<p>I think it's the best bang for the buck and more prestigious than UCSD. So why isn't it ranked that high? What's wrong with being a CSU?</p>
<p>Ranked by whom? If by magazine editors, who cares? That’s one-size-fits-none.</p>
<p>hahahahaha</p>
<p>I LIKE that it’s not as well known in the World. </p>
<p>What we lose when we marketize every little thing are the hidden gems, blessed high quality experiences that - since they are not fully in the market - are open and accessible to a wider range of people, even as the total number of people who know about those gems is smaller.</p>
<p>The list of regionally respected schools that haven’t yet made it to the national college marketplace is smaller every year, and we are all poorer for it.</p>
<p>A college does not need a high ranking to be known and respected as being a great school; Heidigger, why do YOU need CalPoly to have high rankings?</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>In admissions selectivity and faculty-student ratio, an East Coast comparable to SLO would be SUNY-Stony Brook. I’d think their places in the higher ed pecking order would be fairly similar.</p>
<p>More prestigious than UCSD? UCSD has an international reputation. Most people not in California have never heard of Cal Poly SLO.</p>
<p>Cal Poly is a great school. Deff better than UCSD in areas like engineering, agriculture, and architecture. Also Cal Poly business ranks quite high.</p>
<p>Cal Poly only offers undergrad and masters, while the others have doctorates. All the UCs have doctorates, and most of the rankings are rankings of schools with doctorates. usnews did a ranking of masters colelges, and i believe cal poly ranked pretty high.</p>
<p>the benefit of not being a research university is that teaching quality is much better, because that’s the point of the school. also, they really stress hands on learn by doing at cal poly, job recruiters think very highly of cal poly.</p>
<p>plus its an awesome place to live! much better social life than ucsd haha</p>
<p>Its student selectivity places it in the middle of the UCSB, UCI, UCD grouping. </p>
<p>I agree it is not as well known as those mid-tier UCs. The funny thing is, it has more of a big campus culture (sports, school spirit) than UCSD does, about the same as Davis and Irvine, but less so than UCSB.</p>
<p>Be glad it is not that well known… it would then be as hard as UCSD to get into.</p>
<p>I would strongly suggest your re-evaluate your claim that the engineering department at UCSD is inferior in comparison to SLO. </p>
<p>A great place to start a comparison would be in considering overall contribution to the field not only by evaluating graduates but also research and publication. Both polys are good architecture schools and certainly SLO is a great Aggie school (and a progressive one at that) but it is certainly not up to the engineering standards set by UCSD in the general context of the educational field in my opinion and from my experiences. </p>
<p>Even schools like UCLA fall short in comparison to UCSD in engineering whose structure has much more in common with schools like Cornell and CalTech. In computer science and art there is also no comparison between the standards set between the two schools. </p>
<p>SLO is undeniably a great school for the cost, and we certainly need more Cal-states which are affordable and at a high standard but it does not do SLO justice to say their engineering dept is superior to UCSD. You can get a strong engineering education at SLO, but it would be more fair to place it along the lines of engineering at Riverside and Santa Cruz (Omitting Aero and Astronautical) and in specialized areas at Irvine/Davis or Santa Barbara with the exception of electrical engineering, SLO is pretty close to being on par. </p>
<p>As for the social atmosphere, I’d certainly prefer SLO but if you leave UCSD’s campus in general the women at SD State and in San Diego are quite tough to beat. The University of San Diego (Not UCSD) girls are all pretty wealthy, generally hot but not community college hot, and many come from catholic high schools which really makes for a great weekend out if you know how to hunt them down. 
Now with that Cuesta and SLO cant hold up a candle, at least Santa Barbara isn’t impossibly far…</p>
<p>Not that I care that much, but I really think some California students would pick Cal Poly SLO over UC San Diego being that it’s cheaper (half the tuition I think), and it’s overall reputation in all majors is solid. Unfortunately, I do think there’s a stigma of being a CSU and not a UC to some people. The only reason I can think of to pick UC Davis over Cal Poly SLO would be that somebody lives closer to Davis.</p>
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<p>Simple. Its name is too long.</p>
<p>Harvard, Princeton, Yale, CalTech, MIT, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Chicago, Duke.
