- SLO does consider your alternate major sometimes if you do not meet the threshold for your first choice major. Unfortunately, the applicants that were offered their alternate major were in the same College such as Engineering.
For example, I saw an applicant get denied for Biology but accepted for Nutrition (two different colleges).
You might want to look over last year’s acceptance thread to see if any CS majors were offered their alternate major. - SE does have a higher “projected” acceptance rate but each year it will depend upon the competitiveness of each in-coming Freshman class.
If SLO is your #1 choice, you might want to consider selecting SE as your major choice instead. I would look over the curriculum for each major to see if SE would meet your academic goals.
Course Flowchart for SE vs CS
http://flowcharts.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/17-19.52SEBSU.pdf
http://flowcharts.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/17-19.52CSCBSU.pdf