Cal Poly is no longer accepting the Early Decision for Applicants in the fall. I heard this from an Admissions officer and a school bulletin. 
Do you know the reasoning behind this decision?
I believe it is to conform to the rest of the CSUās. As of this last year, Cal Poly SLO was the last CSU to offer Early Decision. It will be interesting as to whether this might help or hurt the average studentās chances, predictably the latter.
We attended tour and info session yesterday and can confirm.
I wonder how their admissions process will be different. I am assuming they will be streamlined onto the CSUMentor application as just another CSU. The trick is how Cal Poly will be able to separate the kids who truly want to go to Cal Poly and those who are using it as a safety school.
Do they care? They donāt give points for interest.
No, they donāt care at all. Early Decision was just a litmus test for them to see who would be actually committed to studying at Cal Poly.
@MechieTheDream, whether they care or not, two things are pretty clear. First, they donāt really do anything to manipulate yield to weed out students who might reject them. Second, thatās a virtually impossible task for majors like ME. The acceptance rate is so low and the quality of the accepted students so high, virtually everyone who gets in has very high stats. The real take home message is only fools consider CP a safety for majors like ME, Aero and CS. By definition, it isnāt.
I know kids who got in this year with stats thatād never get in as RD. CP probably thinks why bother with extra work when the RD batch is much stronger.
I think this will definitely hurt Cal Poly and may be their way of being able to accept unqualified students who happen to meet a certain demographic they want. They have already lowered their standard for OOS students, they need lower stats to get in. I know my student had already accepted his ED offer when he got a Regentās offer and was contacted by some other universities.
On a different topic iām not sure I agree that lower stat students got in ED, I know people donāt properly calculate or report their stats and miss that they didnāt take extra science and math, or missed a requirement. Iām sure eyemgh will acknowledge he learned the MCA system from me, so I know what I am talking about. You need a high MCA to get in ED for most majors. There is a very big differential by college and major which is why many try to trick the system then complain when they canāt move from agriculture to computer science.
I learned the MCA system from you? I learned the MCA system from a power point that originated in the admissions department that I had an original of. It was subsequently pulled down, so I outlined it in detail in post #52 in Confused About MCA. It was the 2013 edition. It may have changed since.
All schools take less qualified students to boost certain demographic populations. I seriously doubt dropping ED will change that one iota.
Yes, OOS students are judged against each other in a separate pool, but Iāve yet to see any data that they are grossly less qualified. They tend to apply to the most competitive majors within CENG. My son is son ME from OOS, but his MCA was almost 4800. The reason they, and the UCs for that matter, are doing this is because they need to replace the money the state citizens and legislature pulled out of the system.
One thing I will agree with is that the accuracy of the self reported data on CC can be highly questionable.
@Just4Years - My D was passed over for ED (started looking seriously at other schools), but was accepted on first day of RD (with no extra points). Maybe, the opposite is trueā¦higher stats for ED!!
Very true. Californiaās education and the United Stateās system need major overhauls on Education funding.
But on the other hand, Cal Poly must see that a kid with a 4.7 is most likely looking at Ivy Leagues. All we can do is hope for the best. My high school is the second biggest source of Cal Poly students, so we will see.
I can only base on the kids I know who applied to CP CS this year as ED and got in. They even admitted they probably wonāt get in as RD (and their stats are not very good indeed). Generally speaking thereās no point doing ED/EA to a school when you have stats/MCA to get in as RD. And for schools thereās no incentive use a higher standard on ED kids. About the only schools I know ED/EA wonāt help much is HYMPS really.
@MechieTheDream, for engineering, Cal Poly is better than all the Ivy schools except Cornell, which Poly is different than, but really equivalent on several levels. Cornell is well respected, on par with Poly in both prestige and selectivity, but the classes are huge and with heavy TA involvement. Princeton is ok for undergrad, but quite good for grad school, especially in physics. The rest are dogs UNLESS you want to go into finance with an engineering degree. In engineering circles they fall FAR below the top state schools like Poly, UCB, Illinois, Purdue, and GT. My son didnāt bother to apply to any of the Ivy schools because he felt there were better programs. There are LOTS of very highly qualified students, my son included, who choose/chose Cal Poly as their first choice because they feel it is the best fit for them.
@eyemgh I think if you look through your messages you will see that I sent you that privately. I am happy to post the note here to jog your memory if you would like.
@Just4Years ED students at Cal Poly do have a lower acceptance rate than regular decision due to the MCA format, they have to keep a high cutoff so that the donāt accept ED students that would have made it in the regular decision rounds. For most other ED programs it is easier to get in.
@czs1994, indeed you did, because my saved original was on my iPad and I lost it in a system update. Not that it really matters, but you can look up the dates of my Keys to the Kingdom posts where I put up the links that have subsequently broken if you want confirmation. 
Iām not certain either why Poly did this because the reason ED tends to be slightly less rigorous at most schools is that the yield is extremely high. Thatās really the only reason to offer ED. At roughly 33% Poly has never been particularly concerned about changing that.
@eyemgh using the MCA prevents Cal Poly from giving any more points than they already do to particular demographic groups if they do away with that they donāt have to worry about ābeing fairā. They do need to worry about whether the students will make it at Cal Poly, the graduation numbers for those getting the boosts for partner schools and parent education levels etc., already are seriously lagging those without those bonus points. I have a lot of reports that they donāt publish as I did a Public Records Act request.
@Just4Years and @eyemgh I deal in facts, the admission rates are lower, my son for example had choices of colleges perceived as better by those who use only USNews and other programs that either donāt include Cal Poly in their rankings or discount the education due to a fairly low 4 year graduation rate of around 78% due both to many programs taking an extra quarter or two to finish all the requirements, or like Architecture which is a 5 year program, and that many students prefer school to the real world. By ED he made his choice and ignore Regent offers etc. while if he had to wait he might have been tempted to accept one. Over 90% of ED students attend Cal Poly and they are ones who would definitely make it in RD, remember some programs accept nearly 50% of applicants so depending on the major stats might not be spectacular. This benefits Cal Poly by ensuring 90% of these top applicants attend while 20-40% of RD applicants attend. That is significant to Cal Poly where a huge number of STEM applicants use it as a safety school some still erroneously thinking all their clubs, and athletics, and volunteering makes them a stronger candidate.