california state essay prompts

Application Guide for First-Year

We have compiled this information to guide you through each section of the  Cal State Apply  application.  Within the application, you can also navigate to the blue question circle in the upper right corner for more detailed instructions.  Additional resources are also available directly through Cal State Apply.

Getting Started

Gather materials.

• Transcript(s) from all high schools and colleges (if applicable) that you've attended.
• 12th grade fall and spring course schedules to include in-progress and planned course work. Do not include planned summer courses. They will not be considered on your application.
• Do not send official transcripts unless we request them.

Browser Preferences

Use Google Chrome or Firefox to complete your application. Internet Explorer or Safari are not recommended for Cal State Apply. You must disable your pop-up blocker.

Creating Your Account

• Sign in or create an account. Please do not use a school-based email address under Contact Information .
• In Complete Your Profile , choose “First Bachelor’s Degree,” and then “graduating high school senior or equivalent.” Next, indicate whether or not you have college course work to enter. From there, complete the remaining questions and click Save.
• Scroll down to find "Cal Poly Undergraduate."
• Search for "Cal Poly" (do not search for "San Luis Obispo").
• Click on Filter and choose Cal Poly San Luis Obispo under the Campus selection. 

Program Selection

• All Cal Poly applicants must select a major. Undeclared is not an option for our campus.
• You will be evaluated against other first-year applicants applying to the same major.
• You may select an alternate major, but very few applicants are offered admissions based on their alternate major selection.

Review Your Program Selections

Review your answers, then click on Continue to my Application .

Personal Information

Complete all sections using your full legal name as it will appear on your test scores, transcripts and government issued documents.

Academic History

High schools attended.

• Students whose California based high school is listed with CaliforniaColleges.edu , can import their high school information and course work data directly into the Cal State Apply Application. You must first create an account and register with CaliforniaColleges.edu . Once you have an account, click the “Connect” button and follow the prompts.
• Once your accounts are connected, click “Import” to bring over your data. Once imported, you will receive a success message on the screen. It will be your responsibility to double-check all of the course work and ensure that all grades are entered, all A-G designations are assigned, and accurate course categories are applied.
• If you do not use CaliforniaColleges.edu, you will need to enter all high schools attended manually. 
• Enter any online or distance education providers, if applicable.
• If you were home-schooled, navigate to the Home School tab to enter your curriculum provider.
• Double-check your selection for the diploma Date Received/Expected question to make sure you selected the correct year.
• If your school operates on two different term types such as semester and trimester, enter the school twice under each term type. This will ensure that you get the proper credit for your course work.

Seventh and/or Eighth Grade Course Work

• You can only enter one year of credit per course, even in your middle school split the course into two years (ex., Algebra 1A in seventh and Algebra 1B in eighth). In this case, enter the course work in either the seventh or eighth grade section. 
• Don't enter your middle school as an additional school attended. Instead, choose it as the first high school attended in ninth grade for that academic year. 

Ninth through 11th Grade Course Work

• Remember to list your courses and grades as they appear on your high school transcript and make sure you select the correct course type. If you are not sure which A-G area your course falls under, you can look it up on the UC Doorways A-G course list . If you have taken AP, IB, or Honors courses, select the appropriate option from the dropdown menu of course type. For all other courses, select “None.”

12th Grade Course Work

• Enter all 12th grade course work as either “In Progress” or “Planned” to get credit for those semesters. Dropping Spring course work you report on your application could have an impact on your admissions status.

Failing Grades/Repeating Classes

• Enter all failing grades for courses unless you have successfully repeated the same exact course at the same institution and your transcript reflects this accordingly. In this scenario, you will only report the passing grade. If you are currently retaking a failed course with an in-progress or planned course, you must report the failing grade.

Summer Classes with Two Grades

• Did you take an A–G course over the Summer? Click on "Add Summer Courses" and enter your coursework. If you received one grade, enter that grade in Summer 1 and enter "No Course" in Summer 2. 

Schools with Trimester Systems

• If your school operates on a true trimester system where you receive three grades per course, select trimester as your term type. If your school operates on a trimester system where you only get two grades per course, you will select semester as your term type.

Elective Requirements

• If you do not have two semesters of Electives, you may fulfill the one year requirement by entering one semester of US Government and one semester of Economics (if 4 semesters of Social Science have already been completed). If you do not have US Government and Economics, you may report a course entitled “Elective Credit” with two grades of Pass. Please call our office directly if you have questions or concerns about meeting the area G requirement.

College Course Entry

• If you are using college classes toward your A-G Course work, make sure you add the college to your application. You should enter the course into the College Coursework page. Do not add a second grade if you only took one semester. The system will know to give you one year's worth of credit as long as you enter it properly and assign the appropriate A-G designation on the A-G matching tile.
• Non A-G college courses can be entered on the college coursework page. Do not enter the course on both the High School Coursework and College Coursework pages, as this is considered double-reporting.

