Prospective students applying to multiple California State Universities (CSUs) can now do so in one application. The application, Cal State Apply, launched June 1. It replaced CSU Mentor, which started in 1999.
CSU spokesperson Elizabeth Chaplin said in an email that Cal State Apply makes the application process for incoming freshman, transfer, graduate and international students more streamlined and user-friendly.
Some changes from CSU Mentor to Cal State Apply include the integration of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) into the application, GPA calculation and automatic ACT and SAT score delivery.
Business administration senior Jason Lu said the immediate test score delivery reassures worried students wondering if the universities they applied to got their test scores by the deadline.
“It was always a worry – ‘What if I get declined if the college didn’t get my grades in time?’” Lu said.
Lu also noted one of the differences between Cal Poly’s application and those for other CSUs: Cal Poly’s included questions about extracurricular activities. Without asking students about their work outside of school, students could be impacted in the application process, he said.
“Since [the CSU] is only doing [the application process] by grades and transcript, it’s not getting the full scope of a student, and that’s my main problem with CSU registration,” Lu said.
Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier said Cal Poly Admissions will keep its set of four questions pertaining to extracurriculars.
“When the application opens on Oct. 1 for undergraduate students, we will continue utilizing a comprehensive review that includes questions surrounding extra-curricular activities and work experience,” Lazier said.
As for other campuses, Chaplin said there is a possibility that “an individual campus could ask for additional information later on in the application process depending on the campus and the program being applied to.”
Civil engineering senior Michael Choi applied to multiple CSUs, including CSU Pomona, Cal Poly and CSU Fullerton. He said Cal State Apply seems like a way to encourage more students to apply to several universities instead of limiting themselves to one.
“I feel like a decent amount of students applying to colleges don’t apply to others because of the amount of work it takes to fill out one application,” he said. “So students will apply to colleges they wouldn’t have considered applying to before.”
Select CSU campuses can only admit a limited number of students because majors and colleges are impacted. According to the CSU website, impaction occurs when “a campus has reached its enrollment capacity in terms of instructional resources and physical support and cannot accommodate all the eligible undergraduate applications it receives during the initial filing period.”
For example, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CSU San Diego, CSU Long Beach, CSU Fresno, CSU Fullerton and CSU San Jose are among the colleges in which all undergraduate programs for first-time freshmen are impacted.
On the other hand, Chaplin said the CSU system cannot determine whether the introduction of Cal State Apply will increase the amount of applicants to each university.
“We cannot forecast as to whether or not that means that will increase the number of applicants to individual campuses,” Chaplin said.
The first incoming application period for CSUs was June 1 to 30. The next application submission period for Fall 2018 will open Oct. 1 through Cal State Apply.