Fewer Poly graduates than last year

As spring quarter comes to a close, thoughts of graduation fill the minds of eager seniors ready to complete their time at Cal Poly. What may not come to mind, however, is how they stack up against graduates of the past, and students of the future.

This spring there will be 2,635 students earning their degrees at Cal Poly, while the 2007-08 combined graduate totals for all quarters amount to 3,706. This number may seem large, but it falls short of last year’s 3,984 total by 278 students.

Though this year’s number of graduates is lower, there is no reason to sound the alarm. The number of degrees awarded at Cal Poly have continually fluctuated up and down over the past 17 years, with a low of 3,132 awarded in college year 1990-91 and a high of 4,083 awarded in college year 2005-06.

The College of Engineering leads the pack, sending a total of 779 graduates to live and work in the “real world,” which accounts for 21 percent of Cal Poly’s total graduates.

In a close second is the College of Liberal Arts, which will produce 19.7 percent of this year’s graduates for a total of 729 students. Last year, the college accounted for 21.6 percent of Cal Poly’s graduates.

Showing the greatest jump in graduates is the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, which had an increase of 1.3 percent from the previous year in the number of students completing their programs for a total of 384 students.

As these graduates take their experiences and knowledge out into the work force and begin a new life with the skills they have obtained, Cal Poly awaits the arrival of a new batch of students to restart the process and create new graduates in 2012.

A total of 11,117 freshmen students were selected for attendance in fall, out of 33,345 applicants, which is 2,589 more students than were selected for fall 2004, when most of this year’s graduates were admitted.

The average high school GPA for students enrolled in fall 2004 was 3.77, which is substantially lower than the 3.87 average GPA for those selected to attend in fall 2008. The average SAT score for fall 2008 freshmen is 1266.

Though numbers change year to year due to budget constraints or other factors, there seems to be a fairly consistent trend in the high quality of students coming in and going out of Cal Poly each quarter.