Test Scores

• The California State University (CSU) system has permanently suspended the use of ACT/SAT tests in the admissions process. Standardized test scores will only be used for Math and English placement purposes, if you are admitted. 
• College Board institution codes for Cal Poly SLO: (ACT: 0188) (SAT: 4038) (AP: 4038).

Supporting Information

This section covers work experience and extra-curricular activities, as well as the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP).

Your work experience can be paid or not. You may also enter internships or volunteer programs in this section. There is no area on the application to give details regarding these activities. It is simply quantified into hours per week, with an indication of leadership roles and major relatedness. Cal Poly reserves the right to request additional documentation to verify your responses if needed.

The EOP (Educational Opportunity Program) provides admission, academic and financial support services to historically underserved students throughout California. Applicants to the program need to fill out all four sections by the EOP Application Deadline. Non-EOP applicants will need to decline the option on the first tile and click on Save to continue. Learn more about EOP .

Program Materials

After selecting your program, followed by the Questions tab:

• Read and click on the Licensure or Credential Acknowledgment. 
• Select "First-Year (Graduating High School)" as Applicant Level.
• Respond to the questions and acknowledgements displayed.
• Save and continue.

You must pay the campus application fee at the time you submit, unless you qualify for an application fee waiver. The application will notify you automatically whether or not you qualify for a fee waiver at the time of submittal. The limit is four fee waivers for California State Universities. After you have used your four fee waivers, you must pay the campus application fee. If you do not currently own a credit card, the system will accept a pre-paid credit card.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

Applying to a Cal-State School? Here’s What You Need to Know About the CSU System/Process

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Even among large state university systems in the U.S., the California State University system (referred to as Cal State or CSU, although there are other CSUs in the U.S.) is a behemoth. With a population of over half a million students, staff, and faculty members across its roughly two dozen branches, it plays a huge role in educating the state of California, and also attracts students from outside the state.

If you’re used to thinking of colleges as distinct, singular entities, you may find the mechanics of applying to a large state college system like Cal State to be somewhat confusing. If you’re from outside of California, you may also have questions about how your residency affects your application requirements and chance of being accepted.

Never fear, CollegeVine is here! In this post, you’ll find an outline of the Cal State system of colleges, their application processes and requirements, and the factors you’ll need to consider if you’re thinking about applying. Read on for our advice on making wise choices about the Cal State system.

A Brief Introduction to the Cal State System

The Cal State system as it operates today was created by the California Master Plan for Education of 1960 , but the colleges it consists of have existed for much longer under various names and groupings. Originally intended primarily to educate teachers, these colleges now offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in a full range of fields.

Today, the Cal State system consists of 23 distinct campuses, some of which maintain additional “off-campus” branches that extend their reach to a larger number of students. You can find a full list of these campuses and detailed information on each campus on the Cal State website. Cal State also owns a number of other research and laboratory facilities throughout the state, including an observatory and a ship for training future mariners.

Like most state colleges, the Cal State schools were originally created to serve residents of that state. California residents still enjoy preferential treatment in admissions and a lower in-state tuition rate at the Cal State schools. However, students from other states and even other countries are also eligible to apply.

Currently, nearly 479,000 students attend Cal State each year, and the system lays claim to the title of largest (by population) 4-year state college system in the nation. It’s responsible for half the bachelor’s degrees awarded in California every year, and it awards more bachelor’s degrees each year than any other university system in the U.S.

It’s important to keep in mind that the California State University system is not the same as the University of California (UC) system. Both are systems of public universities in California, but each has its own policies, campus choices, and admissions procedures, and the UC schools are generally more selective and more expensive. To learn more about the UC system and its application requirements, visit the CollegeVine blog post How to Write the University of California Essay Prompts 2017-2018.

Applying to the Cal State System

To be eligible for admission to any of the Cal State schools, you must have successfully completed certain college preparatory courses while you were in high school. If you’ve completed these requirements, your high school GPA and your SAT or ACT scores are plugged into an established equation to produce the single number known as your Eligibility Index (EI).

Your EI is the main factor that determines admission to most of the Cal State schools and majors. Each school and major has its own EI cutoff for admission. This threshold may also depend upon where you live; students who come from the immediate area of the college and, more generally, the state of California receive preference in the form of lower EI cutoffs.

Applying to one or more schools in the Cal State system is different from applying to most other colleges in some significant ways. If you’re hoping to get admitted to a Cal State school, particularly one of the more popular campuses, you’ll need to follow the instructions carefully.

