<p>Got it. Thanks Shrinkrap.</p>
<p>Evidently more OOS students are being admitted at the UC’s to offset the budget woes:</p>
<p>"The University of California at Berkeley is planning to admit more out-of-state residents this year. Berkeley’s non-resident undergraduate population is quite low (around 10 percent typically, counting both U.S. residents outside California and international students). Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor, told The Contra Costa Times that he hopes that the shift will set off some anger from California residents, saying: “Actually, I hope for some pushback. This is connected to the state’s failure to pay for the University of California.”</p>
<p>[News:</a> Out-of-State Dreams - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/16/outofstate]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/16/outofstate)</p>
<p>Yeah, I heard that and will be surprised if it doesn’t trickle down to the CSs.</p>
<p>): I got rejected today too… wah. my stats weren’t that great though anyways and I live pretty far from there even though I’m instate…</p>
<p>^ sorry sunnybanana =(</p>
<p>“Actually, SDSU announced this fall that they would no loner give locals a hand-up.”</p>
<p>Truth. I just found out I actually got rejected from SDSU graphic design, haha. I’m just a few hours north, and I was born in San Diego. I’m sure there was some other reason, though.</p>
<p>There are a couple of threads going on trying to explain what appear to be inconsistencies in the admission process. I reviewed notes from discussions with admissions staff and our meetings with dept heads during our site visit. Conclusion: It is not unexpected that students with lower Cal Poly GPAs and lower test scores can receive more admission points than students with higher GPA/scores. How? Cal Poly rewards students that take more than the standard number of CSU core classes. For example, let’s say student A had a 3.5 GPA and 1300 SAT and student B had a 4.0 GPA and 1400 SAT. If student A took 12 more core CSU classes, I think they would end up with more admission points than Student B. </p>
<p>The posts on admission logic are not factoring in this important part of the scoring. The bottom line is that Cal Poly HEAVILY rewards students that took a lot of core curriculum classes. This likely the answer to why a student like “A” in my example was admitted and Student “B” was not.</p>
<p>Mariner, that makes total sense. My school is big on the A-G requirements for UC/CSU, and pretty much my whole high school career was structured around meeting those. Not to say that all I took were A-G classes, but the vast majority were. It would also explain why there are, including myself, seven kids in my class that got into CP, just that I know of.</p>
<p>He got into Irvine, CSUFresno, Cal Poly and today SDSU. He really wants USC but that’s a reach with his stats. Cal Poly is very much a campus he is interested in but so are UCSD and UCSB. Guess we’ll decide next month after the waiting is over.</p>
<p>Same here. Our whole high school curriculum revolves around the UC/CSU A-G requirements. It seems to be working pretty fine, I’d say maybe 15 kids or so go into SLO.</p>
<p>“The bottom line is that Cal Poly HEAVILY rewards students that took a lot of core curriculum classes.”</p>
<hr>
<p>Mariner116: Makes sense, but if that is indeed an important factor, the university should make it known to applicants in the admissions material. If it did, many students might chose to devote their time and efforts to additional core curriculum classes rather than, say, extra curricular activities (which the university does specifically list as one of its admission considerations).</p>
<p>twodown - “the university should make it known to applicants in the admissions material”</p>
<p>They do make it known and they dedicate almost half their admission page to this point. See the table on: [Freshman</a> Selection Criteria - College of Agriculture -Admissions- Cal Poly](<a href=“Cal Poly Admissions”>Cal Poly Admissions) as an example. What they don’t do is tell you how much they reward for the gap between required and desired. They also don’t tell you their weights for any of the four selection criteria. If you assume that 20% of the score is for the gap between 0 and 16 extra semesters, then it is pretty clear how a difference between students of 10 extra classes can overwhelm differences between gpa and test scores. </p>
<p>I think most people ignored this entire part of the selection criteria (required vs. desired) and that is why there is confusion over who got admitted. Note that in all the posting of scores no one posts the number of extra a-g classes they have taken. I think that is much more of a factor than ECs.</p>
<p>I don’t think 10 or 12 is a reasonable example. For a hs on semesters, that would be an extra year’s worth of classes. My son’s school is listed as a feeder school, year after year in the PolyView. They totally focus on a-g classes because UCs give extra points for excess a-g classes. The only non-ag he took, and most of his friends did the same, were PE and an internship, which they said was of great benefit. </p>
