I am planning on applying ED to Cal Poly SLO for Biomedical Engineering this fall 2016. My UC/CSU GPA is 4.29.
ACT English: 36; ACT Math: 32 (since Cal Poly only takes these two into consideration). Taking AP Calculus AB, AP Biology, AP Government, and AP Spanish 4 my senior year. I play 3 Varsity sports- volleyball, soccer, and swimming- and have played these sports throughout my high school career. Attended the EPIC camp at Cal Poly in July this summer. I am in the National Honor Society and the National Spanish Honor Society. Participate in Clare Booth Luce- a club specifically for girls who are interested in pursuing careers in math and science fields. Swim team captain. Peer tutor. I currently have a job that is related to Biomedical Engineering. Chance me please? Thank you!!
You have a very good chance at an acceptance especially since you are applying ED. Good Luck.
Calculate your MCA points to see if you are at 4500+. Please note that SLO uses 9th grades in their GPA calculation.
The maximum GPA they will use is 4.2, even though you can have a higher calculated CP GPA. A 4.2 is worth 2250 MCA points. Thus, multiply your CP GPA by 535.7 and you’ll get your MCA points for GPA.
The next biggest thing is test scores. The odd thing, likely because they wanted it to total a nice round number, is that the max score is 1650, even though the max SAT score is 1600. Multiply the total of your best SAT CR and your best SAT math by 1.03125 to get your MCA test points. If you took the ACT, they convert and vice versa.
The third largest section is the class rigor score, worth 750 points. In this section you get zero points for meeting the minimum admission requirements and adders for more than the minimum. The bonuses in order of power are (min semesters/max total semesters/bonus per extra semester/total possible bonus): math 6/10/125/500 (note: stats and finite do not count), lab science 4/8/50/200, English 8/10/50/100, foreign language 4/8/25/100, visual performance 2/4/25/50, no bonus points for social sciences or electives. As with GPA, you can actually score higher than the maximum, but 750 is the most they will count.
Finally, work and ECs, worth 350 points. Work (hours per week/bonus): 0/0, 1-5/20, 6-10/40, 11-15/60, 16-20/80, 21+/100, add 50 points if work is major related. ECs (hours per week/bonus): 0/0, 1-5/30, 6-10/60, 11-15/90, 16-20/120, 21+/150, add 60 points for leadership role.
There you go. Good luck.
GPA = 2250
Test = 1650
Class rigor = 750
EC / Work Hrs = 350
Subtotal for accademic points = 5000
Parents education = 600
Veteran’s benefit = 700
Zip code= 500
High school = 700
Parent employed by CPSLO = 700
Subtotal for Demographic points = 3200
Max attainable points = 8200
Scores are capped at 5,000
Thank you so much, that was extremely helpful! @Gumbymom
The MCA point calculation is courtesy of a frequent SLO poster @eyemgh. I just copied it instead of posting the link. Good Luck with your college applications.
You’ve amassed an impressive record. Congrats! With that, a couple notes of caution. BME is one of the most competitive admits at Cal Poly. It’s because it’s a hot major right now and Poly’s program is relatively small. They admit roughly 80 first time freshmen. The bigger question is why BME in the first place? Many make the mistake of thinking it’s a good premed route since it would get the prerequisites out of the way and would be a good fallback job if they don’t get into med school. Sadly it’s neither. The job market for BMEs with a BS is very soft. Probably the worst of any engineering discipline. If you want to work in BME, and there’s nothing wrong with that, you need a graduate degree. You can do it just as effectively with a better undergraduate degree, ME. As for med school, engineering is difficult. It will be harder to maintain a suitable GPA doing engineering than it would be doing any other degree that one might consider. Anyhooo, good luck! It’s a great school.
Thank you! That was great information and was very helpful 
@eyemgh