I honestly believe a lot of you guys mountain out of a mole hill when it comes to programs like A&M that have first year engineering programs. There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach and everyone on here treats it only as disadvantageous.
At TAMU, they cite 87% of students ending up in their first choice anyway, 95% ending up in first or second choice (and not all second-rate are involuntary), and 100% of eligible (i.e. haven’t flunked out) students end up in a department.