Average Freshman GPA? Per Major or School

FickleTickle
Sun, 27 May 2012 23:41:45 +0000

Hi Scribbulus,

I’m a Chemical Engineering major and just finished my Junior year. I wouldn’t let your son be discouraged, the Engineering majors here at Tulane are arguably three of the toughest programs in the University. There’s a HUGE difference between typical GPAs for Engineering majors and their non-Engineer counterparts.

Though I don’t know of any hard-and-fast statistic on the “average freshman Engineering GPA” I would venture to say that most of the people that have stuck with the program for the long-haul were somewhere around 3.3-3.7, with the rare stellar performers knocking it out of the park and getting 3.8+.

If you want to compare it with an example, my GPA stood at 3.6 after Freshman year. I’m currently at 3.24 going into my Senior year (with mostly easy electives next semester), and I’ve heard that graduating seniors with a GPA around this didn’t have too hard a time finding a job.

I would warn you however, that, at least with ChemE, Sophomore year took a huge step up in difficulty from Freshman year. Junior year was relatively tame compared to my second year, but still much harder than my Freshman days.

Perhaps some other engineers/parents of engineers can shed some light on this?

Good luck!