Chances for Cal Poly SLO & CPP, and request to look at balance of schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I’m submitting this for my son (I have an account here, he doesn’t yet.) I’m primarily looking for best guesses at his chances at Cal Poly SLO and to make sure he’s got a decent spread of schools he’s applying to since we can still add more if I’m missing any we should be considering. And I’m definitely aware that his chosen major could put a couple of the match schools into the reach category.

About him: He does best in smaller classes and with teachers he can get to know and who care about him. This is the main reason I identified the two Cal Polys for him early on. Cal Poly SLO is his #1, CPP is his #2. We originally only considered CA state schools because I’m a disabled vet and get a tuition break through CalVet for my kids, but his income has eliminated that option for at least the next two years.

Demographics

  • CA, (local only for CSUSM or UCR), US citizen
  • Public HS (large, very good reputation)
  • White male
  • No needs-based oganizations or qualifications

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • UW: 4.0
  • W: 4.22 SLO capped, 4.25 9-11 uncapped, 4.27 UC/CSU
  • Class Rank: top 15%, but HS transcript GPA is lower than application GPA due to a college class they don’t have listed; Top 9% of CA students
  • ACT/SAT Scores: not taken, kept getting canceled then I found out CSUs are now also test blind for class of 2022

Coursework

  • 5 AP & 1 CC (AP Comp Sci A (4), AP Comp Sci Prin (5), AP Physics 1 (5), AP CALC A/B (na), & CALC B/C (pending), and a college Computer Programming class)
  • Number of A-G reqts taken: A-2.5, B-4, C-6, D-4, E-3, F-1, G-3.5
  • Special electives: First student to successfully complete all three courses for each of the Computer Science and Engineering pathways at his school (and probably the district)

Extracurriculars

  • 21 hours a week for the past 36 months of work, major-related
  • Selected by CS teacher as the school CS student rep to the district CTE board
  • CyberPatriot - student leadership team this year, top-scoring member of school’s highest-ranked team in school’s inaugural year (Gold level, team finished in the top 100, #2 of 18 teams in the city)
  • Tennis all 4 years, Varsity this year
  • Over 100 hours of community service but Covid interrupted the ability to show dedication to the charity he loved most
  • CSF, no leadership positions in this
  • Total EC hours in the 11-15 a week range, leadership in CS organizations

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Hasn’t written his UC questions yet. CSU-N/A. Would have had LORs from his CS teacher, Engineering teacher, and Physics teacher. He’s his CS and Eng teachers’ favorite student and they’ve really seen him grow and thrive over all 4 years.

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • No constraints. College savings since before he was born, has own income, and GI Bill from both parents.

Schools

  • Safety: CSU San Marcos
  • Likely: Cal Poly Pomona (#2 choice), UCR, CSULB
  • Match: SDSU, UCSC, UC Davis
  • Reach: (I recognize how selective they are): Cal Poly SLO (#1 choice), San Jose State, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UCSD

[updated to move SJSU into Reach, not Likely. Also added the suggested UCR & UCSC]

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Maybe he can add Cal State Fullerton. More senior members will probably chime in on pros and cons of pomona versus fullerton.

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Forgot to add. This is only in case san jose state is competitive and you need another likely school.

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Thank you. I know the stats of some of the schools for CS, but not all of them. So this kind of advice is exactly what I’m looking for.

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He’ll be a very strong candidate for CP, even for CS. It’s very competitive, but objective, and he checks lots of the right boxes.

That said, make sure he reads the application very carefully. It’s weird. It asks for middle school classes if they are appropriate (HS level math and language if taken in middle school). Every year, very qualified students get rejected because they are careless. Don’t let him fall into that trap.

As for MIT, unless you’re willing to shell out $300K or you are eligible for significant need based aid, I don’t know that I’d recommend him applying. There’s only one angle where MIT is the golden ticket over your instate options, financial quantitative analysis. If that’s not his thing, then if he gets in, which he might, you all will be faced with a huge amount of angst. Worse, all of you could be in a deep financial hole because you opened Pandora’s Box “just to see.”

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Be careful with SJSU CS, which is much more selective than most majors at SJSU. The admission threshold for fall 2021 frosh entry for CS was equivalent to a 4.25 (weighted-capped) GPA. See Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions for the thresholds and Impaction | Admissions for the calculation of the eligibility index used.

Note that when calculating weighted-capped GPA for CSU, count each semester college course as two courses and two grades. This is different from UC.

