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<p>Shrinkrap, I’m only familiar with how San Diego State does it. They use the 56 Freeway as the dividing line, anything north of that is only guaranteed admittance to Cal State San Marcos. Of course, if an applicant has good stats, and applies early, they have a high probability of getting into SDSU no matter where they live.</p>
<p>The CSU’s are top notch when ranked with Regional Master’s Level Universities, which is what they were originally founded as. In the past couple of decades, some of the larger CSU’s (SDSU, SJSU, Long Beach State) began offering a select few PhD’s and EdD’s, sometimes in conjunction with nearby UC’s. This pulled those CSU’s into the National PhD ranking lists, which makes them look lower ranked relative to the more comprehensive universities. Other CSU schools such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, that continue to be ranked at the Regional Masters level only, look better as a result. Remember that the UC Charter intends for these schools to be Doctoral granting research institutions, whereas the CSU Charter is focused on Masters Level and teaching excellence.</p>