Cal Poly or VTech?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has to be a joke. Cal Poly, no question.

But why? What are your thoughts?

[Anonymous]

PP Cal Poly alum with VT student - to add to my earlier comments after thinking about this for a bit...

I still think the biggest determinant is where you think you'd want to be post-college. CP is 83% CA residents and most stay in the region post-college. VT is 64% in-state but also has a significant % from MD, NJ, PA so just as regional as CP. I don’t think there’s any validity to saying it’s “10x better” than VT, unless your goal is to work in Silicon Valley.

However, if totally agnostic on location, I think one thing CP does far, far better than VT is freshman orientation. I was very disappointed with my son's experience at VT since I was expecting the kind of experience of CP.

VT's approach to that 1st freshman week is to put on a lot of activities and tell the students, here's a bunch of stuff, go have fun and make friends. Which is great for some, but for a lot of kids it is overwhelming and hard to make connections. I found my son tended to get closer to his HS friends in that situation rather than push past the discomfort to make new friends (he did eventually make a wider group of friends). The VT parent facebook group is always full of parent concerns that their student doesn’t know anyone, doesn’t have someone to eat dinner with, etc.

Cal Poly has done WOW (Week of Welcome) for decades and it is a completely different approach. Students are put into small groups with two student leaders and attend college events, do things off campus together, eat your meals together, etc. For most students, the WOW group is your first group of friends without having to stretch yourself too much. You always have someone to eat dinner with. If you don’t show up, someone will come looking for you. And the group leaders are an easy point of contact to ask questions and good at encouraging students to connect with different things on campus. The EC that ended up being my main social group for the rest of college came about because my WOW leader was in it and encouraged this very shy freshman to try out. If you have a quieter, introverted student, I would lean much more toward Cal Poly purely on the basis of a better introduction to college, putting you on a better path to make the most of the opportunities.
https://orientation.calpoly.edu/wow/home

[Anonymous]

Cal Poly SLO had record applications this year and lowest admit rate at 9.2 - and contrary to what one person said above, one reason for the surge, I suspect, is actually because of their access to internships and research. Quarterly career fairs on campus with hundreds of companies. Their students do very well with internships and jobs. I cannot speak to Va Tech.

[Anonymous]

Are you already into Cal Poly or are you a junior? If you’re in congratulations… I pick that for the location but also access to research opportunities and general lifestyle and club scene. Kids there are happy.

[Anonymous]

Cal Poly is more hands on, very focused on the undergrad experience since there are few postgrads there, plus weather, nice college town and you are still somewhat plugged into west coast job scene.

The only downside is travel and also keep in mind that in quarter system (going away in a year or two), your student ends in June and begins in September. So that can impact internships or summer family travel.

Big CPSLO fan here so take that with a grain of salt. If your student plans to remain in DMV after I can see how Virginia Tech would be the choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vtech ? The toy manufacturer?

Such pedantry.

DP, but it is indeed annoying when someone writes, "VTech." No one says this. No one.

DP. Pedantry. People write it here fairly frequently, so clearly some do say and write this.

[Anonymous]

VaTech is objectively worse than CalPoly.

[Anonymous]

I would take Cal Poly simply for the opportunity to spend four years in SLO. It is so nice out there. And you can fly there with a connection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would take Cal Poly simply for the opportunity to spend four years in SLO. It is so nice out there. And you can fly there with a connection.

This is the best reason!

[Anonymous]

Cal Poly is three hours from San Francisco and Los Angeles. There are PLENTY of job opportunities that they get exposed to for summer internships. And they get to live in SLO while studying. Easy choice.

[Anonymous]

One downside to Cal Poly: No dining commons. Obviously that shouldn't be the determining factor, but it has a notable negative effect on the college experience when compared with a school where students can hang out in an all-you-can-eat dining hall for a few hours — working on homework, meeting up with friends, connecting with that cute guy/girl from Econ. Cal Poly has a LOT going for it, and, again, I'm not saying the food should be the primary determinant of where your student goes to school. But, as nobody else has mentioned it yet, its shopping mall food court is a poor simulacrum of a proper dining commons, and I think the students are worse off for it.

[Anonymous]

Simulacrum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One downside to Cal Poly: No dining commons. Obviously that shouldn't be the determining factor, but it has a notable negative effect on the college experience when compared with a school where students can hang out in an all-you-can-eat dining hall for a few hours — working on homework, meeting up with friends, connecting with that cute guy/girl from Econ. Cal Poly has a LOT going for it, and, again, I'm not saying the food should be the primary determinant of where your student goes to school. But, as nobody else has mentioned it yet, its shopping mall food court is a poor simulacrum of a proper dining commons, and I think the students are worse off for it.

Didn't notice that when we visited. I just saw the Gluten Free and Vegan options; The food court seems to be a healthy food court.

I can tell you I gained 10 pounds as a freshman at VT not sure if food has gotten healthier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP Cal Poly alum with VT student - to add to my earlier comments after thinking about this for a bit...

I still think the biggest determinant is where you think you'd want to be post-college. CP is 83% CA residents and most stay in the region post-college. VT is 64% in-state but also has a significant % from MD, NJ, PA so just as regional as CP. I don’t think there’s any validity to saying it’s “10x better” than VT, unless your goal is to work in Silicon Valley.

However, if totally agnostic on location, I think one thing CP does far, far better than VT is freshman orientation. I was very disappointed with my son's experience at VT since I was expecting the kind of experience of CP.

VT's approach to that 1st freshman week is to put on a lot of activities and tell the students, here's a bunch of stuff, go have fun and make friends. Which is great for some, but for a lot of kids it is overwhelming and hard to make connections. I found my son tended to get closer to his HS friends in that situation rather than push past the discomfort to make new friends (he did eventually make a wider group of friends). The VT parent facebook group is always full of parent concerns that their student doesn’t know anyone, doesn’t have someone to eat dinner with, etc.

Cal Poly has done WOW (Week of Welcome) for decades and it is a completely different approach. Students are put into small groups with two student leaders and attend college events, do things off campus together, eat your meals together, etc. For most students, the WOW group is your first group of friends without having to stretch yourself too much. You always have someone to eat dinner with. If you don’t show up, someone will come looking for you. And the group leaders are an easy point of contact to ask questions and good at encouraging students to connect with different things on campus. The EC that ended up being my main social group for the rest of college came about because my WOW leader was in it and encouraged this very shy freshman to try out. If you have a quieter, introverted student, I would lean much more toward Cal Poly purely on the basis of a better introduction to college, putting you on a better path to make the most of the opportunities.
https://orientation.calpoly.edu/wow/home

This is the strangest post - VT *also* has WOW (Weeks of Welcome - note, plural). It's a fantastic orientation period and bears no resemblance to whatever you described, above. It starts the week before classes and continues through the first week of classes. It includes basically all the things you mentioned, above. Students are in groups and attend events together. However, there are some events that are open to all incoming students, and anyone is welcome to come. I mean, these are college students, not children. They don't need to have their hands held for every single event. At any rate, it's a great two-week orientation period and my DC met many of his closest friends during that period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cal Poly SLO had record applications this year and lowest admit rate at 9.2 - and contrary to what one person said above, one reason for the surge, I suspect, is actually because of their access to internships and research. Quarterly career fairs on campus with hundreds of companies. Their students do very well with internships and jobs. I cannot speak to Va Tech.

VT also has quarterly career fairs on campus with hundreds of companies. Are you the person who is constantly plugging Cal Poly?