Yes, kshall, there is a limit of 16 units during the regular registration rotations. Then, after all 12 groups have had a chance to register, there is a period of “Open Enrollment” where anyone can add more units up to a max of 24 (I think).</p>
<p>Here’s the link to the enrollment priority rotations for several quarters.</p>
<p>[Future</a> Registration Appointments - Office of the Registrar - Cal Poly](<a href=“http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/registration/reg_assign_priority]Future”>http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/registration/reg_assign_priority)</p>
<p>Freshmen will be block scheduled for fall quarter by their departments, then will have an opportunity to make changes according to the priority number of their alphabetic grouping in the Fall. (IIRC) Winter and Spring quarters freshmen enroll themselves along with everyone else according to the priority number of their alphabetic group.</p>
<p>Yes - I believe there is a 16 credit limit during regular registration and then during open registration students can go up to 22 credits.</p>
<p>I agree the system is fair. Everyone does have bad rotations. I just think if graduating on time is a priority of the university, they should let those close to the end register first so they don’t get locked out of a class that is essential for their graduation.</p>
<p>School 4-Year / 6-Year
Graduation Rate (%)<br>
UC Berkeley 71 / 90
UC Los Angeles 68 / 90
UC Santa Barbara 66 / 80
UC Irvine 65 / 85
UC San Diego 56 / 85
UC Davis 51 / 82
UC Santa Cruz 50 / 73
Cal Maritime Academy 49 / 62
UC Riverside 43 / 67
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 31 / 75
Sonoma State 30 / 57
San Diego State 29 / 66
Channel Islands 26 / 54
Stanislaus 20 / 49
Chico 19 / 59
San Marcos 19 / 49
East Bay 16 / 43
Bakersfield 15 / 41
Fullerton 14 / 50
Fresno 14 / 49
Northridge 13 / 46
San Bernardino 13 / 45
Long Beach 12 / 54
Cal Poly Pomona 12 / 50
San Francisco State 12 / 46
Humboldt State 12 / 40
Sacramento 11 / 42
Monterey Bay 10 / 38
Los Angeles 9 / 36
San Jose State 7 / 46
Dominguez Hills 6 / 24</p>
<p>Will the Freshmen who have rotation #1 this fall (their only #1?) loose that forever?</p>
<p>@slolearner: the freshmen who have first priority this fall will have another very good priority, but I think they’ll have to wait until some time in their junior year. That’s what happened to me. I would have had first priority fall quarter freshman year, but was blocked into classes. This still could have been somewhat helpful if I knew what I was doing during open registration. Unfortunately, I did not, but that mess is a whole other story. I had a couple of “good” registration rotations over the next couple of years though(by good I mean ones where I was not in the last four groups). I think this is usually the pattern of registration groups (not including summer quarters): 1-12-5-7-3-11-4-9-2-10-6-8-1</p>
<p>So it looks like you will not get another first rotation unless you stick around for longer than four years, which kinda sucks. Second or third are usually still good though, and you always have your three priorities as well.</p>
<p>Interesting list, slolearner. Looks like all the higher priced UC’s have better graduation rates than CPSLO, but everyone should also consider this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cal-poly-san-luis-obispo/1032279-cal-poly-grads-have-highest-salaries-all-csus-higher-than-most-ucs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cal-poly-san-luis-obispo/1032279-cal-poly-grads-have-highest-salaries-all-csus-higher-than-most-ucs.html</a></p>
<p>According to payscale.com,Cal Poly graduates earn more than all UCs except for Cal and UCSD. </p>
<p>I think the disproportionately high number of STEM majors at CPSLO is a major contributing factor to it’s placement in both lists.</p>
<p>Another reason that hasn’t been mentioned for the low 4-year graduation rate is that students often continue their summer internships for another quarter or two after the summer. And some are working fulltime for tech companies in SLO while attending school. It would be interesting to do a survey of 5th-year students to find out what the biggest single factor was in their not graduating.</p>
<p>Salary survey with recent data:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2011%20-%202012[/url]”>https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2011%20-%202012</a></p>
<p>So here is a question whose answer would be interesting for the purpose of this discussion:</p>
<p>What is the 12 quarter graduation rate?
