I do want to go to them–I didn’t care much for cal poly, but getting waitlisted sucks! Rn, UCB is my top choice. But it just worries me for future acceptances 
thank you 
AHHHH!!! ok berkeley is suuchhh a great school i totally get it! im crossing my fingers you’ll get in (dont sweat it tho u will)
ahhh thanks so much I actually already got it tho hahaha i just felt bad about cal poly but i meant out of the shcools I got into already UCB is my top choice haha! best of luck to you tho!
@netflixandchillingworth , that’s exactly why they waitlisted you – because they know you will get into a lot of other schools and even if they admit you, you won’t attend anyway. So they waitlist you to test your intentions – if you accept the waitlist and send a “letter of continued interest”, they know you are serious; If you reject the waitlist, they know you got into other school and happy to give the spot to another student.
I think I should face rejection. They have already sent out all the acceptances and waitlists so all that is left is rejections… I applied for Psychology but I have not seen any recent posts about it
I do believe that the high stat applicants are not admitted because the admit officers know that they these applicants have a lot of options and are not likely to accept if they have a better option. They have enough work to juggle to their admittance offers to acceptance ratios. I am seeing this pattern on this forum and also from people I know from the past few years. It is better to be in their “sweet spot”; not too high, but high enough. If you are in their sweet spot, there is the issue of balancing gender, minorities, school locations and what not. If you meet their sweet spot it becomes almost random to get in.
I think @EncinitasJAK and @bogeyorpar are right. The stats of the waitlisted students here are higher than the stats of enrolled students the past few years by looking at the data. I would think that in the past many high stat students were accepted but declined as they did have “better” options. CP is being very cautious about over enrolling and I think that many of these high stat students will be offered admission if they stay on the WL. They are probably just seeing who actually sends in SIR from acceptances before offering more spots. But the reality is - most the acceptances from the high stat applicants won’t be until later in March or April 1 - because the top schools usually send out their acceptances later and many 4/1 or maybe 3/30 since 4/1 is a sunday.
This is my first time going through the college process for my S18. It has been an eye opening experience. He is a good student but not amazing and have been finding out that it is very hard to get into a state school with a high demand and an employable major. .Because of this, we have gone out of state or private to see what our options are and are getting offers less than what it costs to stay in state. It looks like from the results of this thread,son will likely get rejected from CPSLO as a business major. From my research, CPSLO is not best known for its usiness school anyway (probably best in Engineering, CS, etc.) and have offers from other schools that have better business schools and with scholarships.
If you are right, that practice is incredible (and not in a good way). Doesn’t seem they should play this guessing game, and offer to the students best qualified, not just the ones “likely” to attend. Cal Poly is my son’s first choice even though he does have offers out-of state, and it seems he is being penalized for having decent scores. Also, the email my son received sets a deadline to confirm interest for the waitlist by March 12, which isn’t enough time to hear back from the UCs. So would that eliminate that many off the waitlist?
I think I’ve heard the idea of some type of matching system like med school residents, so that students and schools are required to provide more transparency into their choices and reduce this application inflation (one student applying to dozens of schools).
As a lifelong California resident, I find it very disheartening that our children don’t have better options for colleges through the Cal State system.
Oh dear. This comes up every year. There is ZERO evidence that Cal Poly engages in yield protection by waitlisting or rejecting high stat applicants. To believe this is to believe there is a criminal conspiracy in the admissions office that somehow has been kept quiet for decades.
The reality is that certain majors are intensely competitive (CS, ME, Aero, BME) and loads of high stat applicants are rejected from these majors every year. The Cal Poly app awards points for ECs, Work Experience, leadership, parent’s educational level, veteran status and high school location. These adders can make it so an applicant with slightly lower GPA/ACT gains admissions over one with higher GPA/ACT. The stats on CC are self-reported and reflect a minute sample of the applicant pool so it is really hard to conclude anything from them. Lastly, if Cal Poly is yield protecting they do a pretty awful job of it. Their yield is abysmally low- around 33%!
If you think Cal Poly admissions are unfair then you are in for a big surprise when you see the admissions results from UCLA and Cal. You will soon learn that their admissions is a black box that gives out bizarre results. Such as applicants with very mediocre stats being accepted over those with near perfect stats and incredible ECs. And if you question these outcomes you will be met with the all encompassing explanation of: “we have holistic admissions”.
Does anyone know a way to find out what spot you are on the waitlist? It’s seems like there were a few waves of waitlists, so are those who found out earlier higher on the waitlist or was it completely random?
I’m sorry, but my daughter has the exact stats of @netflixandchillingworth and was accepted. How, pray tell, was Cal Poly able to discern from the limited application that she will attend Cal Poly over UCs, and others will not. Just curious, @netflixandchillingworth how many hours of work and ECs did you indicate on your app? And did you check the leadership and work in major boxes? If either one was unchecked, that alone could explain things.
I agree that we need better options in state. The combo of difficulty to get in and getting the classes in crowded situations is really discouraging. Everyone I know wants their kid to get a degree where they can get a job and thus all the CS, engineering, business majors are just flooded. What kind of deal is a school that offers in state rates and typically requires 5 years to finish? We were first attracted to SLO as it is a good instate school with good pricing and offers a business major for my son. We have been finding that we can get the same rate and even better at out of state schools that are more interested. We also probably won’t have the difficulty of getting upper division classes (I hope) They may not have the big or popular name that we all want, but I am impressed by the individual attention and the different honors and fellowship offerings. It really is a tradeoff.
max rigor, max ec hours with leadership and max work hours can easily trump.higher stats.
Thank you, @choroidal for your rational explanation. I agree it seems unlikely that Cal Poly is “yield protecting”. But, I thought their admissions process was a little more transparent with the MCA score reflecting all the significant admissions criteria. For some reason, I am more comfortable with the UCs review process since they do advertise a holistic approach upfront. I do think it is interesting that the deadline to confirm interest in remaining on the waitlist is so soon, March 12 which gives me a little hope that they are intending to act on this and send out more offers soon.
@EncinitasJAK glad to hear your son has options out of state. My son does as well and I have the same perceptions as you!
@Waiting0532 I got in March 2nd
@BayAreaMom15 you can accept a spot on the wait list and still accept at another school, it’s not binding. If you are accepted off the wait list and want to switch to CP you can, and at worst you’re out whatever the nonrefundable part of the deposit at the other school is.
D waitlisted last night
Kinesiology
4.4 W GPA
3.96 UW GPA
31 ACT
~4650 MCA
@teachmama2 so sorry, I thought for sure she’d get in. At least she already has other great options. Is she going to accept a spot on the wait list?
@choroidal is 100% correct, this does come up every year and everyone keeps comparing their stats when we know it is not based on stats, it is based on MCA score and there are some factors here that can hugely affect an MCA score. Is it fair…? I don’t know…I kind of like the fact that it is based on more than just our stats unlike other state schools.