San Diego State University
San Diego, California | Admissions Phone: 619-594-6336
E-mail: admissions@sdsu.edu | Website: www.sdsu.edu
ADMISSION
Admission Rate: 34%
Admission Rate - Men: 33%
Admission Rate - Women: 35%
EA Admission Rate: Not Offered
ED Admission Rate: Not Offered
Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -3%
ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): Not Offered
% of Admits Attending (Yield): 24%
Transfer Admission Rate: 20%
# Offered Wait List: 2,853
# Accepted Wait List: 1,276
# Admitted Wait List: 46
SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 560-650
SAT Math (Middle 50%): 550-660
ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 22-28
Testing Policy: ACT/SAT Required
SAT Superscore: Yes
ACT Superscore: Yes
% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 29%
% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 68%
% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 93%
ENROLLMENT
Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 30,393
% Part-Time: 10%
% Male: 45%
% Female: 55%
% Out-of-State: 11%
% Fraternity: 11%
% Sorority: 13%
% On-Campus (Freshman): 72%
% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 19%
% African-American: 4%
% Asian: 13%
% Hispanic: 31%
% White: 33%
% Other: 7%
% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 4%
% International: 7%
% Low-Income: 35%
ACADEMICS
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 25:1
% of Classes Under 20: 28%
% of Classes Under 40: 70%
% Full-Time Faculty: 49%
% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 88%
Top Programs
Art
Communication
Criminal Justice
International Business
Kinesiology
Psychology
Retention Rate: 89%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 37%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 75%
Curricular Flexibility: Less Flexible
Academic Rating: 
FINANCIAL
Institutional Type: Public
In-State Tuition: $5,742
Out-of-State Tuition: $17,622
Room & Board: $17,752
Required Fees: $1,768
Books & Supplies: $1,969
Avg. Need-Based Aid: $10,300
Avg. % of Need Met: 68%
Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $3,500
% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 25%
Avg. Cumulative Debt: $21,327
% of Students Borrowing: 45%
CAREER
Who Recruits
1. Bainbridge
2. Cox Communications
3. GoSite
4. ASML
5. Marriott International
Notable Internships
1. BAE Systems
2. Cushman & Wakefield
3. U.S. Senate
Top Industries
1. Business
2. Operations
3. Education
4. Sales
5. Engineering
Top Employers
1. Qualcomm
2. Apple
3. EY
4. Amazon
5. Intuit
Where Alumni Work
1. San Diego
2. Los Angeles
3. San Francisco
4. Orange County, CA
5. Germany
Median Earnings
College Scorecard (Early Career): $51,000
EOP (Early Career): $51,000
PayScale (Mid-Career): $102,800
RANKINGS
Forbes: 181
Money: 74
U.S. News: 147 (T), National Universities
Wall Street Journal/THE: 270 (T)
Washington Monthly: 144, National Universities
Inside the Classroom
They say that a rising tide lifts all boats. As the University of California system has become ultra-competitive over the past decade, the California State University system has seen many of its schools become beneficiaries of an overflow of uber-qualified applicants. San Diego State University, offering a highly affordable education in a gorgeous and temperate setting, is one such institution. A diverse school of over 30,000 undergraduates, one-third of its students are Hispanic, and roughly the same percentage are first-generation students. Most hail from the Golden State, but 7 percent of the population are international students representing one of 114 countries. Don’t be scared off by the low acceptance rate (34 percent); you don’t need straight A’s in high school to gain access to this excellent research university that boasts nearly 160 undergraduate majors, minors, and pre-professional programs.
The general education requirements at SDSU are the breadth portion of one’s education experience and will comprise approximately one-third of an undergraduate’s time at the university. Forty-nine units are required, including nine units of communications and critical thinking courses; thirty-one units of foundational study in the humanities; social and behavioral sciences; and natural sciences and quantitative reasoning; and nine units in “explorations” that are upper-division courses you cannot begin until junior year. After completing sixty credits, all students must take and pass a writing placement assessment. Some majors require you to learn a language other than English while some, like engineering, do not. Lastly, there is a mandated course called American Institutions in which you must demonstrate your knowledge of California government, the US Constitution, and American history.
Like many other schools in the California State University system, cheap tuition and heavy enrollment leads to a high student-to-faculty ratio. San Diego State sports a 25:1 ratio and, consequently, classes tend to be on the large side. Thirty percent of course sections enroll more than forty students, and only 28 percent of sections contain fewer than twenty students. To help connect students to faculty mentors and undergraduate research opportunities, the school maintains a useful database of current professors seeking assistance. Summer research programs and an annual Undergraduate Research Symposium provide additional experiences in that realm. In 2018, a solid 33 percent of grads reported studying abroad. In total, 3,000 SDSU students take a semester outside of the United States each year.
Business/marketing accounts for 22 percent of the degrees conferred, making it the school’s most popular area of study. Next in line are the social sciences (10 percent), engineering (8 percent), health professions (8 percent), psychology (7 percent), and parks and recreation (7 percent). You won’t find the engineering or computer science programs at the top of any rankings lists, but that doesn’t have much of an impact on employment, thanks to the booming local tech and startup scene. Because of its emphasis on international study, many graduates go on to win fellowships that take them all around the globe. SDSU has had as many as nine Fulbright award winners in recent years, and it often has multiple recipients of Boren, Critical Language, and Gilman Scholarships. SDSU also has had several undergraduates receive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships over the last few years.
