[eitally]

If it makes you feel any better, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo is most commonly just known as SLO. There are two other Cal Polys, one of which is known as CPP (Cal Poly Pomona) and the other mostly just referred to as Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt). Moreover, unless you knew this already, if you Google "cal poly" it'll only return results about SLO, further muddying the waters.

As a Wahoo, I don't have the "VA Tech" issue, but I assume journos write it that way because their style guides tell them abbreviating states is acceptable, and they don't care that they're doing it to a trademark that doesn't support abbreviation.

[MengerSponge]

Context is key. "Cal" refers to "The University of California, Berkeley", even though Davis, Los Angeles, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego, etc etc

"Cal Poly" is shorthand for the SLO campus. It's the original, and the most established one. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/13/ca...

Cal Poly Humboldt was only renamed three years ago. It's going to take a few generations to get the same cache as SLO.

Funny thing: I met a German physician who works in California now. His degree is from Humboldt University, an old and incredibly prestigious university in Berlin. He found it "funny" (provincial) that people so often register "Humboldt University" as "Humboldt State". One of these things is not like the other!

[pimlottc]

*cachet

[MengerSponge]

Apparently SLO is L1, Pomona is L2, and Humboldt is L3

[alexjplant]

Every discerning musician knows that SLO stands for Super Lead Overdrive, the front half of the name of the finest guitar amplifier conceived in the modern era - the Soldano SLO100. Interestingly enough it hails from Seattle, not anywhere near central CA.