Women in Engineering - Cal Poly SLO

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
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This is more to get a feel from women in Cal Poly of the general engineering culture. More an open-ended question - impressions, scholarships, culture, etc. Looking at Cal Poly for 2024.

Clearly all the engineering fields are pretty male-dominated yet CP seems to have close to a 50/50 split on Men/Women on campus. Certainly tech-field jobs are a big story in the media (Google, Apple, etc) in terms of the imbalance. Is Cal Poly doing anything to encourage a shift in this at all?

Questions:

  • Any women engineers (or parents) out there - what was your GPA/Weighted GPA/SAT for entry?
  • What program
  • Accepted immediately or waitlisted
  • Any scholarships available or granted to you
  • In-State or Out of State? Are acceptance rates more lenient out of state?
  • If a current student how do you feel about your decision - both the program picked and your progress?

Will apply OOS (Colorado) and School of Mines and CU Engineering are strong contenders locally (with reduced costs and scholarships available) but more curious about the overall culture and opportunities available to women. I wouldn’t expect any preferred treatment in other fields where things are more balanced, but in terms of engineering and the tech fields there seems to be some opportunities for women evolving.

Also applying SDSU - any impressions of that school (engineering or other) I’d love to hear as well.

Thanks for any feedback!

2

Cal Poly does not use gender in their admissions decisions. As a result, it is hard to overtly balance based on that single metric like some private schools are able to do. The chips just fall as they fall based on the other things they rank. Women will have similar stats to men admitted. SWE is very active. There seem to be lots of opportunities for women within the CENG.

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Will share my experience of a father of two daughters one a CalPoly graduate the other a freshman. Also working in big tech.

I am not sure the GPA question has any relevance in this context, CalPoly cannot legally give any advantage based on gender, race, etc, their admissions are formula based and the gender or race of the applicant are not part of the formula. The formula more generically called MCA is discussed at length in other threads on this forum and it does take into account GPA, test scores, etc. Just search for it here.

While CalPoly might have a 50/50 gender balance that is not true in the College of Engineering, still male dominated, but that has to do with the applicant pool not with any school policy. While many blame the industry primarily for favoring males, the root of the problem is much deeper, but that is an entirely different discussion.

Older daughter graduated with a Computer Engineering degree last year (currently working for Apple) and the second is an Industrial Engineering major, both accepted immediately. We’re out of state and got the standard nominal scholarship 2k, 1k respectively. I don’t think there is any merit money available for OOS.

Both of them very happy with their choice, they were both accepted at other schools with good prestige, Illinois, Purdue, WPI, UC San Diego, UW (not direct admit unfortunately), etc.

If your daughter wants to go in engineering CalPoly should be given a strong consideration. There is an Engineering sorority where the only criteria for acceptance is a min GPA and no failing grades. There is a Women in Software and Hardware club (WISH). Both of them are very well run and supported and my daughters were closely involved. In fact my older daughter relied on those to get opportunities for internships at Apple. Big companies work very closely with those clubs to organize recruiting events, my daughter personally helped organize recruiting events for Apple, Raytheon, Comcast and other such big names.

Big companies recruit from CalPoly heavily and the school has a strong reputation on par with top UC schools, and definitely the top school in the CSU system.

As you stated, women do not get preferential treatment, other than perhaps being specific networking opportunities at recruiting events. Getting those internships and jobs still require they pass a rigorous professional interview just like everyone else.

CalPoly is a wonderful school, great teaching, great reputation in engineering, great weather and location.

Good luck!