If a student applies in the fall for Cal Poly, when do acceptances start going out? What’s the latest a student might hear back? I’m guessing the waitlist notifications are sent last. Is it basically any time between March and May?
Just wondering how long to wait if I get acceptances from other schools, since Cal Poly is first choice, but not guaranteed.
Last year, acceptances started on Feb 15. Waitlisted applicants will usually hear after the May 1 SIR date.
Here is last year’s results threads.
Thank you!
@Mom2Engineers, the wait will suck, no matter what the release date is. My son was actually pretty calm about it. I was the one that sweated each moment. I vaguely remember that the release date wasn’t about a specific date in February, but more like a “3rd Wednesday of the month” kind of thing. Luckily for you, Cal Poly is one of the better schools when it comes to consistency and conformity. The notifications should come out in order (alphabetically by college) and seemed to be pretty steady rather than at a trickle like other schools not to be named.
However, it seemed that all of that was not the case with wait-list and denial notices. Going only by what people posted here, those seemed to come out much later and out of order. That could have been simply due to how people post that information. Obviously, someone who gets in will shout excitedly and post quickly, where someone wait-listed or denied might be hesitant or avoid posting results at all.
Good luck.
Thanks for the advice, AMCdad. Obviously Cal Poly is a bit of a stretch for my daughter, and she’s likely to get into the other places she is applying. So the question is, how long does she wait to accept these ‘second choice’ schools if she hasn’t heard yet from Cal Poly? We’ll have to figure it out.
Hopefully she’ll just get into Cal Poly and everything will be grand. 
You have until May 1 to SIR however depending upon the school, she may want to lock in her housing and many will not allow you to submit your housing request until you SIR. First come housing is common with the Cal States.
My son’s applied to the UC’s and CSU’s. CSU’s will usually notify you by the end of March and the UC decisions are out by March so my son’s made their decisions in Early April. If your daughter is waitlisted, she still needs to SIR to another campus until she hears about the waitlist so again the absolute deadline should be May 1.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think Cal Poly is a bit of a stretch? May I ask, where else is she applying?
Gumbymom is making good points about housing. My son only applied to four schools and was notified that he was accepted to each at very different times (January through mid-March). However, he knew all of his options before housing opened up for any of the schools. We strongly encouraged him (okay, we MADE him) choose the week before Cal Poly housing opened so that he would be able to apply on the first day. Other schools had later dates, so Cal Poly drove the decision date. In our minds, deciding by May 1st would have been really late, even for a school that has a Freshman live-on requirement.
Conversely, his girlfriend pushed off her decision between Marymount Manhattan and Sf State until the last few days of April. By the time she decided, the decision was made for her–NEITHER school had on-campus housing available. She was leaning toward SFSU and that tipped the scale since we live closer and she could search for housing more easily. However, had she not found a place through a family friend, she would be at the local JC right now.
Cover all your bases. Good luck!
Thanks for the tips, GumbyMom and AMCDad!
I didn’t realize you could accept a school if you did not plan to go there. Once you accept, don’t you have to attend? I can’t imagine accepting a school and then later turning them down to say, ‘Sorry, got something better…’ Granted, my last school acceptances were grad school a couple of decades ago, but I would never have dreamed of saying yes to a place when I was still holding out for something else.
@mustangmom2o21 My daughter has an excellent Cal Poly application in everything except GPA. She got some Bs in 9th grade (and a couple in 10th) and so her GPA is closer to 3.75 than 4.0. Her ACT is 34, she has high course rigor, she maxes out on job experience and extracurricular hours, has leadership positions and work in her field… but because of the GPA, her MCA is about 4,600. I am faculty at Cal State, but not Cal Poly, so I don’t think that will help her. I think it’s a stretch for engineering, but she really wants Cal Poly as her first choice, so she’s applying. Naturally I encouraged her to apply, but also to think about alternates.
Her second choice is UCLA, and while the GPA is a bit low there too, the personal interest questions come into play, as well as consideration that she is at one of the top high schools in the state and the student body (and curriculum) are more intense there than at other schools. Since Cal Poly uses a straight formula, none of that would be considered. While UCLA is also a bit of a stretch, I think it’s got a bit of a better chance because of this more holistic approach.
Her third choice is Cal Poly Pomona, and she’s also applying to UC Irvine, and we’re pretty confident of her chances at those schools. So I’m anticipating that early next year we’ll hear from then, and then have to decide how long she waits for an answer from Cal Poly SLO/UCLA before committing somewhere.
