Why is Cal Poly's 4 year grad rate so low?

r77r77
Wed, 04 Mar 2015 04:57:12 +0000

It really depends on your major, the standard major has 180 units, while many engineering majors can have more with Mechanical Engineering and Architectural engineering having 200+ units. Since the school is around 1/3 engineering majors it tends to bring the average down.

Cal Poly, being a CSU school, is strapped on budget meaning that the school is less likely to hand out AP credit. For example, I received a 4 on a AP chemistry test in high school. At Cal Poly I received no credits, as only a 5 gains you credit for the engineering chemistry. At another out of state university I looked into I would have received up to 12 units of credit.

One of the last reasons is class availability. Cal Poly is still within the CSU system, so granted there are budget deficient. While classes can be tricky to get sometimes, it shouldn’t be a problem if you plan ahead of time and monitor your pre-requisite classes. Issues do start to arise when students fail pre-requisite classes or don’t plan ahead of time.