Cal Poly is on track to welcome about 4,750 first-time freshmen when the 2013 fall quarter begins in September, an increase of roughly 28 percent over last year’s freshman class.
Preparations to accommodate this larger cohort are well underway, with University Housing officials reorganizing room capacities throughout the campus’s freshman dorms and Academic Affairs hiring additional faculty and preparing additional class sections to help maintain the low student-to-professor ratio that marks Cal Poly’s learn by doing education.
The enrollment growth is facilitated by a mixture of funding increases and the diligent work of faculty, staff and students to improve Cal Poly’s graduation rates.
Funding from both Proposition 30, which California voters approved in November 2012, and from the Student Success Fee, which Cal Poly students overwhelmingly supported in early 2012, is helping provide the additional course offerings and other adjustments needed to accommodate the enrollment growth.
“I’m proud of how our faculty and staff members have stepped up over the summer to prepare Cal Poly for this influx of outstanding new students,” said Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong. “I’m also proud of how this university has focused on improving our overall graduation rates in recent years. Our collective effort to speed students’ time to degree is a key reason why Cal Poly is able to absorb the coming enrollment growth and continue to fulfill our mission of producing the well-rounded leaders of tomorrow’s workforce.”
The incoming class is Cal Poly’s most ethnically diverse and the most academically successful in the university’s history.
The class arrives with an average GPA of 3.88; average SAT scores of 622 and 651 for reading and math, respectively; and an average ACT score of 28. All of those averages are the highest ever for any freshman class at Cal Poly.
The university received a total of 40,402 applications for first-time freshmen for 2013-14, up from 36,491 for the prior academic year.
Cal Poly will also welcome about 1,000 new transfer students in 2013-14, up from 800 the prior year.