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LOL! As for MIT, I’m right there with you! I’ve already had a very frank conversation with him about MIT. There are so many reasons for him not to do it (stress, $$, lack of individual attention in many classes, etc.) and only a couple reasons to go (prestige & job prospects). Even if he got in, I’d lobby for him not to go. He understands we can afford any in-state school and he’d have to pay the remainder. Oddly, he could swing that. But I don’t think he should. I figure if he’s able to get into MIT then SLO would have been an accept and that’s a MUCH better fit for him. Perhaps when he sees the rigor of just the application he’ll re-think applying. He’s talking about doing it for “bragging rights”. I don’t think he truly understands how difficult it is to get accepted. I think he looks at his transcript and thinks, I’ve had all A’s, I’ve taken the best APs for what I want to do, I did well on my exams, any school will accept me. I really don’t think he gets it even though I’ve been very up front with him about how he can be “perfect” and still not get into a lot of schools. I’m trying to make sure he genuinely understands that a rejection is not a reflection on his abilities.

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How would he pay the extra cost of MIT over a UC or CSU, unless it is likely that MIT will give enough financial aid grants to cover the extra cost (check MIT’s net price calculator)? Student loans without cosigner are limited to $5,500 first year, increasing slightly in later years.

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Thank you. Yes, I’ve gone over his courses in the application with a fine-tooth comb and everything was submitted correctly and the GPA is accurately counted even with the college course. He has more than the average number of units because he did summer school twice with unweighted classes which brings his weighted GPA down a bit. But it is what it is. He did Geometry in summer school after 9th to put himself on the accelerated math pathway (Ending with Calc B/C) and he did Spanish 1 in summer school after 10th to make more room in his schedule for the Engineering classes (unweighted classes) while still getting the three language classes in by graduation. His GPA took a hit for those decisions, but each decision was what was best for what he wanted to accomplish.

His heart isn’t set on SJSU. His application has everything it possibly can at this point. So SJSU will either be a yes or no. Since CPP is his second choice there’s not a lot of stress with any of the schools in between SLO and CPP. I just want to make sure I’m not leaving him in the cold if the unthinkable happens and CPP says no. Right now it feels like CSUSM is his only fallback.

Answer to the previous comment by @eyemgh: He had no classes in 7th/8th that would go on his application. He was in 7th when we discovered he had a major talent for math and by then it was too late to accelerate in our disctrict. So he took Geometry in summer school to accelerate himself. He also took no language classes or anything else in MS that would go on his application.

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Actually, your comment just made me think of something. The Cal State Apply website lists his GPA as a 4.29 after entering everything. But I thought they all capped at no more than 8 units of honors level courses. The 4.29 is with an extra honors credit, so my calculations removed that and put it on a 4.0 scale instead of 5.0. Which GPA will SJSU look at? The one listed on CSA or the one capped at 8 advanced units?

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It is a long shot for any student that doesn’t check all the MIT boxes (international math competition winners, etc.). Assume though he does get accepted. It’s a hard thing to pass up simply based on the name. My sister did and our dad is a BS/MS alum, but most won’t make the objective decision. With a MIT degree he’ll get more prestige, but very unlikely better job opportunities on average, again, unless it’s finance.

The top 10 employers for CS for MIt and Cal Poly are below in order.

MIT: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, Apple, Oracle, AWS, Accenture, and Capgemini

CP: Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Workday, AWS, Salesforce, Facebook, IBM and Cisco

I’m a Cal Poly fan. Our son chose it from OOS. Replace Berkeley, UCLA, CPP, etc. and the math still applies. I only used CP because it’s his current top choice.

If he has the money and can afford it. I think he’d actually be crazy to pick MIT, even assuming he does get a “better” job. Why? The opportunity cost of the money he’d spend. If he invests the difference (rounded down to $140K) and gets historical inflation adjusted market return, he’d have $2M in his late 50s. He’d have $1M in his late 40s and $500K in his late 30s. Investing that money would open all sorts of early retirement opportunities for him.

Just a thought. Best of luck to him!

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My GI Bill and my husbands would cover his first two years of school regardless of the increased tuition. Also, his income is actually high enough that if he spent it on the difference in tuition for the final two years, he’d be able to swing it without loans. But I still think that would be a waste of money. If he’s got it, it should go in the bank and stay there for when he graduates.

