About Cal Poly Transfers

Cal Poly's transfer student population is incredibly diverse. We hope this page will help you learn more about our transfer population. Data on this page shared about the Cal Poly Transfer population is from Institutional Research and Cal Poly Data Factbooks.
To learn more about the transfer experience and hear about individual transfer students journey's before and during Cal Poly - check out our Transfer Student Spotlights.

Cal Poly Transfer Population & Information

For spring 2023 there are 21,190 students enrolled at Cal Poly and 1,972 of them are transfer students (who entered as new transfers not returning transfers to Cal Poly).
Transfer graduation rates
- Incoming transfer class of 2018
  - 2-year graduation rate: 38.8%
- Incoming transfer class of 2017
  - 2-year graduation rate: 38.9%
  - 3-year graduation rate: 78.7%
- Incoming transfer class of 2016
  - 2-year graduation rate: 36.6%
  - 3-year graduation rate: 82.1%
  - 4-year graduation rate: 89.0%

New Transfer Students in Fall 2022: Who are they?

823 new transfers joined Cal Poly in fall 2021
- 97.4% are California Residents
- 24.8% are First Generation
  - compared to 15.35% First Generation students in the incoming first time first year (freshman) class
- College Breakdown -
  - 211 - College of Engineering
  - 181 - College of Liberal Arts
  - 166 - Orfalea College of Business
  - 161 - College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences
  - 60 - College of Science and Mathematics
  - 44 - College of Architecture and Environmental Design

Fall 2021 new transfer fact sheet

Fall 2020 new transfer fact sheet

Fall 2019 new transfer fact sheet

Learn more about the overall Cal Poly transfer population

Explore Cal Poly's most recent* Institutional Research Fact Books for information on:

Enrollment data for new transfers
Persistence and graduation rate trends
- Persistence Rate Trends New Transfers - updated Dec 2022
Explore college specific profiles
Admissions Profile for Applicant Yields and New Enrollments is broken down for first-time first years (FTFY) and new transfers (NTR)

*Fact Books are updated annually and the link provided will reflect the most recent data. Check back each year to see changes and trends.

If you are looking to conduct research or learn more about transfers at Cal Poly, check out this Using Data in Our Work with Transfers guide created by the National Institute for the Study of Transfers.

Explore the CSU Dashboard for the CSU GI 2025 Initiative

The CSU is committed to utilizing evidenced-based decision making in support of our students’ success. The tools below are meant to engage our partners, foster cultures of inquiry, and help all stakeholders in this enterprise identify and pursue those changes with the greatest potential to benefit our students.

For Faculty, Staff, and Administrators, access detailed data analyses, visuals and predictive analytics with the CSU Student Success Dashboard.
We encourage you to explore the equity gaps dashboard and the graduation initiative dashboard.
For the General Public, see information on enrollments, graduation rates and achievement gaps on CSU by the Numbers.

Check out our Transfer News and Publications page

Read about transfer students engaged in learn by doing and other Cal Poly articles published about transfer supports, and more.