Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo turned away 15,660 students with grade-point averages of 4.0 or higher who were seeking to enroll at the university for fall 2021, according to data from the university.
The results continue a growing trend in which the school is unable to offer admission to thousands of otherwise highly qualified students.
This year, Cal Poly had to turn away 15,118 freshman and 542 transfer students with 4.0 or higher GPAs out of more than 66,000 applications.
For freshmen, that’s up from both 2020, when the university was unable to offer admission to 12,500 4.0s, and 2019, when that number was 10,646.
Those who were accepted this year had an average GPA of 4.0 to 4.25 for first-time freshmen and 3.31 to 3.87 for new transfer students, according to Cal Poly.
No averages were reported for SAT and ACT scores because the university did not require standardized test results due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In total, the university accepted about 31% of first-time freshman applicants and 15% of transfer students.
The university considers a variety of factors when admitting students, said Jim Maraviglia, Cal Poly’s interim vice president of enrollment management and strategic initiatives.
“A lot of what we consider is on the academic performance, but there’s other variables to consider,” he said. “One of the things we consider is what school they attended. And if they go to an institution or a school that has two-thirds or more of their students on free and reduced lunch or federally supported free lunch programs, they get additional consideration.”
Maraviglia said the university also considers other non-academic factors such as whether an applicant is a first-generation college student or what extracurricular activities they participated in.
Acceptance letters were sent out beginning in March and continuing through April and beyond as commitments from students come in.
Students have a deadline of May 1 to confirm whether they will accept an offer from Cal Poly. When an accepted student declines admission, the university will turn to its waitlist to fill open spaces. That process can last well into the summer as Cal Poly works to reach its enrollment target for fall.
Last fall, Cal Poly projected that 20,740 undergraduate students would enroll for fall 2020, though 22,287 actually did. For fall 2021, the university is projecting that 21,042 undergraduate students will enroll.
How Cal Poly acceptances break down by race, gender
The data on acceptances also shows the university offered admission to far more female students than male students — about 10,660 female students (57%) were accepted vs. about 8,030 male students (43%).
That’s in contrast to the university’s student body enrollment for fall 2020, which was 51% men and 49% women, according to the university.
Maraviglia said the university doesn’t consider a student’s gender when reviewing which students to accept. However, he noted that it’s likely more females were selected because they were more competitive.
It’s unlikely that the number of offers to female students will flip Cal Poly to have a majority-female student body, Maraviglia said, but it might close the gap even further.
On the diversity front, about 40.8% of the accepted first-time freshman students who reported their ethnicity on their applications indicated that they are white, while 25.5% are Asian and 23.4% are Hispanic or Latino, according to Cal Poly.
Trailing far behind those three groups, 1.1% indicated they are African American or Black, 0.2% are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 0.1% are Native American, according to Cal Poly data.
Cal Poly’s fall 2020 student body was 54% white, 18.3% Hispanic or Latino, 13.3% Asian, 0.8% African American or Black and 0.1% Native American, according to the university.
This will be the largest non-white freshman class ever selected, Maraviglia said. Whether it turns out to be the largest non-white freshman class ever enrolled will depend on how many of those selected actually accept, he added.
Where do Cal Poly students come from?
This year, just over half of the San Luis Obispo County high school students applying as first-time freshmen were accepted: 266 out of 516 who applied.
That compares to 222 transfer students who reported living in San Luis Obispo County out of 484 hopefuls, or 45%.
Also, 76 homeschool students applied as first-time freshmen, and 25 were accepted for fall 2021.
The top feeder schools for transfer students include Cuesta College, Allan Hancock College, De Anza Community College, Santa Barbara City College and Diablo Valley College, according to the university.
Within California, those accepted primarily resided in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Orange, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Clara counties, according to the university.
The top states outside of California tallying the most accepted first-time freshman students are Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Hawaii and Illinois.
Kansas, North Carolina, Washington and Minnesota had the highest numbers of accepted transfer students for fall 2021.
Outside of the United States, accepted students come primarily from India, Canada, China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, university data says.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 10:00 AM.
