“At a school that doesn’t require competition for major after admission, a student’s success or failure at completing a degree in their originally intended major relies solely on their personal performance and isn’t relative to that of any other student.”
That’s not necessarily the case, many first and second year classes at colleges we’re discussing have curves where you’re definitely graded relative to other people in the class. I agree that if you’re already in the CoE or in say the dept of EECS, you don’t have to worry about applying for entry, but if you get Cs and Ds your first semester, it’s because you did worse than your classmates.