@SantaClarita
2014
Number of qualified applicants offered a place on waiting list: 1,598
Number of wait-listed students admitted: 67
Well… congrats! 
Still waiting on mine… (probably got waitlisted)
Is it true we should hear on March 1st (today) if we are waitlisted?
@jeffblack001
Seriously?! Congrats! I have similar stats as you so I’m hoping you are being serious. I might have a chance haha!
@eyemgh I am starting to doubt the claim Cal Poly is not utilizing something outside of stats, unless ECs are extremely important. I know my son met the requirements, as he was accepted to another CSU last fall. The application is the same basic app, he met all of the requirements. The other CSU would not have accepted him otherwise. Unless they are trolls, I have seen two OOS applicants who posted much lower stats than my son’s claim they were accepted into ME. I have no legitimate explanation for the selection process if these are honest reports of stats. Granted, there is still the possibility my son will be accepted but I am doubtful at this point.
I don’t have any sour grapes, but I do have disappointment about getting my child’s hopes up and wasting $55 if he had no chance based on some factor that is not posted. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there were enough applicants that had higher stats than my son (4.21 CSU GPA, AP classes including Calculus, 5 maths, 2130 SAT (740 Math, 700 R, 690 W) to fill all of the ME spots. Losing to the person who runs faster isn’t bothersome. Losing the race to someone who didn’t run as fast is a curious thing. It is natural to have questions, and for some parents/students to have skepticism. I am left very confused about this selection process. Since I put in $55 and my son put in time, and effort to complete the application, I would appreciate it if Cal Poly was upfront about their selection criteria/process.
I am left confused by the variance in stats in those who are accepted and those who not have heard back yet in the same major.
I guess the word T…R…O…LLS is not allowed. Sorry!
Some of the 4.4 and up GPA students Cal Poly accepted, probably rejected Cal poly and said no to it as soon as they found out as they must have applied to 7 ivy’s, Michigan, Purdue, Georgia tech, and other top privates and public ivy like schools because they most likely had early action application submitted to those schools.
Now I can’t imagine a 4.3 and up person getting rejected from top 10 schools in US in each respective majors because there isn’t much competition if you split up the majors and schools and do a top 10 list that way.
NYU, 7 ivy’s, UC’s (regents scholars people already heard back decisions), Michigan, Purdue, GIT, CU Boulder (high tech community there, Google building 4 acre campus near CU Boulder), USC, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, Harvey-Mudd, Rose Hullman, SJSU for computer engineering, University of Wisconsin, Emory Riddle Aeronautical Institute, University of Illinois-Urbana Champagn, Washington University in St.Louis, UT Austin, Texas A&M, SDSU (computer/electrical engineering; Sandisk and Qualcomm people).
^^If each of these univeristies accept 600-1000 people in early action/early decision…Does cal poly earlly stand a chance of retaining 4.3 and up people? I mean, how many 4.3’s and up are there in every high school? Here in Silicon Valley…we only have about 50 4.3 people in graduating class of about 600. if you take 10 major academically driven areas in top 400 high schools in US, you will only find 50 4.3’s in top 300, and still some good amount in top 300-450ish.
50 times 400 is about = 20000 top good applicants…and about 30000 people in US have 2100 and above on SAT and ACT equivalent…
If you think about it…i just mentioned good 35 schools ^ there…and each accepting 600-1000 students (25000 total accepted by all these in early periods i suppose) …cal poly doesn’t really stand a chance to retain the 4.3 an up talent of about 20000 kids.
That being said, people with less financial resources still must be waiting on cal poly (instate), but again, the privates and public ivy’s are usually more generous to people who absolutely require financial aid.
Do the math, dont be afraid.
I heard people got accepted into UC Irvine for engineering in mid february…do u really think someone would reject UC irvine and go to cal poly, while UC’s offer a lot more as far as getting the employment, alumni connections into tech industry and all other industries…cal poly’s reach can’t be compared.
Cal poly has great academics.
but seriously, some of you guys in this chat are freaking out for no reason
Just saying, some of you are just too scared…you will be fine!
The fact that cal poly doesn’t accept essays…and some of your personal life stories are good, your other achievements are exceptional, and your personal struggles might reflect that even if your GPA is kid of low, its very good to the situation your in or you were in throughout high school…stop freaking out, start preparing for internships and summer jobs and adding valuable learning skill sets to your resume so you can get ahead no matter what university your accepted into.
No matter what engineering you do, having a bit of programming knowledge wont hurt.
