I was reading a Mustang News article that mentioned how 70% of students who applied from Cal Poly SLO’S service area were admitted as opposed to an average admittance rate of 30%. The author noted that the bonus points given in the MCA score for being in the service area can not grant admittance to an applicant who does not meet minimum requirements. This got me thinking if it was possible to essentially be guaranteed admission to Cal Poly.
Suppose someone in the Cal Poly service area applies for business administraton and has an MCA Score of 4550 (which is close to the major’s average) before adding the 500 bonus points for being in the service area. The applicant also meets minimum MCA requirement (before 500 bonus points) and has stats close to the average for business administration.
Said applicant now has an MCA of 5050. Are the odds of this applicant being admitted very high or not much better than the average for their major (30%)?
I saw an applicant on a final decision thread who applied for an engineering major and had an MCA of 5010 with good stats for his major who was accepted. I wonder if such a high MCA could hurt a students chances as Cal Poly has rejected students with higher than average stats, and presumable higher than average MCA scores.
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Cal Poly does not reject high stats students if their MCA is above the cutoff for their major. That’s a long dispelled myth that they have something like a Tufts syndrome. The evidence refuting that is overehelming. How could the mean accepted GPA in engineering be 4.13, the SAT mean be 1450 and the ACT mean be 33 if they rejected high stats students automatically? Someone has to account for the elevated mean. Also, too many students with high stats get in and report it here. Your own cited factoids also are evidence against your theory. The MCA over 5000 that you referenced got in and the acceptance rate from the local service area is MUCH higher, presumably because of the added 500 MCA points.
There are minimum course requirements, SAT/ACT scores and GPA thresholds. That’s why living in the service area is not a guarantee of acceptance.
So, how do you explain the occasional high stats student that doesn’t get in? That became clear this year. Students who leave their middle school math off of their application will have an MCA drop of 500 points. It happened to multiple posters this year.
So, short answer, there’s no harm in a high MCA and there’s nothing that can guarantee admission.
Thanks for the reply! I’m new to CC so I’ve only been on a few forums and don’t know too much, especially about Cal Poly. I never did read why a few high stat students got rejected. I’m sorry about my misunderstanding. I appreciate your clarification.
Does SLO have a “service area” that gives students extra points? Does this apply to transfer students? Can people move to the area, and go to the nearby community college their second year of community college to get those points?
The top transfer “feeders” to Cal Poly (by far) are Cuesta College (which is the CC for SLO County) and Allan Hancock College (which is the CC for northern Santa Barbara County). Local high school grads who go to Cuesta or Hancock presumably have an advantage in Cal Poly transfer admissions (in the same way that local high school grads have an advantage in freshman admissions).
I don’t know if a non-local can get the same advantage by moving to the Central Coast and attending Cuesta or Hancock. Maybe, if they use a local address as their “home domicile”.
Hello- curious as to how I can get an idea of what the minimum coarse requirements, GPA, & ACT/SAT thresholds are for Software Engineering. My son has an MCA of 4776 without local bonus which caps at 5,000 after adding bonus in second round.
@UMath154 A few years ago CalPoly SLO came under fire for ignoring the mission mandate of all Cal State Schools and marginalizing their primary service area. (and rightly so, since the school is funded by California Tax payers) You probably aren’t at a disadvantage if you live locally, as they need to show a quantifiable increases in offers of enrollment for the area. Im not sure if The Cal State board is monitoring by major, by school or just the unverisy as a whole.