What were the 10 most difficult majors to get into at Cal Poly? See the list
Cal Poly received the highest number of applications in university history this year — and while that’s a landmark win for the university, it also means that getting accepted to some majors was even more competitive for students.
All majors at Cal Poly are already impacted, according to a university website. That means the university receives applications from more qualified candidates than it can accept.
Being eligible for CSU admission alone does not guarantee someone acceptance to the campus, the website states.
And there’s actually space for only a fraction of the students who are accepted to Cal Poly each year. Administrators expect a certain percentage of accepted students to choose not to go to Cal Poly.
For example, 22,531 students received acceptance letters this spring, whereas the university projects enrolling fewer than 6,500 new students this fall, according to a report from the university. That means Cal Poly expects only 28.5% of accepted students to actually enroll.
And some majors that received thousands of applications had seats available for less than 100 students, according to university data.
In total, 21,955 freshman hopefuls applied to the top 10 most competitive majors at Cal Poly — equivalent to over a quarter of students who applied to the university overall.
Meanwhile, only 748 seats were available across those same majors, leaving space for only 3.4% of applicants, though more may have been accepted.
For transfer students, there were only 85 seats available in the top 10 most competitive majors, leaving room for just 3.5% of the 2,401 transfer applicants.
According to the data provided, psychology topped the list of the most competitive majors for freshmen once again this year. It received 3,759 applications but had only 80 seats available.
The most competitive major for transfers was public health, which received 141 applications but had space for only two students. Two majors did receive a handful of transfer applications, but had no seats available.
The Tribune obtained data for applications received and target enrollment projections — the numbers for students accepted to each major had not been provided as of Thursday afternoon. The Tribune used the available data to create a database with details for each available major for both freshman and transfer applicant pools.
According to that data, the top 10 most competitive majors for freshmen, based on number of applications received versus seats available, were:
- Psychology: 3,759 applicants, 80 seats available — 2.13%
- Biological sciences: 5,351 applicants, 159 seats available — 2.97%
- Aerospace engineering: 2,405 applicants, 85 seats available — 3.53%
- Marine sciences: 672 applicants, 24 seats available — 3.57%
- Kinesiology: 2,180 applicants, 78 seats available — 3.58%
- Public health: 1,525 applicants, 62 seats available — 4.07%
- Political science: 2,120 applicants, 89 seats available — 4.2%
- Biochemistry: 1,713 applicants, 72 seats available — 4.2%
- Microbiology: 563 applicants, 24 seats available — 4.26%
- Economics: 1,667 applicants, 75 seats available — 4.5%
And here’s the list of the 10 most competitive majors for transfer applicants:
- Public health: 141 applicants, 2 seats available — 1.42%
- Biochemistry: 70 applicants, 1 seat available — 1.43%
- Construction management: 85 applicants, 2 seats available — 2.35%
- Political science: 336 applicants, 8 seats available — 2.38%
- Physics: 69 applicants, 2 seats available — 2.9%
- Microbiology: 34 applicants, 1 seat available — 2.94%
- Statistics: 81 applicants, 3 seats available — 3.7%
- Psychology 846 applicants, 32 seats available — 3.78%
- Kinesiology: 299 applicants, 12 seats available — 4.01%
- Communication studies: 440 applicants, 22 seats available — 5%
Search the database for transfer, freshman data
More data on freshman and transfer applications and enrollment targets can be found in The Tribune’s database.
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