Starting honing your physics skills for specific majors you applied to.
Live a little for god sake, its almost 4th quarter of your senior year.
dont do stupid things, get your highschool grad req all set if not already, i know people who were accepted to a good school, did something terrible, and had their admission recinded.
You seniors will never get time like this in your lifetime when right now you can pick up a good and start reading for fun…or do something else for fun and not have to face the “time” wasted consequence of it…your in this airless period…you have nothign in your hands, nothing in your control…so stop controlling it and killing this good tiime period you have, colleges control your things now, stop fighting them on that control.
Is the portal being weird for anyone else? I can log in, but once I do, it says “The complete my.calpoly.edu is not currently available. You may continue to use Single Click functionality during this time. Please check back later for full my.calpoly.edu functionality!”
Is it just me or are others getting this message too?
Nevermind, it’s back up!
@MilitaryFamily. I agree that it is likely that there are other factors considered. The results pretty much compel that conclusion. On the other hand, the application is so basic, there are a limited number of other factors that could be considered from it, and given it is a state school, a pretty limited number of extrinsic factors. I think, if we knew the basis, it would be clear why things were done. Whether everyone agreed with it, would be a different issue. That might be why CP no longer publishes the basis.
I think though, the unusual thing is not that we do not know the precise basis of the decisions, but rather that we have any insight into them at all. At none of the other schools to which my son applied do we have any clue of the decision process, except the most bland generic statements from admissions, and the statistics published in various sources.
Your son has a good GPA, good boards, and an interesting life story. He can get into a huge number a good schools, public and private, many of which might be considered more “prestigious” than CP.
@MilitaryFamily, Poly ABSOLUTELY uses information beyond stats. The algorithm is called the MCA, Multi-Criteria Admissions Application. Points, many in fact, can be obtained through non-academic categories. The score is capped at 5000. Below are two examples.
A student from Chico who has a 4.2 or better (the algorithm is capped at 4.2), a perfect 1600 SAT, no ECs because they are bookworms, and is really into writing, so didn’t take advanced math and science, but did get the bonus for English would have an MCA score or 4000.
Now take a student from Paso Robles (500 point Service Area bonus), whose father didn’t graduate high school, but has a GED (300 point bonus, parent with some or no HS), who is really into math, science and sports, but has to have a job so his GPA and SAT were impacted. With a GPA of 3.2 and an SAT of 1200, their MCA score would be 4850.
We can certainly debate the fairness, but that’s not the point. At issue is whether there’s some hidden factors. From all I can gather, I don’t believe there are.
With that said, I would have thought your son would have made the cut. ECs don’t count much, but at the margin, they do have an impact. Rigor is another area. Foreign language, lab sciences and English can also add a few, but significant points.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.
@67dadofsenior, I couldn’t agree with you more. What makes Poly different isn’t what we don’t know, it’s what we do know.
The other think about Poly is that the difficulty of admission to a particular major really doesn’t have any tight correlation to how strong said major is in relationship to other schools. It’s simply about how many apply. Poly has long been known as a good school for Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. They are rightfully competitive. Biomedical on the other hand is a harder admit that either. It’s a smaller, less mature program. I don’t think anyone would put Poly near the top of their list for BME. Yet because they have so few slots and so many applications, it is very selective. It can be based on popularity as opposed to substance.
Last, but not least, in the MCA presentation which they’ve since pulled down, they showed a real, redacted example of final student ranking. It showed spots 1-45 for Business Administration in 2013, a major whose average stats in GPA and SAT/ACT are below ME. The applicant in 45th position had an MCA score of 4680. It really shows how competitive the applicant pool at Poly is.
@eyemgh. I appreciate your sharing earlier the basis of the 3200 demographic points that were disclosed a few years ago. I think though there are parameters even beyond those that must necessarily be at play. First of all, the results command that conclusion. Then too there are questions that lead to that conclusion. If the algorithm is unchanged, why was it de published? Why should we assume that it has not been tweaked in the ensuing years? Why are questions asked on the application not used in the algorithm? Family income? Dependent of a veteran or active duty? Etc. No reason to believe today’s decision tree is identical to what it was 3-4 years ago. That data provides interesting insight, for which I thank you, but I do not think it is currently the whole story.
@MilitaryFamily. Where else did your son apply?
