Student Profile Definitions and Information

In compliance with the WASC accreditation commission the following is provided to help students, parents and the general public to learn about the graduation and completion rates at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Cohort - The results generated on these pages are based on groups of students called a COHORT. A cohort is all Students who enrolled in a Summer or Fall Quarter in a certain year. Typically referred to as First Time Freshmen or FTF Cohort. Other cohorts include: New Transfers (NTR) and New Graduates (NGR).

FTF or First-Time Freshmen Cohort - Student who enrolled for the First Time in their college career with 12 units or more. These student will have enrolled in the Fall Quarter of a specific year.

NTR or New Transfers Cohort - These are students who started college elsewhere and have subsequently transferred to CalPoly.

Ethnic Origin or Federal Ethnicity - This is the self reported ethnicity as checked on the CSU application. The grouping of students into the 9 Ethnic groups used by Institutional Research is based on the Federal standards defined by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System(IPEDS) as part of the National Center for Education Statistics(NCES).

Graduate Students - are defined as only those students who are pursuing master's degrees

Post Baccalaureate or Post Bacc - are those student who have a Bachelor's Degree but are NOT seeking a Master's Degree.