Maximum 4 syllables.</p>
<p>^Well, people usually call it Cal Poly and that’s three syllables. And you should consider that the names of Caltech, MIT, Penn, etc. are either shortened or acronyms. :P</p>
<p>mino74ur, you sound like you have no clue what your talking about. Have you seen the rankings?
Cal Poly is a much more prestigious engineering school, by FAR.
I would say Cal Poly’s top engineering programs are much more selective as well.<br>
Go look at job placement numbers, average salary, etc… Cal poly has a much better reputation as a engineering school, especially in CA. UCSD may have a better reputation as a “Science” school(chem,bio,phys), but doesn’t even compare to cal poly’s engineering school.</p>
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<p>No one calls it “Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.” It’s “Cal Poly” or “Cal Poly SLO” (the “SLO” is pronounced as a single syllable). So it meets the max-4-syllable test.</p>
<p>After a certain point, ranking doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>
This made me laugh, because “Cal Poly San Luis Obispo” is neither its nickname (as LasMa points out ) OR its official name. The official name is the twenty-syllable mouthful:</p>
<p>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
<a href=“http://www.calpoly.edu/[/url]”>http://www.calpoly.edu/</a></p>
<p>maybe tk is on to something…</p>
<p>alamemom, now you made me laugh very badly You actually counted it?!</p>
<p>@bigxcman</p>
<p>I have actually seen the rankings (and know how to best consider them) and to boot I have interacted with students from both departments. A little critical thinking and a solid understanding of how statistics function might be a better point of reference for you. For the median engineering student, CalPoly is great, for the more autonomous student who will really work the department to go above and beyond providing the standard curriculum his or her unwavering focus, I would suggest being in a superior setting with far more research opportunities along with stronger international presence and private sector collaboration/funding. I am not an engineering student, but I collaborate extensively with them and have presented my design work to several engineering and computer science departments as a guest speaker. So I have a pretty solid objective perspective of how the departments function and what the student body is like. SLO is great job and workforce training while UCSD has a more theoretical emphasis from my discussions and observations. That is common knowledge to most of us who have taken the time to research both departments, so why not take some time and explore both departments thoroughly and if you have a pretty solid barometer to approximate the strengths and weaknesses of a department I think it will be pretty clear to you in the end and you can bring something more to the table then taste. Your ad hominem refute was really quite worthless when discussing the topic and certainly did not help the thread too much. Try spending a little more time thinking more critically about rankings which really serve to perpetuate the consumer lust of our culture and constant need for validation. Visit departments, meet people, discuss topics, formulate new ideas and share the authentic experience and opinion afterwards. Then it becomes far more valuable to all of us who are quite curious about the strength of a department. Who needs more hearsay in this world? Not I, said the fly on the wall. </p>
<p>@ Heidegger</p>
<p>I absolutely agree, cost for many in California would be a key factor and as far as reputation goes it is certainly a solid school. Though I think those that deal with the impaction and general mismanagement at the Cal State level like to be in a “feel good” situation for their efforts to justify saving the money to some degree when opting for SLO over say UCLA/UCSD/UCB which is becoming increasingly common and for middle of the road students who are “finding” themselves in the curriculum a good option. There are many programs hidden in Cal States that are outstanding and their accessibility and cost is a wonderful thing while it is still low. There are countless brilliant kids using them to their advantage and squeaking out their cracks relatively unaffected by the bureaucracy they are notorious for alienating students with in the larger campuses. If I was in high school and wanted to go into engineering to discover my specialization SLO is a better choice, but for a student who is highly focused and well researched with a narrow concentration a bigger research uni has countless advantages provided they know how to “play the game”. Either way stigmas are a shame and far better left unattached.</p>
<p>Watermark: YES, I counted it. Twice!! (And I had to use my fingers.) I have always *thought *the name was toooo long and a bit silly (mainly because my husband went there and I went to a competing school), but now that I have personally counted it as 20 syllables (twice) I am sure of it!</p>
<p>(Btw, it is a wonderful school in a wonderful location, despite the loooong name.)</p>
<p>Stanford = Leland Stanford Junior University, 11 syllables.</p>
<p>I like where you’re going with the name actually. But your idea is wrong. Perhaps it is because there are TWO Cal Polys: SLO & Pomona. Pomona is a decent school, but nowhere as good as compared to SLO. So, people usually connect the two Cal Poly’s together, when really SLO is much much much better. SLO should make Cal Poly Pomona change their name to Cal State Pomona or something haha</p>