A lot of the comments on this thread do seem to diminish the kids that did get accepted, as not deserving. College admissions in general is in a lot of ways ‘random’. But it seems I’ve read quite a few posts saying some kids are less deserving. We all have a slight bias towards our own kids. We should be happy for those that did get accepted. Rejection and waiting is incredibly hard, but i hope that kids that got accepted don’t take any of this personal.
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Exactly right. My kid didn’t get into every college he applied to. I chalk it up to more qualified applicants in his major at the time he applied.
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I have to agree with you. As a parent of two public school students who worked their buns off from sunrise to sunset and not because we made them, but because that is what they chose. S20 accepted at Cal Poly SLO, Vanderbilt, UCI, and Berkeley (rejected at UCLA). S24 with higher academic record and stronger EC waitlisted at UCD, UCI and accepted at Cal Poly SLO. These young men earned their spots with plenty of hard work. I do wish that those still waiting get accepted because there are lots of deserving and hard working students from private and public schools.
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Cal poly slo is just as competitive as UCD. uCSB. And UCI. All with the similar admissions averages over the past several years in the mid 20 percent range. Not sure about this year but aside from ucla and cal poly chance of admission is similar to the mid tier UC. Harder than nUCR UCSC and UCM.
I largely agree. I was referring to the student housing situation.
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@SoCal92780 To imply that the highest stats kids are shunned in favor of “lower stats” kids is a huge overreach. I get your frustration/disappointment/confusion, but this is just silly at best, but more: incredibly dismissive. Are ALL high stats kids getting in? No. It sucks; I get that disappointment for sure. I get that it can FEEL random to parents, but I’m confident that admissions teams in general do know what they are looking for, and they do try to give offers to the students that they feel are best suited to their needs. So is there an element of admissions that kids just "win a lottery?’ Maybe, but I do think the stellar academic record is what allows one to buy a ticket in the first place. It feels unkind to imply that the kids who got in didn’t deserve it. This generation is amazing; I love how much hope they give us.
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My kid got in with a just under a 4.0 csu gpa, but has 2 years of college done plus 2 AP’s. I had a friend complain to me that their kid applied for the same major with a higher gpa but hasn’t heard yet. Their kid took 4 AP’s, worked hard, and is very smart… but cal poly has an algorithm…. And something in my kids application pushed it into the acceptance territory (not first gen or anything like that). We can’t know the process, but at first gpa glance that kid may “deserve it more” but you really don’t know the true rigor unless you are admissions.
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Both my kids were accepted (dif years), one extremely high stats and the other in the normal range of good stats DS28 SLO. I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that the highest stats kids aren’t accepted due to a belief they’ll go elsewhere. A super high stats kid’s dream school may be SLO and it wouldn’t be right to assume they’d like to go elsewhere.
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correction DS27
i know a bunch of ppl from my instate area that got accepted last year with under 4.0, but not seeing any of that on this discussion page
I do believe that some universities practice that. I’m not sure if SLO does. Every college has a different approach to their admission process.
I know that it’s frustrating to us parents and students who are trying to figure this out.
i don’t have any personal “frustration/disappointment” We aren’t interested in SLO. Nor am I suggesting that all high stat kids are shunned. I don’t think that’s what I said. But SLO more than any other school I’ve seen has the most opaque admission process and if you are going to only really consider GPA and rigor (which is the case for SLO), then it’s weird to see the discrepancies where some kids with higher GPA and more APs don’t get in while others with lower stats do. I can see the data in our school’s Naviance page. Most schools the date on the scatterplot is fairly predictable (lots of red checks at the lower left quadrant and lots of green checks at the upper right quadrant). Obviously most schools will have some outliers to that pattern, but with SLO there is no pattern. The red checks and the green checks are completely random. It literally looks like darts were thrown against the wall.
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Do they not consider ECs? I think someone upthread, for example, speculated that SLO favors students who work jobs.
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It’s best to go by the data released by Cal Poly rather than personal anecdotes. Of course every student wont have a 4.0 UCLA, Berkeley, UCI etc also accept some students with kids in the high 3.0 range. But it’s easy to look at the actual data and see the average admits GPA.
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I think they allow students to list ECs but without any details so it seems unlikely they are giving that much weight.
I just think publicly funded schools should be really transparent about exactly what the criteria is and what metrics exactly they use for admissions. I have no doubt the kids they admit are fabulous and super smart. It’s just that if they are going to put so much emphasis on GPA, then one would assume that the highest GPA kids would get in and that isn’t always the case. So what are the decisions based on? It would be great if they were really transparent about that.
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One factor that seems to help is having a job while in high school. That’s been my recommendation to anyone who wants to go there.
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Issues mentioned with Naviance data aside ( upthread), much of that scatter in the data for your school could be attributed to the varying popularity and inversely proportional acceptance rates for the different CalPoly majors that people are directly admitted to. Other universities which may admit to an entire college or by majors to a college dominated by 1 or 2 majors like MecE and EECS will have more segregated distributions.
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yes. Although we know someone with a 4.0 unweighted and 9 APs who had a job for 3 years in high school and was rejected.
They’re fine with it and got into Cal and UCLA lol. But still, it’s weird
It can be frustrating. I remember my kids college counselor saying that nobody should put it in their “safety” column these days. But I’ve also seen kids choose CP over some of the “better” schools listed here so it’s all relative.
If you are not interested in SLO perhaps this is not the thread for you.
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