Cal Poly Regular Decision Thread 2016-2017

Cal Poly doesn’t care about extra curriculars, you can get a few points for job and activities related to major, doesn’t care how hard your high schools are, your sports (unless you are recruited for a sport), etc. GPA is number one and as others have pointed out in order to get the MAX GPA of 4.2 you need a 4.0 unweighted and 8 A’s on weighted courses. Self reported stats are not always right. Extra Math and Science help, missing a single required course hurts badly. Regarding wait list. You are ranked but ranked by major, so someone waitlisted in business will likely get in with lower stats than someone who doesn’t get in in Computer Science (just as they do in regular decision). 2016 took a lot of kids off the waitlist, but it doesn’t happen often, only twice since Cal Poly started waitlisting in 2009 (I think). Usually they take around 15-115 total. There is a large variance among majors and even among schools. COSAM includes liberal studies who have lower average scores than say Biology. In Engineering Civil Engineering generally has lower averages than Computer Science, etc. etc. This is true for many competitive colleges, however most other colleges use a lot of subjective information like extra curriculars and “story” and achievements. If you don’t hear anything by May 15th and really want Cal Poly it won’t hurt to call and see, I believe students got in during the summer last year as they were down a lot of expected students so they took over 2/3 of the wait list, but many majors were over enrolled, so again it depends on your major.

D was waitlisted for biochemistry
ACT 30
Unwt Gpa about 3.8
In state

@Heliski Whoah–you’re amazing. I have friend with similar stats and who is also a soccer player, and has lots of EC’s and every extra class he could take. He applied to computer science and still hasn’t heard either. I’ve seen people with lower stats and MCA scores post that they were accepted to CS. Just totally bizarre.

@pufframs & @Heliski your stats are outstanding! Casts a large shadow of doubt on the algorithm selection process, does it not? Our daughter had better stats than others accepted to biology and she too is in the “no determination” zone. Good luck to you going forward.

Sorry…forgot to add the stats are for my D not me :). I’m a Cal Comp Sci graduate myself from a a while back but I can tell from the level of work my D has gone through at her HS that she is much better prepared for a possible degree at Cal than I ever was. Urban legend saying at her HS is that the only two colleges where they would have to work harder than at her HS are MIT and Cal Tech. I understand that Cal Poly don’t necessarily take i to account the demands of the HS. I mentioned the strength of the HS to portray that she is an extremely well prepared candidate for rigorous coursework but still no determination at slo. I understand that kids are stressed out waiting for decisions but to me the more important thing for a student is being well prepared for college. All these well prepared applicants that have applied to slo will get into excellent programs and do great whereever they choose to attend.

Received the 1K scholarship last night OOS. 30 ACT 3.87 GPA. Extremely surprised about some of the people’s stats that were waitlisted, nevertheless I am sure you all will end up at a great university!

Hey @experiment626 what scholarship are you talking about? I checked my portal and it said that SLO won’t give scholarship information until early April.

Another OOS student also posted about a $1K scholarship - post #1405

@Samma124 it is called the “National Green and Gold Scholarship” I received an email about it last night

It’s given to all out of state students, although it used to be 2k per year.

Computer Science and Software Engineering acceptances haven’t came out yet

It’s crazy seeing people with GPAs higher than 4.0 getting waitlisted.

Pretty sure we saw some CS acceptances in this thread.

It kind of sucks that no kinesiology in-state majors have been accepted yet. If you know an in-state applicant that was accepted please let me know!

deleted…error in post.

@talguy and some of the other high stat no decision or waitlist or rejected status folks, curious if you or your kiddo met the 4 semesters of visual/performing art requirement with 2 of the semesters being at progressing levels (ex ceramics 1 and ceramics 2)? Also what about the 10 semesters of math? I’ve heard that not meeting these requirements can be the differentiator for the most competitive majors. As an OOS student, my d would not have naturally decided to take 4 semesters of visual arts because few kids do that in our state since the graduation requirement is only 2 semesters. When we found out about the cal poly requirement, we scrambled to get it all done senior year. No idea if that helped us but I did hear cal poly is pretty adamant about the 4 art semesters at the very least.

Is the 1k every year or just year 1? It didn’t specify in our portal.

The requirement is 2 semesters of visual/performing arts, not 4.

@czs1994:

This is an accurate assessment of what we know about SLO’s admission process. I would point out that even though the points for ECs are minimal in absolute terms they are critical in relative terms for competitive majors like CS. Many of the applicants to CS have perfect GPAs and very high test scores- what makes the difference in the end may be just a few points from ECs. It is a frustrating process for sure, but I am not sure the UCs “holistic” process is any better. The UCs give admissions officers immense power in deciding who gets in based in based on very arbitrary criteria- often influence by a particular admissions officer’s own personal beliefs. Every year at my son’s high school folks are shocked at some of the kids that get into UCLA and Cal and equally surprised at those that do not.

Interesting. I can’t find it on the cal poly site now but I did read that 4 semesters of visual and performing arts was the guideline. It was the same place where 10 semesters of math were recommended. Am I imagining this? We went into a frenzy when we found out about it and called Cal Poly admissions at the time. They confirmed 4 semesters of art was the target.