Outside the Classroom
On-campus housing is limited, and preference is given to freshmen who take advantage at a 72 percent clip. Overall, only 19 percent of undergraduates reside in university-owned housing. However, there is plenty to bond the student body and create cohesion on campus. Eleven percent of men and 13 percent of women belong to the university’s fifty+ fraternities and sororities. In addition to Greek life, annual campus-wide events like AzFest and Homecoming Weekend unify the 30,000+ undergrads, as do basketball and football games. The Aztecs field nineteen NCAA Division I sports teams, and famous alumni athletes include Marshall Faulk (NFL), Tony Gwynn (MLB), and 2019 NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. There are 350+ student organizations including KCR College Radio that has a long history and large listenership, intramural sports that draw thousands of participants, and the Aztec Unity Project that is committed to local community service projects. Viejas Arena, where the Aztecs play basketball, doubles as a major concert venue drawing acts like the Chainsmokers, the Foo Fighters, and Drake—basically a major act every week. San Diego weather, sunsets, and seventeen miles of coastline are all free benefits of attending SDSU. Additionally, there are multiple beaches less than ten miles from campus. The Aquaplex is, essentially, a free resort on campus for student use. It features two outdoor pools and a twenty-person spa; such is life at San Diego State.
Career Services
The main San Diego State Career Services Office employs nineteen full-time professional staff members (not counting administrative assistants) working as internship coordinators, career counselors, employer outreach specialists, and experiential learning specialists. There are an additional four staff members working out of the Fowler College of Business, bringing the campus-wide total to twenty-three, which works out to a 1,304:1 student-to-counselor ratio, poorer than the average school profiled in this book.
SDSU offers four large-scale career fairs in the fall semester and another four fairs in the spring semester. One hundred ten employers attend the Fall 2018 Career and Internship Fair, and the Nonprofit and Education Career Fair in the spring draws thirty employers. In addition, the Graduate & Professional School Fair draws representative from ninety+ institutions. A solid 49 percent of Class of 2018 graduates reported completing at least one internship. Workshops are offered on a regular basis on useful topics such as Applying for Federal Jobs, Personal Branding Using Social Media, and Planning for Graduate School. Career counselors specialize in a variety of fields and encourage fifty-minute one-on-one career exploration sessions or fifteen-minute walk-in appointments. The Aztec Mentor Program connects juniors and seniors to alumni in their fields of interest for a minimum of eight hours of mentorship. In sum, programmatic offerings by SDSU’s Career Services Office are impressive, but they do not publicize statistics on how many counseling sessions take place or how many on-campus interviews with employers occur each year.
Professional Outcomes
At the time of receiving their degrees, 72 percent of newly-minted 2018 SDSU graduates already had their next phase of life planned. Thirty-four percent of that group had secured full-time employment, 21 percent were engaged in military service/volunteer work/part-time employment, and 17 percent were entering graduate or professional school. The mean reported salary for those offered full-time employment was $53,000. Qualcomm and Apple are the two largest employers of Aztec alumni, and they are followed by LPL Financial, Amazon, Intuit, Google, ServiceNow (cloud computing), Microsoft, Facebook, Salesforce, and Robert Half. All of the most common geographic landing spots for alumni are within California borders; San Diego keeps a large chunk of grads while Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orange County also have fairly strong representation.
In 2019, there were sixty-four SDSU graduates applying to medical school and, while the university lacks its own affiliated hospital/medical schools, many future physicians do remain in the state of California at universities like UC-San Diego, UC-Davis, UC-Riverside, UCLA, and Western University of Health Sciences; others move out of state to the University of Michigan, Tufts, and the University of South Carolina. Likewise, many law students remain in state at schools such as the University of San Diego School of Law, the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Loyola Law School, Santa Clara School of Law, and UC-Davis. SDSU offers a pre-law society, mock trial team, and targeted pre-law advising to those considering a legal education.
Admission
Only 34 percent of the 69,043 applicants for a place in the Class of 2022 were accepted into the university; 24 percent of that group went on to enroll at SDSU. Despite the intimidating acceptance rate, there is plenty of room at this school for solid but less-than-perfect applicants as evidenced by the wide range of test scores and GPAs that are accepted. The mid-50 percent standardized test scores for 2018-19 freshmen were 1110-1310 on the SAT and 22-28 on the ACT. Twenty-nine percent of that cohort placed within the top 10 percent of their high school class, 68 percent were in the top quartile, and 93 percent landed in top half. While 54 percent of Class of 2022 members possessed a high school GPA of 3.75 or above, 21 percent earned under a 3.5. A decade ago, almost 30,000 fewer students applied, but the acceptance rate was similar. Yet, SAT scores were substantially lower, and less than half as many students held 3.75+ GPAs. The school’s freshman class today is 1,500+ students larger than the freshman group of ten years ago.
The admissions committee needs to work quickly to sift through the deluge of applications it receives each year. As a result, it reviews standardized test scores, GPA, rigor of courses, state residency, and literally nothing else. Soft factors like essays, recommendations, and extracurricular activities play no role in the admissions process at San Diego State. There is no early action or early decision option at SDSU, but the admissions deadline is extremely early—everything must be completed by November 30. In spite of the low acceptance rate, students should be able to accurately gauge their odds given the relatively formulaic evaluation process. Those solidly in the middle of the wide ranges of standardized test scores can feel good about their chances.
Worth Your Money?
The process to qualify for out-of-state students to earn residency status has tightened in recent years, making it almost certain that international and non-California residents will pay roughly $42,000 per year total cost of attendance. In-state COA is estimated at $30,500, with only $7,500 of that figure covering basic tuition. Thus, those living at home or commuting can attend the university at an absurdly low cost. Like the other twenty-two schools in the California State University System, SDSU is affordable and, with its excellent ties to industry, job prospects for most graduates are bright.