First of all, instead of the Common Application, Coalition Application, or another shared application system, the Cal State schools use their own application system, Cal State Apply. You must use this system to apply to any of the Cal State schools, and you can specify multiple Cal State schools on it if you’d like.

If you take a look at the Cal State admissions website , you’ll see that it lists a “priority application filing period” that lasts from October 1 to November 31 for admission in the next fall semester. The term “priority” is a bit of a misnomer here; at some of the more popular campuses, all the available first-year spaces may be taken during this time period.

In order to have the best possible chance at getting admitted to the Cal State college you’re interested in, you should always plan to submit your initial Cal State application during the priority application filing period. Some colleges in the system may continue to accept applications after November 31, space permitting, but this is not guaranteed.

In certain circumstances, you may have to provide additional information as part of your Cal State application. What this might require of you depends on the school and the situation. (We’ll discuss these circumstances in greater detail below.)

If you’re a first-year applicant (not a transfer applicant), you should not submit any additional documents with your initial application. After you submit your initial application, you’ll be contacted directly with instructions if and when more information becomes necessary. Don’t submit anything extra during the basic application process unless you’re specifically told to do so.

Impacted Campuses and Majors

One special piece of terminology that you’ll find used in the Cal State system is “impacted.” If a Cal State college, or a specific major at a Cal State college, is described as impacted, this means that demand for admission to this college or major exceeds the available space, making admission to this college or major much more competitive.

Whether a particular school or major is impacted can vary from year to year, but some campuses, like Cal State Fullerton , are already known to be impacted for the 2017-2018 application season. Impacted Cal State colleges generally require a higher EI for admission than the others, and impacted majors may require a higher EI than other majors at that college.

Impacted schools and majors may also base their admissions decision on additional information, requiring you to submit supplemental documents. Again, if these documents become necessary, the college will inform you and provide instructions for submission. Don’t submit any additional documents during the initial application process.

Admission for Non-California Residents

As we’ve mentioned, the Cal State system was established specifically to provide educational opportunities to students from California. For this reason, preference in admission is given to California residents, especially those living in the local area of a particular college, and to transfer students from the California community college system.

If you’re not from California, you’re still welcome to apply to the Cal State system. However, you should be aware that you’ll be subject to higher admissions standards. The EI threshold for out-of-state applicants is typically higher, meaning you’ll need higher grades and test scores to get in, and you may also need to submit supplemental documents if the college requests them.

As with most state universities and colleges, it’s also more expensive to attend schools in the Cal State system if you’re from out of state. California residents enjoy lower in-state tuition.

Choosing a Cal State Campus

With so many campus options scattered across the entire state of California, you might find it hard to decide which Cal State schools to apply to. While the schools in this system have a lot in common, and are run by the same chancellor and group of administrators, each campus also has a distinct character of its own.

Some of the Cal State schools are located in major cities like Los Angeles, while others are set in suburbs or small towns. Each school offers its own set of majors, and some of the schools are extra-specialized — Cal Maritime, for instance, is a small Cal State school that only offers a few majors related to maritime science.

Fortunately, the Cal State system’s website provides tools that you can use to help make this decision. Along with information on each college and the academic and other programs they offer, this website offers a Campus Match Tool that allows you to search among the 23 different Cal State schools by factors like size, location, and athletic offerings.

For more details about each campus, it’s a good idea to explore the individual websites of the Cal State colleges you’re interested in, and even to visit and speak to current students to get a more personal perspective. You can find links to each of the Cal State colleges on the Cal State website.  

When you submit your initial Cal State application through the Cal State Apply system, you’ll be instructed to specify your campus(es) of choice. If any of the Cal State colleges you choose requires additional information from you in order to make a decision, the individual school(s) will contact you directly and provide more instructions for what to submit and how.

Considering the Cal State system may be a little overwhelming due to its breadth, but within that wide variety of programs, you may very well find one that’s perfect for you. Especially given the early deadlines of the priority application period, if you think any of the Cal State colleges might be a good fit for your less, it’s worth getting to know their process, checking whether you meet their requirements, and putting in your research in advance.

Curious about your chances of acceptance to your dream school? Our free chancing engine takes into account your GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, and other data to predict your odds of acceptance at over 500 colleges across the U.S. We’ll also let you know how you stack up against other applicants and how you can improve your profile. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to get started!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center

Writing strong essays & personal statements.

Writing essays and personal statements represents a large part of the work that goes into creating a winning application. Here are the few tips that will help orient you to the purpose of these pieces of writing and get you started on composing essays and statements that will make your application shine.

Adapted from contributions by Tammy Hoyer (Senior Program Manager at the Undergraduate Research Center, University of California, Davis)

Why are essays and personal narratives so important?

