Hello,
I was wondering about my chances for Cal Poly industrial or general engineering.
I have an MCA score of about 4600, weighted and capped 9-11 gpa of 4.05,and a superscore act of 34(35 english, 35 math). My ECs, are track and a summer job. For my summer job, I worked 20 hours a week for 5 weeks, so when they ask the average hours per week worked for the last year, do I put 20 or less than that?
Thanks
You look like a competitive applicant. IE had around a 50% acceptance rate while GE was around 32% acceptance rate. Apply to IE as your first choice and select GE was your alternate major. Your chances will be dependent upon how you stack up against all the IE or GE applicants and their MCA scores.
Best of luck.
Apply to IE if you want to be an IE. Apply to GE if you are unsure which discipline you want to do. in general, it’s a bit of a pain to switch majors at Cal Poly. They make it a little easier for GEs though. The barrier into ME for example is lower for a GE than it is for an IE.
Using acceptance rates to guage competitiveness of admission at Cal Poly can be very misleading. Within the CENG it may be reasonably accurate, but all it really tells you is how popular a major is. You can know a lot of people applied relative to the number of slots offered if the acceptance rate is low, but you have no idea how strong the field is. As an example, by acceptance rate alone, Psychology is always more selective, by a wide margin, than Aerospace. The MCA cutoff for Aerospace is always higher though, meaning AE is the harder admit in spite of its higher acceptance rate.
Is IE harder or easier to get into compared to GE?
No one can answer that for you with any certainly. IE admits more who apply, but its all about the MCA cutoff. It is possible that the IE pool is top heavy. Search the Final Status threads for last year or two and you’ll get a better picture. My guess is that IE is easier, but I am not positive.
OP, your chances for IE should be good with your stats. My daughter (OOS) was admitted and now a freshman with similar GPA and slightly low ACT. If I were you I would average the total hours you work per the period they’re asking you to report. They don’t ask any details, just count the hours. Good luck!