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@eyemgh - Ha! You and I were posting at the same time. I’m with you 100% on the opportunity cost on MIT. I also agree with you on fearing that if he’s accepted he might be tempted to accept. That’s the main reason I really don’t want him to apply. I still don’t think he’d be accepted if he did (he definitely doesn’t have any international math competitions). Even if he winds up making it to Nationals with CyberPatriots this year, it would happen well after applications were submitted so it would be invisible. I probably shouldn’t have listed MIT in my original post. I only did because he’s talking about applying. In all honesty, I hope he doesn’t submit, and I’ll work really hard to encourage him not to accept if, somehow - against all odds, he is accepted. I think the environment of MIT would not suit him at ALL. And yeah… I’ve told him job prospects from SLO are also excellent.

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I think you and him have gauged his chances for CS pretty well. If wants another safety/likely school, I would lean towards UC Riverside over CSU Fullerton. I would also add UC Santa Cruz as a Match school. UC Davis would probably be more on the High Match vs. Solid Match school for CS and I agree about SJSU that will be tough unless he exceeds the Impaction Index from last year (which can fluctuate year to year).

Best of luck to him.

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Thank you. I’ll definitely add those. I appreciate the feedback. I’ve been reading the last few years of acceptance threads you post for SLO and the ones for CPP as well, trying to see where he falls in the self-reported stats. Thank you for all your information on SLO.

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@ucbalumnus
Question for you on the SJSU Impaction information: I went to the links you provided and did a bunch of additional searches but came up with nothing beyond what you provided. Can you check my logic, because I’m not sure I’m following all of this correctly. Thank you.

800 x GPA
800 x 4.23 = 3,384 (I’m assuming the lower capped 4.23 GPA and not the 4.29 listed on the CSA application)

He gets no other points from other criteria.

Then because he’d be applying to the college of engineering
400 x math GPA
400 x 4.30 (if 9th grade is included) = 1720
400 x 4.38 (if 9th grade isn’t included) = 1748

3,384 + 1720 (using lower number) = 5,104

2021 Computer Science Minimum Impaction Index: 3,400

Is there anywhere that shows the numbers for admits last year? Or is this the minimum as much as is published?

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Not to tread on @ucbalumnus toes, but CS is not in the School of Engineering so the additional Math GPA calculation is not included.

SJSU only posts last years threshold for the Impaction index. If above the index, applicants were admitted.

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Okay, thank you. That surprises me it’s not in the COE, but I guess CPP does that too. So then if they use the 4.23, he’s out (understood now).

But you’ll probably know this too… his Cal State Apply site lists his GPA as 4.29. But I thought all of the CSUs capped at 8 credits of honors courses. So I’m actually at a loss as to where they get 4.29. Which GPA will SJSU use? 4.23 he doesn’t qualify. 4.29 he does.

Basically, if they all cap at 8 honors units, what’s the point of the GPA they calculate on the application?

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The exercise I did to bring home the realities of how likely it is for a white male from California to get in was to just reverse engineer the admissions numbers (and yes, I know how imprecise this is):

Admitted:
male 702
30% white (est) = 211
19 % from California (est) = 40.
67% from public school (est)= 26.

Males applying: 13,528
From California/white/public school? I don’t know. Rough estimate using percentages above: 517 (26 = 5% admit rate, which sounds about right).

There are 1,322 public high schools (ergo valedictorians) in California, with roughly 2,000,000 students. 1/4 = seniors (500,000). Half are male (250,000). It is hard to figure out ethnicity/race because data isn’t broken down by grade and the Latinx population is increasingly larger as you get younger and younger in the California population overall. But it is probably around 30% white. Call it 80,000 senior white high school boys in California. Top 1% = 800. 26 is the top .03%.

No matter how accomplished a kid may be, no one is in a position to say with any confidence they are in the top 26 white, male public school seniors in California out of 80,000 in 1322 high schools, even if narrowed down to just those 517 applying to MIT.

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The CSU capped weighted GPA is 8 semesters of honors points not 8 units so is the 4.23 GPA including college courses?

Did you use the Calculator on the CSU website to confirm your original calculations? GPA Calculator | CSU

SJSU will use the CSU GPA calculation however, last year I remember 2 posters that claimed their CC courses were not used by SJSU admissions for the CSU GPA calculation and they were not accepted into the CS major.

I have linked one of the posters and what SJSU told them about CC courses: Profile - Phoenix191 - College Confidential Forums

Thank you!! They said they won’t count my college courses for my admissions gpa unless it’s on my high school transcript even though they’re a-g courses