First-years at Cal Poly surpass CSU averages

SLO Tribune 3/18/07

By Sally Connell

Freshmen who entered Cal Poly in the fall continue to surpass their peers at the other 22 California State University campuses in both grade point average and proficiency in math and English.

In figures released this week by the CSU, English proficiency dropped slightly at Cal Poly, while mathematics proficiency remained almost the same compared to last year. The mean high school grade point average of those admitted to Cal Poly also dropped slightly.

In the fall, 94.3 percent of the freshmen at Cal Poly tested as proficient in math and 88.7 percent in English. In 2005, those numbers were 95 percent for math and 91 percent in English.

Those local numbers compare to a much lower systemwide averages of 62.5 percent in math and 54.7 percent in English.

James Maraviglia, assistant vice president for admissions at Cal Poly, said such variations are to be expected because the system as a whole expanded the number of students it accepted. Cal Poly expanded its freshman class.

"There were 270 more freshmen than the year before" at Cal Poly, he said. "We noticed that slight slip in the GPA, but with the larger class size, we anticipate that."

The CSU system has placed a strong emphasis on improving these statistics before students enroll in college as part of its Early Assessment Program, adopted in the 1990s.

The EAP numbers are not used in the admission process, Maraviglia said, but only used for diagnostic purposes to determine whether students need remedial work. The CSU mission is to provide college eligibility to the top one third of all high school graduates in the state, he said.

The EAP is a way to provide high school juniors with an assessment test of their abilities. It then calls for teachers to work on more English and math instruction during the senior year of high school.

The 3,604 freshmen who arrived at Cal Poly in the fall had a mean high school grade point average of 3.68, where a 4.0 is an A average. Systemwide, the mean GPA was 3.28.

The next highest average after Cal Poly was at San Diego State, where entering students had a 3.46 mean GPA. The CSU campuses at Long Beach, Stanislaus, Fresno and Bakersfield all had mean GPAs above 3.3.