“Weed out” comes in two forms:
- “Natural” weed-out – usually because students change out of engineering on their own due to finding it too difficult or too much work. More common at less selective colleges or engineering divisions.
- Intentional weed-out – usually because a department is capacity constrained and cannot admit all students who want to enter the major, and the college or engineering division admits to an undeclared status with a secondary admission process to enter the major after a few semesters of college (or a variant like at Wisconsin where students must maintain a high GPA to stay in the major).