Mechanical Engineering, Less than Stellar GPA

College Search & Selection
1

I’m going to be applying in the next few months for the Spring 2017 semester. I’m applying to CSULB,Cal Poly Pomona, and Cal State Fullerton for mechanical engineering, I’m local to all these schools. After getting my first real job at some point I realized that I like school more than work and rather focus on that. My GPA was at a low of 2.20 about a year or two ago, after this semester + summer school it should be at about a 3.05. Is this good enough to get accepted to these schools? I’m finding it extremely difficult to find transfer GPA acceptance rates by major. Also, I actually already applied to these schools and just received my last denial today from cal poly pomona, my gpa was still a lot lower at the time so I expected to be denied, I just wanted to learn the applications process and all. I have all my GE’s done 60+units, and as far as prerequisites I’ve done Calc 1,2 and 3. I took Physics 1 Mechanics, and I’m taking General Chemistry 1 right now and have an A. I know I should have more done but at the time I was not focused on school and didn’t wanna risk more bad grades. Looking back I could have done so much better in math :confused:

So can I get into any of these schools? If not what school can I get into? Should I just change major? Like I said I was already denied but at the time my gpa wasn’t even a 2.50, after this summer I should be at a 3.05 but looking around I don’t feel assured that that will be good enough… and I really don’t wanna wait until the next application period…

2

If you are not going to be in an impacted major, and live in California, then yes as long as you have a 3.0 you are guaranteed to be admitted to a cal state. However, cal state Long beach is impacted for its entire campus, so it may be more challenging

3

You can only be local for one Cal state so depending upon which is school is your in-service area school you should have priority which will help. Since all schools are impacted, 3.0 will make it a tough admit. I would select a non-impacted major as an alternate since CPP does consider your alternate major.
Good luck
http://www.calstate.edu/sas/onestopkiosk/documents/CSULocalAdmission-ServiceAreas.pdf

4

SJSU does publish past admission thresholds by major, although no other CSU does:
http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html

The main issue is that all CSUs with mechanical engineering are either impacted at the campus level, or have mechanical engineering as an impacted major, or both. So there is no sure thing like there would be if a non-impacted CSU had mechanical engineering as a non-impacted major. However, some CSUs may not have a very high level of impacted, so their transfer GPA thresholds may not be that much higher than 2.00.

UC does have tables showing 25th-75th percentile GPA ranges for admitted and enrolled transfer student by major:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major