Hello All,
Kid is interested in Engg at Cal Poly and is one of his dream school.
CalPoly GPA - 4.05, 5 yrs of Math, 4 yr English, 6 yr of Science and good ECs
6 APs, 5 Honors, In state
Please guide us through. Will engg be a Reach for Super reach?
Reach or Super Reach doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you have an affordable and assured safety.
One can’t tell from your post where you stand - what courses make up these years of a subject you mention.
And I assume you are talking about SLO and not Pomona?
The 4.05 is (likely) weighted. What is the unweighted GPA?
It depends on which engineering major they choose. The 25th percentile GPA was 4.13 so they’ll need to choose wisely to have a chance.
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Unweighted isn’t considered at Cal Poly, only 9-11 capped and weighted CSU/UC GPA.
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But I’m trying to understand where the student is - academically, etc. rigor wise, etc. But I see your note on the 4.13 above…which likely says it all.
Thanks
Thank you!. Will General engg or Mech a possibility for his GPA?
Humboldt will be a safety since it is not impacted and engineering majors there are not impacted.
Pomona will calculate an index of GPA * 1000 + 450, which would be 4500 if the GPA is 4.05. Mechanical and aerospace will be reaches based on last year’s threshold being higher than 4500, while civil, electrical, and computer engineering are probably matches due to last year’s thresholds being slightly lower than 4500. Other engineering majors had last year’s threshold substantially below 4500. See https://www.cpp.edu/admissions/freshmen/freshman-student-profile.shtml
San Luis Obispo is less transparent and probably more selective than Pomona; threshold scores in its calculation (which it does not reveal publicly) vary by major. However, past versions of its calculation included substantial bonus points for math beyond the minimum and somewhat less bonus points for other subjects beyond the minimum (be sure to include high school level math and foreign language taken in middle school on the application).
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Mechanical engineering projected admit rate 15% and General Engineering projected admit rate 46%.
Admitted SLO GPA range for College of Engineering: 4.13-4.25
It will be a Reach school but worth applying if it is a top choice school.
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Thank you Gumbymom! Would appreciate if you can explain more on the GPA range of 4.13 - 4.25. Does that mean that all the selected kids have to be in that range?
No as quoted by @eyemgh the 4.13 is the 25th percentile and the 4.25 is 75th percentile so applicants above and below that range are accepted.
The range gives an applicant an idea of where they stand. This data is for the 2023 admits so still waiting for the 2024 admit data although it should be pretty similar.
Overall admit rate for the Engineering college was 20% in 2023. Again, still waiting on 2024 admit numbers.
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For your reference, S24 got rejected by SLO for Aero Eng with CP WGPA 4.21, 5 APs and 3 Honors in state. He did got accepted by CPP and SDSU.
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Thank you. That really helps and put things in perspective. What did your son ended up deciding finally ( CPP or SDSU)?
What @Gumbymom is pointing out is that GE is going to be a better path for your student than ME, even if they ultimately want to be a ME.
The department expects about 50% of the GEs to change majors knowing that some choose it because they are genuinely undecided. As such, they lower the barrier to get into other majors. For example, if an IE or EE wants into ME, they need a 2.75. A GE only needs a 2.0. Neither may sound like high bars, but the last report I saw, and admittedly it was old, was that the average ME graduating GPA was 2.71.
Good luck, and certainly consider Humboldt as a backup.
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He ended up committing to uDub DTC Eng, but still waitlisting in UCD.
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My daughter’s friend got accepted to engineering this year with a GPA below the range quoted here so not impossible! 
I’m not sure what specific engineering specialty though.
I would expect MatE, GE, and IE to all be possible, maybe even Civil and EE. ME, straight up? Unlikely.
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Environmental Engineering…not sure what that is
Problem with saying SLO is your kid’s dream school is the size of the school making it difficult to predict with any certainty.
Engineering with double digit spots means you can be high stat and not get in.
But SLO also looks at number of A-G years, totality of EC and Volunteer hours (without any clarification or definition of what you actually do – just list the hours as a range).
We already feel like UC applications are random enough to resemble a lottery, CSU takes the cake: smaller program, no essay, not much detail to write on app, and just as many applicants as some of the UC campuses.
No one can tell you if you actually can and will get in. Nobody knowns until March. Just check the box, but apply widely.
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agree. We cannot accurately predict the outcome and it is not in our control anyways. Applying widely is the only solution at this point in time and see what happens…
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The Cal Poly Targets and Planning Estimates by year are located here. https://ir.calpoly.edu/content/publications_reports/targets/index
This data will tell you how many applicants and how many targets by College and by Major. For example, for Fall 2024 ME FTF (freshman) applicants were 4,456 for 230 target seats.