@eyemgh, I believe that’s what I just said 
@MelloG, DOOH! Yes you did. :))
I think you guys are too optimistic. By saying “not count against you”, I think they mean they will not automatically disqualify you for not meeting minimum requirement. I don’t think they’ll bend backward to add additional MCA points. Just be happy your file will not be thrown out … lol
@bogeyorpar the person I talked to said the additional rigor points wouldn’t be counted at all. If you read my post above, this is a really simple fix for Cal Poly and they wouldn’t be “bending backwards” to compensate us for the missing 250 MCA points.
Yes, but not in GPA.
I hope they do it as outlined in #17. If not, I hope they write a program that recognizes what IB level equals calculus because nowhere on my son’s transcript or application does it actually say the word Calculus even though he is taking it.
But, as a PP mentioned, I’m just happy they’re not automatically throwing out his app because he didn’t put Algebra from middle school on there! It wasn’t even called Algebra and isn’t on his HS transcript anyway. It was called 8th grade math and everyone took it unless they were in advanced math and took Geometry or Algebra 2 in 8th. So he didn’t even think of it as a HS course - it was just 8th grade math!
This is all a ruse. CPSLO has no possible method of uniformly verifying middle school math.
They never have verified middle school math per se. They simply asked for it on the application. I think it served two purposes, one intended, one probably not. It allowed them to populate the MCA algorithm and it allowed them to determine who read the directions of the application. They don’t really need to verify them because they can infer completion from enrollment in the higher maths. It does beg the question, why have that silly requirement in the first place if all the rigor can be determined by the highest levels of math and language taken by senior year. Me thinks they simply didn’t think it all the way through.
“a program that recognizes what IB level equals calculus” doesn’t matter. My daughter was in IB and received the MCA points for IB math as being a math class that was beyond Algebra. That’s all that matters. You don’t have to have a class with Calculus in the title to get full points.
@venm1337 I’d be surprised if Cal Poly simply removed the 250 points for the extra math course-load. While that would no longer disadvantage those who took middle-school math and forgot to report it, it would reward those who never took the extra match class and punish those who did take it and reported it. It would make more sense (I’m an engineer so I think about what is right and what is logical) to simply add the 250 points to those who forgot to report it (based on whether they made it to calculus). I hope they correct it for those students who forgot to report the middle school math but not at the expense of rewarding those who never took it.
Of course I don’t know anything since I didn’t call Cal Poly and talk to the Admissions Office.
@stresseddaddy, the minimum math requirement for all Cal Poly applicants is Algebra II. Anyone who hasn’t taken it will be automatically rejected. We can pretty safely presume that all applicants who make it through the Algebra II screen also took Algebra I and Geometry. Thus, simply giving everyone the extra 250 rigor points is probably most logical. It will give back the advantage to students who failed to read the directions and will thus make admission a bit more competitive at the fringes. There won’t be any high stats applicants who didn’t make the cut because their MCA is 250 points lower than they thought from a mistake.
@eyemgh what if you haven’t taken Algebra II but you’ve still taken 4 years including Calculus?
I’m not sure. You’d have to clarify with admissions, as it’s listed as required. There are curricula that teach those concepts but don’t call them by their typical names. It would be hard to do Calculus without a solid Algebra foundation.
What a mess. Applicants were instructed to add middle school in their 9th grade, High School, coursework and include grades. Cal Poly application “tips” requests applicants put “7th grade” and “8th grade” in the course title. Not sure how widely this was applied. Potentially, applications would need to be reviewed and assumptions made to remove these entries because these entries are not in isolated fields.
There was also an issue where the “elective” a-g requirement (if a student didn’t have a class from elective category) .
Unlike year’s past, the system would not recognize an extra science or language to meet the requirement. Instructions suggested applicants could use their 4th year of language as an elective. However, this would then have decreased the a-g listing for foreign language to 3 which I think would impact MCA score. Further in the instructions, it said not to do this if the applicant was applying to Cal Poly SLO and one could put “elective credit” as a course name and put the grade as “PASS” as a work around.
I know with this year’s insane number of applicants, S18’s MCA won’t be high enough for computer science, but very curious to see if they will consider him for 2nd choice of software engineering.
A very naïve question: if all the high stats kids go to Calpoly (at least in CS and Engineering), who’s going to the UCs?
If most high stats California kids apply to all UCs + Calpoly and got admitted by all, how would they rank the schools? They’ll probably rank UCB and UCLA higher, but does Calpoly beat UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD, etc.?
I’m not sure where UCI would fall in the mix, but I would rank the remaining schools: UCSD, UCSB, Cal Poly, UCD. Cal Poly is about 9k less than UCSB and I’m not sure it’s worth more. In Northern CA, even though UC Davis is highly regarded, most students don’t value it as much as their parents.
Per Parchment college matchup which tracks which schools students select when admitted to both:
UCB and UCLA are heavily preferred over SLO
UCSD, UCSB, UCD are chosen slightly more than SLO
UCI is chosen slightly less than SLO
SLO is heavily preferred over UCSC, UCR and UCM
Regarding first and second choice major. Say Student A’s first choice is computer science, second choice is software engineering. Student B first choice is software engineering. If student A’s stats slightly better than student B but not good enough for CS, would SLO be picking A (second choice) over B (first choice) into SE?