(or 6 quarter graduation rate for junior transfers)</p>
<p>If a lot of students do co-op, causing them to take longer than 4 years, but do not actually take more than 12 quarters in school, that says something different from the case where a lot of students need more than 12 quarters in school.</p>
<p>It would also be interesting to note the graduation rates broken down by student characteristics like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Needs remedial courses or not.</li>
<li>Changes major.</li>
<li>In a high unit (>180 quarter units) major.</li>
<li>Full time student or not.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href=“IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo”>IR Home - Institutional Research - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; does give a clue: the average undergraduate student unit load is only 14.34 (page 11, 14).</p>
<p>I think the # 1 reason from my research is the ability to get the required classes needed to graduate.That means the college does not have an ample supply of Prof. and or classrooom space.</p>
<p>It’s not that there is not enough classroom space, and I don’t think it’s a lack of professors either. I think it’s just a lack of money, if anything. There are enough professors, but paying them to teach another section of a class costs money. </p>
<p>That being said, a lot of people give up on crashing a class after the first day. If you keep going to the class until the add/drop period ends, your chances of getting in increase tremendously since most of your competition is gone. I have not had to crash many classes at Cal Poly, but I got into one class that I did not even meet the pre-requisites for this way. I’m also in a large lecture class this quarter that a lot of people were trying to get into. Most people crashing never showed up again after the first day, but those who showed up to the second and third class were all able to get in. So it can be a bit tedious maybe, but being persistent definitely pays off. I had an engineering friend who was able to get into engineering classes this way as well.</p>
<p>FINALLY the # 1 answer to this heavly debated post!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$</p>
<p>NTKS17 is right. I have many classmates that found that whole crashing classes thing to be time consuming and tedious. So they give up after seeing 20 other people are trying add the same class the first day. It is a Really tedious process, but as students, I don’t think we should have sense of entitlement that we should automatically get the ideal section (time slot, good professor) without any efforts every time. </p>
<p>So yea, there could have been more sections to certain classes so we don’t have to always crash, but I do think it is also up to us to put in some efforts too to be driven to get the classes we need to graduate on time. </p>
<p>I have several friends that refuse to take 8am classes or want to have Friday off, making it pretty hard to get their ideal sections. And finally, there are bunch of us that are a bit too in love with SLO and don’t mind taking extra time to graduate.</p>
<p>I guess school funding is only part of the problem. The other part lies with the students as NTKS17 said. There are enough slackers in all of us in Poly to exacerbate the graduation delay problem.</p>
<p>Crashing classes and juggling an already compromised schedule stinks. period. Like all CSU’s, in an effort to move large numbers of students towards graduation, CP a sets (in-stone) a flow chart, which must be followed to a T. However, the university neglects to properly forecast student demand for charted classes. (See CSU GRADUCATIO INITIATIVE, plublised by CSU chancellors office) I suppose if a student has zero other demands (work, club, volunteer, etc) then said student can waste multiple hours each quarter standing in classes that she/he may never gain credit for. When charting a class the best hope is that a student can gain back door admission to class which is already full beyond the mandated enrollment. This true of ALL CSUs. That being said CP has the best grad rate in the lagging CSU system.</p>
<p>Also, I feel like I should add that while it may be more common to have to crash classes throughout all four years at Cal Poly due to the registration system being ordered by last name rather than class standing, students at many other public universities outside of the CSU, as well as some private ones, end up crashing classes as well. Most of my friends go to schools on in the midwest and east coast and have found themselves on a waitlist at one point of another. You also only have until the 8th day of instruction to finalize your schedule at Cal Poly, so it’s not like you’re spending half a quarter trying to get into a class only to be denied a spot. Obviously it’s still not an ideal situation, but at least you’ll have an definite answer within a week and a half at most, usually sooner.</p>
<p>Co-ops, the hands-on nature of learning, Senior Project!!!, and changing majors are contributing factors. I’m a grad (quite a few years ago, though & NOT in Engineering but knew many of them). Back then people would apply with a major of a less popular and transfer later into the impacted program resulting in some non-related credits. They’ve probably cracked down on this though. </p>
<p>One big plus over other schools is the emphasis of the “learn-by-doing” philosophy – students actually do hands-on, real-life related work related to their major – running the dairy, publishing, etc., enter engineering competitions, etc. rather than just reading and studying about it. </p>
<p>Is it only because of the cost of an additional term is this of concern?</p>
<p>My daughter is actually one of those who will be graduating a quarter EARLY. She’s a Kinesiology major with a Child Development minor. Dean’s List and President’s List. Very active in clubs and extra-curricular activities, as well as having a social life. So, it’s possible for some students and particular majors. Remember, that most engineering and arch. majors who graduate in 5 years will immediately be going out into the workforce, many with a nice salary. However, my daughter will need to attend grad school for another 2+ years because she needs a Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy as well as passing the State Board exam before she will be career-ready.</p>