Cal Poly sets another new application record, with more than 73,000 for fall
Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo has received another record-high number of applications from hopeful undergraduate students wanting to attend the university in the fall.
As of the end of March, the university had 73,113 applications from first-time freshman and transfer students.
That tops last year’s 68,000 applications, which was also a new record, according to the university’s data.
The increase in demand for a Cal Poly education comes with a slight increase in the number of spaces it has available for applicants. Cal Poly has historically been a highly competitive California State University campus.
This year, the university has space for a bout 6,166 new students, which is slightly higher than the past few years when it had space for fewer than 6,000 students, according to Cal Poly data.
The slight gain in capacity at Cal Poly is due to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 5% annual budget increase to the CSU system, which allows it to increase California resident enrollment by 1% each year for the next five years.
That could lead to Cal Poly’s highest-ever enrollment, which is projected to be around 22,590 students in the fall.
Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business is seeing the largest gain in spaces available for students. It’s adding roughly 100 seats across its three majors.
“The combination of very strong demand, incredible graduation and job placement rates, and a number of other factors lead to this being an ideal area for this year’s increased targets,” a university spokesman wrote in an email to The Tribune.
However, the greater number of spaces available doesn’t necessarily mean Cal Poly is less competitive.
In fact, the university is more competitive than it was the past few years as it has space for only about 8% of the fall applicants.
Higher-than-ever demand at Cal Poly also comes as the university continues to increase tuition.
Tuition for in-state, first-year students at Cal Poly rose anywhere between about $500 and $1,200 up to $11,490 to $12,204, according to the university’s tuition website. Meanwhile, out-of-state tuition for freshmen is about $31,388 to $31,890, roughly $450 to $950 higher than what last year’s freshmen paid.
