My theory on what is happening

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
1

The first year after Cal Poly eliminated ED, their yield was MUCH higher than expected. As a result, they were very overenrolled.

To compensate for that last year, it seems like they were only offering outright admission to the highest MCAs relative to their respective majors, but when the dust settled, offered many more waitlist spots. In years past, being put on the waitlist was not a good sign, but last year LOTS of students got off the waitlist. I’m guessing they are taking that same approach this year to avoid over enrollment.

I’ll bring in @Gumbymom to chime in too.

2

I completely agree with @eyemgh. Waitlisting seems to be more of the norm for many schools including highly applied CSU’s like SDSU, CSULB, SLO along with the UC’s. Waitlisting helps control their yield and avoid over enrollment as stated above.

Look at the trend:

For 2018, 6643 applicants were waitlisted and 2436 were admitted.
For 2017, 3168 applicants were waitlisted and 15 were admitted.
For 2916, 1011 applicants were waitlisted and 675 were admitted.

3

@Gumbymom, is that Admitted or Accepted off the waitlist? As you know, students often move on.

4

The data I posted shows the # of applicants that qualified for the waitlist and the # of applicants that were admitted. No data on how many of the waitlisted applicants actually accepted the waitlist.

5

That’s good, because it means the likelihood of getting off the list is actually even higher. Thanks!

6

Perhaps they’re transitioning to the early acceptance notifications (similar to what SDSU does in December) for high stats and OOS applicants? But why is it so late?

7

Thanks for the insight.

8

@Banker1, they should have enough evidence to set guaranteed cutoffs like SJSU does. Alas, they don’t always do things that make sense.