HELP: What are Cal States really considering? Student with Average GPA & SAT / ACT Score

State Forums
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<p>Good question… They come from a couple of years researching campuses with and for my kids. The thresholds do bounce around year to year based on applicant pool but a variation of more than 100 would be high. </p>

<p>SJSU is the only campus I know of that has discreet threshold for every major. They publish the prior years here:
<a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-10079.8499.html”>http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-10079.8499.html&lt;/a&gt;
The variations are a bit shocking Look at Chemistry 4000 and Chemical Engineering 2900</p>

<p>SLO also uses ‘college’ (a little broader than major) to group admission thresholds.</p>

<p>Most of the other campuses break out a couple of majors (CS at SDSU, Nursing @ Sonoma, Aerospace Engineering @ CPP) and establish a special thresholds - they are usually well spelled out on the school web page like this:
<a href=“http://www.csupomona.edu/~admissions/advising/impacted-majors.shtml”>http://www.csupomona.edu/~admissions/advising/impacted-majors.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Most majors at most campuses are stirred together and stack ranked. There might be some minor variations by major due to unexpected demand but, those thresholds should give you a good feel for what the school expects. The process they’ll use this year. Accumulate most of the applications - Pick a round number that history suggests is about right. They decline those well under and accept those well over. The ones close to the line wait are held until the exact cut off is known. Wait lists are used by some schools to fill every last seat. </p>

<p>Some of my info, like Chico and Humboldt came from admissions counselors at the schools after campus tours. My son was waitlisted at Long Beach with a 3760. Monterrey isn’t impacted so, they still use the state min EI of 2900 across the board. Others come from years of paying attention. </p>

<p>Sonoma is about 3300 and SDSU is about 4100 (both validated by admissions directly) </p>

<p>Another way to validate your viabilty at a school is look at the average GPA and SAT reported in the school’s common data set. This one is for SF State - <a href=“http://air.sfsu.edu/sites/sites7.sfsu.edu.air/files/cds/CDS_2013-2014_4.pdf”>http://air.sfsu.edu/sites/sites7.sfsu.edu.air/files/cds/CDS_2013-2014_4.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Pages 7-8 show you the SAT and GPA of incoming freshmen last year. 3.2 and about 1000 SAT. (EI 3560) Lots of people were admitted with lower stats - suggesting you are in good shape there. </p>