Cal Poly accepting less students in 2019?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
1

I saw a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqn-Mcxqi-E) which claimed that Cal Poly was reducing its enrollment. Is this true? And does this mean it’s gonna be harder to get in?

2

According to this article in the Mustang News, yes it is true about downsizing and yes it will be a more difficult admit.

https://mustangnews.net/cal-poly-aims-to-downsize-the-student-body-by-2020/

3

I think they had a huge incoming freshman class 2017 1000 more than expected so I think they have had to adjust

4

^^^Correct, they had more applicants enroll than expected in 2017 and to make sure they meet their educational goals, they are slowly reducing the # of incoming Freshman. However, there has been other news articles that they had plans to expand especially since they built new Freshman housing. Only time will tell.

Either way, many of the majors at SLO are tough admits so if applying, make sure you have several backup schools on your list.

5

Cal Poly’s plan was to increase enrollment. They were at mid-18,000 in 2012 and were shooting for around 21,000 to meet demand, but still meet their educational objectives. With the elimination of ED, their yield calculation was bad and overshot enrollment by about 1000 in a single class. They have been slowly backing that down to get back to their original intended numbers.

I believe the new dorms are simply an effort to replace old decaying dorms. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some of the older ones removed in the next few years.

Even if everything stayed the same, CP is ever increasing in it’s acceptance difficulty because more students are applying. Last year alone saw a 12% increase to over 65,000. That’s more than 20,000 more applicants than they had in 2012. As @Gumbymom said, “make sure you have several backup schools on your list.”

6

Amazing how these acceptance rates and plans for enrollment are such moving targets from year to year. What sounds like a fairly legit option halfway though high school can easily become a Reach school by the time you apply, regardless of how well we’re performing.