Hi, I am a junior in high school and I have about a 4.2 weighted gpa. I have all A’s on my transcript except for one C in a trimester of AP Physics. If my goal is Cal Poly Slo, should I take a chance and apply for software engineering? Or should I stay with a safer major?
If you want to major in SE or CS, you need to apply specifically to that major at SLO. Very difficult to switch into these majors after being accepted in a “safer” major. SE has about a 22% acceptance rate vs CS at around 9% acceptance rate.
What about test scores? Also SLO uses 9-11th grades with only 8 semesters of weighted Honors/AP/IB courses in their GPA calculation. Use the Rogerhub calculator and include your 9th grades to find out your SLO GPA.
Thanks. The grade calculator said 4.38 weighted and 4. 26 capped (I’m guessing this is with the 8 semester limit?) Also I haven’t gotten my test scores back yet but aiming for the 1300-1400 range. I was also wondering if they look at specific classes taken in high school per each major? Or is it nonspecific as long as they’re the basic math, science, and english classes.
I will post the MCA point calculation for SLO. They use these points to rank applicants for each major. They cap their GPA at 4.2 and you get bonus points for extra semesters of Math/Science/Language/Art beyond the minimum CSU requirements. An MCA point score of 4700+ is considered competitive for most majors, but it all depends upon the stats (MCA points) of each in-coming Freshman class, so no guarantees.
MCA information:
Academic MCA:
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 are also other Non-Academic Bonus Points:
CA vet/701, Hayden Partner School/700, faculty/staff dependent/700, service area of CP/500, either parent with some or no HS, but who DIDN’T GRADUATE FROM HS/300 (per parent).
Lastly,
Cal Poly ACT/SAT Concordance Chart in case you took ACT (use only Math and English and figure out the two equivalent SAT scores)
ACT CR M
36 800 800
35 770 790
34 760 780
33 750 760
32 720 730
31 700 700
30 680 680
29 650 660
28 630 640
27 610 620
26 590 600
25 570 580
24 550 560
23 540 540
22 520 520
21 500 500
20 490 480
19 470 460
18 450 440
17 440 410
16 420 390
15 400 360
14 380 330
13 360 300
12 330 280
11 300 260
Here’s how it works. Cal Poly does TWO “READINGS” one of academic only and one after adding additional non-academic bonus adders. The reason I put readings in quotes is that they don’t actually READ them. A computer tallies points and then ranks students.
Wow, thank you so much! This was super helpful.
I cannot take credit for the MCA point information. This was posted by a frequent CC poster: eyemgh so just copied and pasted.