@Mom2Engineers, one really important thing about applying to Cal Poly: All majors are not created equal. There is a lot of information on this site (and other places) that gives you an idea of the GPA and SAT scores needed for acceptance. Additionally, there are enrollment projections that can give you insight into the number of applicants versus available spots for incoming freshmen:
This is the Freshman profile for the class of 2017. It gives you a general number of how many students applied to and were accepted to each of the six colleges. There’s a pretty big difference from college to college:
https://admissions.calpoly.edu/prospective/profile.html
Sometimes it MIGHT be better to apply to one particular major over another based on simple supply and demand. As an example, I’m a high school English teacher. Many of my co-workers have an undergrad degree in Communications rather than English. Pretty common. If a young student wanted to become an English teacher and wanted to attend Cal Poly as an undergrad, there is a significant difference between the numbers for the two majors even though either could lead to the same career. English had an estimated number of applicants of just over 500 with 85 spots available. Communications had an expected applicant pool of almost 900 with only 55 spots available.
These kind of numbers play out in all of the colleges at CP SLO. Often, there is a closely related major that has more spots with the same or fewer applicants. It doesn’t mean that it is necessarily easier (GPA/SAT) to get into the major with the better ratio, just that it might be based on supply and demand.
AMCdad I completely understand what you are saying, but my daughter is set on engineering (not pure science) so she’s not interested in applying to a different discipline. She’s still debating over mechanical or materials, but I think she’s got her heart set on mechanical. I’m not sure how much of a difference there would be anyway, since while materials has fewer applicants, it is also a smaller program.
Trust me, we’ve been looking at this stuff for the past year… 
I understand completely. Everyone has to take this information and use it in a way that makes the most sense to the individual. I just wanted to put it out there in a general way.
Good luck. Students (and their families) invest countless hours of thought, planning, and anxiety agonizing over these choices. In the end, as my son is about to go off to school, we’re still not sure how it will all work out. The upside is that most kids can be happy and successful in a variety of settings. It’s all about how much they involve themselves AFTER all of the decisions are made. Again, good luck.
Thanks. I know she’ll be happy if she gets into Pomona, but if she can get into SLO, I really want to help her in any way I can. Don’t we all want to help our kids?
@Mom2Engineers: I know this is not chance me thread but just a few comments.
Both SLO and UCI are overenrolled this year so it may be a tough admit for next year. I think they will waitlist many qualified applicants to better manage their yield especially UCI.
Even though your daughter looks like a competitive applicant, GPA is a major factor in the CSU’s and UC’s application review so hopefully she is applying to more than the 4 schools you have listed.
Best of luck to her and any of her preferred schools will give her a great education.
Important factors in the UC application review::
Very important: Academic GPA, Application essay, Extracurricular activities, Level of applicant's interest, Rigor of secondary school record, Standardized test scores, Talent/ability, Volunteer work, Work experience
Important: Character/personal qualities, Class rank
Considered: First generation college student, Geographical residence, State residency
Note: Demonstrated record of academic preparation, educational engagement, talent and skills important.
BTW @Mom2Engineers to an earlier point you made. Once you commit to a school, you have to attend or else your kid risks rescission from all colleges you got acceptances from. Most colleges enforce this rule very closely. The only exception is if they get accepted off the wait list after May 1st from a different school. The points the others made was that it can be beneficial to accept early to a school you like, since you’ll have priority on housing. But once you accept to that school, you can’t change your mind and by implication you can’t accept to multiple schools.
If your daughter’s heart is set on mechanical make sure she applies to that to multiple schools where she has a shot at getting admitted. ME is one of the toughest majors to get admitted to at any school. Some kids do apply to a easier majors in the hope that they can then switch to the desired one once they get into the school, but that is never a guaranteed possibility for such a competitive major.
And good luck
Thanks, @iulianc . That’s what I thought! So if she is accepted early on to another school, then we may have to wait (and potentially sacrifice housing choice) to see if she hears from her top choices. That’s what I anticipated.
@Gumbymom yes, she is applying to other schools as well, but really only interested in the 5 I mentioned. UC Riverside is her safety school. She’s currently working on the UC application since the Cal Poly applications won’t be out until October.
Depending on which engineering field, she has a very good chance. Our D had a 30 ACT but maxed out on the GPA. She’s in civil. Mechanical, I understand, is much more difficult to get in. What area of engineering is she considering?
Sorry, I just finished reading the entire thread where you said she wants mechanical. I will say that our D didn’t apply for housing until April 19th and she got her first choice (engineering living learning community).
@mustangmom2o21 That’s a good data point to know, thank you!