For the UC campuses, admission by major can vary based on the college. In general, the College of Engineering admits by major but the College of Letters and Sciences does not. Then there are exceptions to these.
Check out post # 4 on this discussion thread for the breakdown.
Computer Science / Data Science
Wow, that’s very interesting to say the least. Your second daughter is extremely qualified and deserves to be there! I’m a parent also and so frustrated with this admission process. My daughter has a 3.95 uw, 4.2 w, loads of activities, a job related to her major (nutrition), took a nutrition course at a community college… and yet she hasn’t heard.
What major?
This is the first admit I’ve heard about since last week. Gives us hope! Thank you.
International and US citizens studying abroad are on a different decision timeline than In-state and OOS students due to the International curriculums. There have been some International students that have been admitted since December.
Maybe there is a lottery once they’ve identified the students they’d like to accept.
He got into the City and Regional planning major, and accepted yesterday! Was WL at SDSU.
I might actually prefer this method if they told students up front and listed the qualifications that get you into the lottery (of course, this could change every year depending on number and quality of applicants).
They have listed the admissions requirements. The only people calling it ‘random’ and ‘a lottery’ are the parents on this thread.
90% of the kids rejected likely exceed the minimum requirements.
I agree with your statement but when the decision points between applicants with very similar stats are opaque and no feedback is given to the applicant(s), the schools are inviting wild theories.
I personally would love to see the reasons for my son having not been selected (no word from SLO yet, so there is still hope) - not because I think he deserves it more than anyone else, but to learn where improvements can be made for the future to increase their chances for transfer, etc.
Sure, but that doesn’t just apply to Cal Poly. College admissions is full of mystery of why they get into one school and not another. We’ll never know.
I think it’s more difficult to reason with the CSUs because of no essays, no recommendations, no EC lists, and no tests. It’s hard to know how to stand out or how to differentiate between the candidates.
My daughter was waitlisted for CS last year. Her GPA was higher than the GPA range they put on their site for acceptances to engineering last year, she maxed out EC hours, she worked a job in a field related to her major, she had leadership roles, she had more than the recommended number of classes in everything besides English (only had the standard 4) She took 13 AP classes. So that’s all the information they know, how do they chose who to accept and who to waitlist/reject?
I do completely understand that. I also had wished CSU allowed for more info to be included with the application. These kids work so hard and so much of it doesn’t get shown on the application. I also don’t think it’s completely random and just a lottery. As someone mentioned above, an Ivy League admissions officer said they could redo their admit list multiple times with different kids and they’d probably all be successful at the school. Each school has their processes but numerous kids don’t get into schools they’re qualified to attend. This thread is heavy on people saying Cal Poly randomly selects students, but I’d guess admissions wouldn’t agree and wishes they could admit more.
I have seen a pattern of high stats students both in state and out of state not hearing back yet for either Biology or Biochemistry. Has anyone else noticed that pattern? I am wondering the stats of student who DID already get in for these two majors. If that is you, then congratulations! Would you mind sharing your stats?
I promise, I am not bitter. But I just find it odd that my daughter got waitlisted to UCLA(amazing accomplishment imo), accepted to all the other UC schools she applied to: UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego. Yet, waitlisted/denied from the 2 of the 3 CSU schools.
I just really believe the insight gained by essays makes such a huge difference.
I agree. The PIQs really allow their interests and personality to help tell their story. I wish Cal Poly had an essay.
Writing is so cognitively demanding. You could take a class Of 100 students. 50 students have As and the other 50 spread out between Bs and Fs. Give those students an essay, and you would see more variability between the 50 A students than all the students between Bs to Fs.
Yep, I agree! That’s why I said “schools” instead of singling out CP SLO. This isn’t unique to CP. I’m not in the conspiracy camp. I just wish some kind of feedback existed, that’s all.