<p>He applied ED and did not get in for that or RD, but he understands that CE is growing in popularity due to projected demand and he understands that fewer spots were available. I did note that a poster with the same stats got in ED, but attended a hs on quarters. If you’re not on quarters, the only way you good rack up more courses is to go to cc while in hs. Frankly, I don’t think that’s worth it.</p>
<p>We did note that in the 2008 PolyView his feeders school’s enrollment rate dropped by 10 students. It looks to have dropped even further this year (PolyView 2009 is not posted on the CP web site).</p>
<p>There is not much college guidance distributed by our school’s counseling department. Basically, it’s on an individual basis. Most of what I learned, I read on-line or by watching the UC video on youtube that was meant for counselors. CSUs and UCs have yearly programs that get the hs counselors up-to-date. I’m betting that that’s where the breakdown is; counselors may no longer be attending these sessionr or are not mass-distributing this information, which is disappointing given the technology available. </p>
<p>Also, with all the recent changes, I think we see that the game has changed. Sure, they should be more transparent, but the fact is, they changed the requirements too late in the process for kids to react. Our kids just happen to be the victims of the snafu.</p>
<p>“If you’re not on quarters, the only way you good rack up more courses is to go to cc while in hs. Frankly, I don’t think that’s worth it.”</p>
<p>For my son, it was very much worth it. He took his whole senior year through a charter school that allowed him to take his classes through CC. He took Calc 1 and Calc 2 that year adding 4 semesters of high math to his Cal Poly application ( it also gave him Cal Poly credit for 3 quarters of engineering calculus). He already had Alg1 in 7th grade, Geom in 8th, Alg 2 in 9th (and again in 10th as he made a D in 9th), and Pre-calc in 11th. So with Calc1 and Calc2 at CC his senior year, that gave him 6 years of Math for his application and I’m sure lots of bonus points. 3 years of math are required.</p>
<p>He also took AP Exams (without taking the course) for AP Eng Lang and AP Engl Lit and AP US Gov. These three TESTS counted for TWO YEARS of English and ONE YEAR of Gov/Econ, a total of 6 semesters in those A-G categories. This put him at 5 years of English (4 are required) and 3 years of Social Science (2 are required).</p>
<p>He took 3 years of foreign language (2 are required), and 2 years of physical science (1 is required).</p>
<p>He took 2 years of Visual/Performing art in HS and 2 semesters at CC during Sr. year (which counted a two more years), so he had 4 years of Visual/Performing art (1 year is required).</p>
<p>My son was admitted for Fall 2009 with 3.0 weighted GPA and 1430 (cr + m) SAT and LOTS of “extra” A-G coursework. By my count, at least 20 semesters “extra”.</p>
<p>And yes, we had done our homework on Cal Poly admissions.</p>
<p>When Cal Poly says that they desire 46 semesters of a-g, which is 16 beyond the “required” amount, they are really saying “if you want to get admitted you better have close to 46 semesters of a-g classes”. Oct2010, whether it is reasonable or not, Cal Poly wants students that were willing to take 1+ years of core classes.</p>
<p>Mariner116, that may indeed be what CPSLO is really saying, but it isn’t what the published material says. It says only that Cal Poly considers “required” coursework in the admission process:</p>
<p>“When we review your application, we consider:
…
Completion of CSU and Cal Poly program required coursework with a grade of C or better…”</p>
<p>It says nothing about “desired” coursework being considered. Certainly, one can make that implication, but if additional coursework is a factor that potentially carries weight over and above both GPA and SAT scores, it should be spelled out better. If Cal Poly is in fact now making admission decisions based HEAVILY on whether applicants have taken 16 ADDITIONAL SEMESTERS of a=g coursework, there is a serious communication problem.</p>
<p>A-G courses “required” and “desired” for admission are spelled out clearly right on the Cal Poly Admissions Web pages: [Freshman</a> Selection Criteria - College of Liberal Arts -Admissions- Cal Poly](<a href=“http://admissions.calpoly.edu/undergrad/regular_LibArts.html]Freshman”>Cal Poly Admissions)</p>
<p>Thanks for posting that, ralph4. This explains a lot. Rigor matters.</p>
<p>@ralph - Respectfully, not everyone wants to give up their senior year just to get into CP. And, I was saying that it’s unreasonable to expect kids to finish at their regular hs, but have to take all the mentioned extra units in CC summer school- can’t have much time for those ECs and work with that schedule.</p>
<p>otc2010, I think you are overstating the committment. My daughter had 44 semesters of a-g and never took any courses outside of high school. She just took a lot of core classes as her electives.</p>