If you already have 8 weighted semesters in 9-11 grade, extra honors and AP classes get you nothing in the formula. And honors and AP classes in 12th grade get you nothing, period.
A student with 8 semesters of non-honors science gets the same bonus points as one with 4 years of AP science.
A student with 2 years of Choir gets the same art bonus as one with two AP Music Theory and AP Art History.
And so on.
I can’t think of a school that considers rigor less than Cal Poly.
The rigor section actually has very little to do with rigor. It simply adds up semesters past the minimum. These two students get the same “rigor” points of 200 for having 8 semesters of lab science:
@VickiSoCal, there might be an argument that Cal Poly doesn’t acknowledge AP/Honors rigor in 12th grade beyond the 8 GPA points, but they certainly don’t ignore rigor in general. Students who choose to take A-G electives in grade 12 beyond the minimum are rewarded in the MCA for doing so. If you look at my post that you responded to, that’s all that was ever said. I was speaking in general terms about taking A-G classes. That is the “rigor” that matters after a student has accumulated 8 AP/Honors semester points. If a student pushes his/herself a little further with AP classes senior year, then the reward can also come in the form of college credit when the tests are passed.
Again, good students tend to earn good options when all is said and done.
Cal Poly rewards high GPA more than rigor. My current high school sophomore is in 6 weighted classes. That’s 12 semesters just in her sophmore year. And she’s getting mostly B’s.
For Cal Poly, to maximize GPA she should move 3 of those 6 classes down to unweoghted and get A’s and drop one altogether so she wouldn’t have a zero period. Her rigor score would not be affected at all and her MCA would go up. So no, Cal Poly, IMO does not reward rigor. In fact she is really being penalized for it.
So for her Cal Poly is likely not gonna happen. But she’d be miserable in World History with an A and is happy in AP Euro with a B.
It’s clear that the rigor that matters most to Cal Poly is math, as it alone can make up 2/3 of the maximum score.
Whether or not AP classes are de facto more rigorous is debateable. AP classes do one thing, unify the curriculum between institutions.
My son took plenty of AP classes (8 if I recall correctly) including Calculus through BC and Calc based Physics, but the two most rigorous classes at his school (a private college prep scool) weren’t AP classes (big caveat…that’s assuming a student that doesn’t struggle with math). They were freshman World History and Organic Chemistry/Biochemistry.
As for GPA being the highest value in the MCA, GPA is top dog in almost every school’s admissions algorithm, objective or holistic. Why? Because HS GPA above all other metrics has the highest correlation to collegiate success. That’s in no way to say rigor is not important.
The 8 semester limitation on GPA weighting is what I look at most when I say Cal Poly penalizes rigor. At our school kids have choices for almost every class between honors/AP/IB or regular. And the rigor and grade gap between those classes is huge. More than one grade point in many cases. The “regular” classes are that much easier.
The other CSU’s and the UC’s also cap weighted grades. Why blame Cal Poly, specifically?
I don’t fully understand the mechanics of the MCA, but anecdotally, I know that my son made it into Cal Poly and his friend with very similar stats but less rigorous classes did not. They applied to the same college (Liberal Arts) and had similar acceptance rate in the majors. The biggest difference being senior year classes. Again, only anecdotal evidence.
I will say this: as a parent AND a high school teacher, I usually advise kids to take the AP/Honors classes where they can be most successful. I have seen too many kids chase the AP dream only to come crashing down in a heap of C’s and D’s. So yeah, the GPA must be protected. However, I also left my youngest daughter in a very challenging “Honors” World History class that offered no grade real bump. She got a B in the first term, but pushed herself to an A in the second. It would have been easier for her to have taken regular WH and gotten the easy A, but I think it will help her in the long run to have wrestled with a bit of difficulty. If that means she misses out on a few of the top end universities, she’ll be okay.
This is my personal take. Anyone who games the system by taking easy classes simply to get into Cal Poly will have a tough time getting out of Cal Poly. I also think those students are rare. By far and away the biggest rigor bump in the MCA is taking math through at least calculus AB. That alone accounts for 10% of the total score. How many students take Calculus, but skate through by taking the easy route in all the rest of their classes? How many students that take the easiest route do extremely well in their standardized testing? Yes, GPA is the king, probably rightfully, but it’s very easy to see how attempting to rig the system might not actually benefit the student.
I highly, highly recommend CALLING Cal Poly admissions for application questions!!! They are extremely helpful. I called them almost every day for a week about my son’s high school coursework, talked to different people each time (NOT students) who were very consistent in their answers. One even offered to walk through the entered classes with me. I did not wait too long to get a live person, much better than email!
FYI - one admissions officer did confirm that Cal Poly does not use the Achievement sections, but could not explain to me the reason, kind of lame.