What are the 10 hardest majors to get into at Cal Poly?

Cal Poly received more than 66,000 applications for fall 2021 admission, a new record, and only a fraction of those students were accepted.

But some majors at the San Luis Obispo university are far more competitive than others.

For example, overall, Cal Poly accepted about 30% of its freshman applicants and 15% of its transfer hopefuls.

Each major, however, has only a certain number of spaces available — and some are able to enroll a much tinier percentage than the overall acceptance rate, as low as 2% of applicants.

The lists of the most difficult programs to get into — for both freshman and transfers — also doesn’t always hew directly to Cal Poly’s well-known prestige programs.

In fact, the majors with the very least space for freshmen and transfers are both in the College of Liberal Arts.

No. 1 most difficult for first-time freshmen is psychology, with more than 3,200 students competing for a mere 66 spots.

“Psychology is an inherently interesting field of study,” Philip Williams, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, said in an email to The Tribune. “The questions psychology investigates are about human thinking, feelings, and behavior and resonate with students. The career options for psychology majors are broad, so the field attracts students with many interests.

“Cal Poly’s psychology and child development department is a very competitive and attractive program — the faculty are known as first-rate teacher-scholars who involve students in research and internship opportunities. The students who apply to our psychology major are often weighing acceptance offers from similar programs at UC campuses.”

For transfers, university data published in March indicates that no students who applied to Cal Poly’s music program will be accepted, although Williams noted that he thinks “this is incorrect.”

“Traditionally, there are a few spaces available for new transfer students in music, but the numbers of eligible transfer student applicants each year are generally very low,” he said. “The department has accepted new transfer students in the past and is developing a strategy to recruit more transfer student applicants in the future — particularly from regional community colleges.”

Potential music students have to first be accepted to Cal Poly, then pass an audition — which is typically required from most colleges and universities offering degrees in music. Though a student could be accepted initially into the music program, if they do not pass their audition, they will not be allowed to apply, Williams wrote.

What other programs are in especially high demand at Cal Poly?

Here are lists of the top-10 most competitive majors for freshman and transfer students, with the number of applications received, spots available and what percent of applicants have a space available.

Top-10 hardest majors to get into for first-time freshmen

1. Psychology: 3,222 applicants, 66 spaces available, 2%
2. Computer science: 5,838 applicants, 205 spaces available, 4%
3. Biological sciences: 4,298 applicants, 160 spaces available, 4%
4. Kinesiology: 1,419 applicants, 60 spaces available, 4%
5. Marine sciences: 587 applicants, 25 spaces available, 4%
6. Aerospace engineering: 1,818 applicants, 80 spaces available, 4%
7. Software engineering: 531 applicants, 25 spaces available, 5%
8. Political science: 1,572 applicants, 77 spaces available, 5%
9. Biomedical engineering: 1,802 applicants, 96 spaces available, 5%
10. Biochemistry: 1,169 applicants, 65 spaces available, 6%

Top-10 hardest majors to get into for new transfer students

1. Music: 18 applicants, 0 spaces available, 0%
2. Statistics: 56 applicants, 1 space available, 2%
3. Communications studies: 496 applicants, 15 spaces available, 3%
4. Biological sciences: 421 applicants, 13 spaces available, 3%
5. Art & design: 171 applicants, 6 spaces available, 4%
6. Marine sciences: 56 applicants, 2 spaces available, 4%
7. Computer science: 1,007 applicants, 37 spaces available, 4%
8. Software engineering: 114 applicants, 5 spaces available, 4%
9. Biochemistry: 90 applicants, 4 spaces available, 4%
10. Architectural engineering: 22 applicants, 1 space available, 5%

For a complete list of all the majors at Cal Poly and how many applicants and spaces are available for each, click here.

Acceptance letters were sent out to applicants 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 then turns 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.

This story was originally published April 9, 2021 at 9:14 AM.

Mackenzie Shuman

The Tribune

805-781-7844

Mackenzie Shuman primarily writes about SLO County education and the environment for The Tribune. She’s originally from Monument, Colorado, and graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2020. When not writing, Mackenzie spends time outside hiking and rock climbing.