First, although essays and personal narratives are just one piece out of an entire application packet – along with your GPA, test scores, letters of recommendation, and the relevant experience and skills in your resume – they are the one piece that gives you the opportunity to use your own voice and make a case for yourself . It’s like a pseudo-interview where the selection committee gets the idea of who you are through your own words and presentation. A well-written essay or statement may prove to be the deciding factor that wins you a letter of acceptance!

Second, essays and personal narratives give you the opportunity to convey information that the selection committee will find compelling in making its decision about your application. Specifically, this is your chance to describe why the opportunity you are applying for is important to you, how it fits into your aspirations, and how it will help you achieve academic ambitions and professional goals . When a reader is done reading your essays and personal statements, they should be able to easily ascertain:

• the origin of your interest in a field of study
• the growth of that interest over a period of time (as illustrated by experience)
• that the opportunity you are applying for is the next logical step in the sequence toward a specific goal.

Third, essays and personal narratives give you the opportunity to address what might appear to be gaps or weakness in other aspects of your application. Here is your opportunity to turn weaknesses into strengths. For example, if you nearly flunked out of school in your freshman year, highlight how you have turned your work and grades around since: "Although a lack of focus caused my grades to suffer during my freshman year, my transcript from more recent semesters reflects a significant improvement in my grades and demonstrates a commitment to my work and a level of readiness for [the opportunity you are applying for]." If there was a significant life event that caused that lack of focus, explain it (but don't offer excuses). Selection committees understand that some things in life are beyond our control. They just want to know what you did about it. How you handled a challenge and came back strong can speak very well for you.

And lastly, these writing pieces serve as a writing sample . They should be well organized, concise, and completely free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.

So how do I craft a strong piece of writing?

A strong piece of writing starts with developing the content, addresses the questions asked, and ends with polishing the spelling, grammar and formatting to perfection. Here are some guidelines and strategies that will help you with the process.

• Start early, plan well, and give yourself the luxury of enough time. Putting together a strong application takes time and effort – and it’s time and effort that has to fit in around all your other schoolwork! Giving yourself enough time lowers the stress throughout the process and results in better, stronger final drafts. It allows you to tackle the writing in bits and pieces. It allows you the time you need to go through a series of drafts. And it allows the writing to develop naturally and grow into a final draft without your having to force the issue. Believe it or not, your brain thinks about these things even when you are not working on them directly! Make it easy for yourself and support your efforts to succeed by giving yourself enough time.
• Ask your professors, advisors, and mentors to read your drafts and offer input.
• Ask your friends and family to proofread.
• Establish your voice . Your tone in the essay should reflect what is special, unique, distinctive or impressive about you. Find a tone of voice that is confident without sounding arrogant. If you are addressing what might be otherwise perceived as weaknesses in your application, there is no need to make excuses or sound contrite or apologetic. Usually, a straightforward tone will serve you best. Just state what affected your performance and follow up with what you did to improve the situation.
• Answer the question . When you are posed with a specific question or topic, stay on point and answer the question or address the topic!
• What are your academic or research interests? You might indicate an interest in a particular time period or author, or address one or two questions or problems in your chosen field. Remember that you will be working under or alongside professors in research. It is important that there is a good parallel in academic interests. At the early undergraduate level, this good parallel might be demonstrated simply by the curiosity, enthusiasm and motivation you demonstrate toward the broad disciplinary area in which the professor conducts research. Later on in your undergraduate and graduate career, it will be important to show a closer match between your interests or field of study and the particular sub-discipline or narrow area of research the professor is pursuing.
• How did you become interested in this field or research? Writing about how you became interested in a field establishes the beginning point of your interest and lets you go on to show how you have taken positive steps in pursuing your interest. You might talk about how a teacher or professor, or a life experience, first sparked your interest.
• What kind of activities or experiences have you had that have contributed toward your interest in, preparation for, or understanding of this field or research area? You can order your narrative here chronologically, or you could group experiences into categories such as internships, work experience, summer research experiences, community service, or life experiences. Make sure you describe what these experiences taught you either about yourself or about the subject matter that stimulated your interest in pursuing the field or research further.
• What are your aspirations? Whether you are an undergrad applying to a summer research program or graduate program, or a grad student applying for a postdoc position, you need to be able to paint the picture of what you are interested in, what next and where you hope to go. What are your goals? Then, tie those goals and aspirations in to what this opportunity you are applying for has to offer. Make it clear how this opportunity is the logical next step in reaching your goals.

Additional Resources

• Definition of Personal Statement for Fellowships and Grad School
• Writing the Personal Statement - Exercises to start writing
• Writing the Personal Statement - What should it include?
• Writing the Personal Statement for Grad School
• Writing for External Fellowships
• Tips for answering Short Essay Questions
• Tips to overcome Writer's Block

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