Cal Poly Remains Top Choice for Top Students

Cal Poly remains one of the top choices for California's top students, according to fall 2001 data from the university's Admitted Student Questionnaire.

The report was prepared for the College Board by Applied Educational Research Inc., an independent national organization.

The report looked at students accepted to Cal Poly as well as other universities in California and across the nation. It also tabulated which universities prospective students applied to in addition to Cal Poly.

The College Board report shows that undergraduates accepted to Cal Poly in 2001 were most likely to attend the university, even when also accepted to University of California campuses or a number of private universities. Undergraduate students accepted at Cal Poly as well as other California State University campuses were also most likely to choose Cal Poly.

The university's top five competitors in terms of attracting students in 2001 were UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Those five universities drew the largest number of applications from students who also applied to Cal Poly.

"The report gives us a good idea how we rate in terms of our competition," said Cal Poly's Executive Director of Admissions and Recruitment James Maraviglia. "It highlights our strengths and areas with room for improvement. But it shows we are clearly California's university of choice."

Only UCLA and UC Berkeley, two nationally recognized campuses, were slightly more likely to be the universities of choice for students also accepted to Cal Poly for 2001.

Here's how Cal Poly fared this year in attracting "cross-admitted" students compared to the top 20 universities that also accepted Cal Poly undergraduate applicants:

Cal Poly Cross-Admissions:

For fall, Cal Poly received applications from 18,886 first-time freshmen and 4,339 undergraduate transfer students. Of those, 10,673 were selected for admission. Of the newly accepted first-time freshmen, 3,450 enrolled. When combined with the new transfer students, a total of almost 4,600 newly accepted students chose Cal Poly this year. The average GPA for new first-time freshmen is 3.64 -- the highest in the university's history, said Maraviglia.

Maraviglia credits the university's historic "learn-by-doing" philosophy, hands-on approach to learning, excellent faculty, coastal California setting, and job placement of previous graduates as the reasons top students continue to choose Cal Poly.

"We have an outstanding faculty dedicated to teaching undergraduates, and frankly students like that. And our 'hands-on' curriculum is totally different than any of the research-oriented universities -- and vastly different to that found at the 'commuter' state campuses. Also, our programs receive great exposure, which in turn means our graduates are very successful in getting great jobs. These factors all bring high-quality students to our campus," Maraviglia said.

"You couple that with the wonderful setting here in San Luis Obispo and the actual price of going to school at Cal Poly and you quickly realize why students year-in and year-out rate us as one of the top choices in the country. We're one of the best undergraduate values in the nation," Maraviglia explained.

Another highlight of the report: newly admitted Cal Poly students reported using the college Web site, a campus visit and letters and printed materials sent out by the university after their acceptance to learn about Cal Poly before enrolling.