@MilitaryFamily - We are in the same boat. I actually went back and double checked my sons CSU GPA (in prior posts I was guessing). He has a 3.96 CSU GPA and a 33 ACT. He has fulfilled all the advanced math, extra language, huge load of ECs and has a part time job. He was accepted early to ME at SDSU and CPP, in December and January respectively. I was floored to see some of the OOS posts that were so low for ME, that I foolishly thought he would have gained acceptance to SLO last week. We are so disheartened with the whole process. We have no doubt that he will go to college and prosper, but when you think you have a decent shot only to find out that there is no rhyme or reason to selection its very sad. Sad that I am a California tax payer and my son gets booted for less qualified applicants.
SLO was his number 1 choice, now I guess we are going to have to rethink our plans.
@67dadofsenior, to my knowledge the algorithm has never been published per se. I got a copy (I can’t even remember from where now) of a Power Point used a year and a half ago explaining Cal Poly’s admission selection system. I don’t know who the presentation was to, bug it was likely a group of HS counsellors. So, I don’t think it was depublished. I don’t think it was published in the first place.
Poly harvests the information they’ve deemed necessary from the general CSU application. They don’t use it all and may ask for more (for instance, unlike other CSUs, Poly counts 9th grade in the GPA). Some of the information gets used by the financial aid department.
None of this is to suggest that everything is known, that something couldn’t have changed in the last year and a half, or that we never had the whole picture in the first place. There is plenty of information though to explain why a student with lower academic stats might gain admission. There’s also plenty of information to refute the notion that Poly rejects highly qualified applicants.
In your son’s case, I am surprised and can only draw three possible conclusions. One, there’s more information than we are aware of. Two, the ME cut off was 4800 (or some number higher than your son’s). Three, there’s a missing requirement that you’ve yet to uncover on his application. I wish I knew. I am as puzzled as you.
@MilitaryFamily, admission to another CSU does not guarantee your son met all the minimum requirements for CP. They use a unified application, but each can use what they want of it, setting their own minimum requirements or requesting, as Poly does, supplemental information (grades from 9th).
@CrazyForCollege, in state and out of state are evaluated in separate pools. Like it or not, California has elected to underfund education to the point that schools have had to rely on alternate sources of income. Out of state students may not pay state taxes, but they pay $248/hr more than in staters for the opportunity. There’s no shortage of instate acceptances with lower stats either.
Depending on your perspective, there is lots of inequity built into the system. Live in the county you get 500 bonus points, 700 more if your a child of a CP employee. Mother and father didn’t finish high school, 600 points. Cali vet, 701 points. There’s more, but as you can see, objective and fair may not mean the same things. The data you choose to build your objective algorithm can be subjective.
At the end of the day, we don’t know the full story of any applicant posting here and more importantly, we don’t know who is real and who’s a TR0LL.
CPP and SDSU are also good schools. I’m sure he’ll shine no matter where he lands.
@eyemgh. As always thank you for the info. My comment about additional factors should not be taken to imply anything nefarious, just not known here. Folks we know who were accepted force that conclusion.
As for my son, happily CP was not his first choice, it surprised me because it was a target school. He has three acceptances, and his top choices don’t report for a few weeks. It was just a surprise.
@MilitaryFamily. I hope you considered private schools. Many are far more generous with need based aid than the public schools, and offer merit aid to good students like your son. Net cost could be well below the public schools.
@67dadofsenior, I didn’t take it as a suggestion of anything nefarious. >:)
I do though disagree with your suggestion that we don’t have enough information to explain some of the acceptances we’ve seen reported here who have lower GPAs and test scores, assuming they are infact real. It is an Internet forum after all. There are LOTS of MCA points that are unrelated to academic qualifications. Living in San Luis Obispo County alone is the same as scoring 500 points higher on a two section SAT.
That’s not to suggest that there aren’t other possibilities, but I believe there’s plenty of room in what we think we know about the MCA to conclude a student with lower stats could indeed have a very high MCA. In the end, at Poly, it’s not GPA, SAT or ACT. It’s total MCA that counts.
What I find harder to understand is the exclusion of your son, assuming he ultimately is excluded. It’s clear that he has a strong MCA. It’s also clear that strong students are not blanketly rejected to protect yield. I can only conclude what I posited in the earlier post.
Also, I strongly agree with the inclusion of privates in your list. They are more generous with aid. It is however because they have to be in order to be competitive. For all but a few schools that give little or no merit aid, strong applicants should not consider the list price as absolute. All of the data on financial aid can be found in a school’s Common Data Set in section H. This needs to be weighed on a student to student basis.
Good luck.