I think trying to count on getting a 3.8 in engineering is crazy. I do hear you on the kid not taking advantage of the advantages of college B - I’ve got one of those - a comp sci major. He now lives outside SF and never goes into the city.
@katwkittens shared your post with DS tonight. He is ‘thinking’ , which is what we want. Thanks for sharing.
I know lots of kids who start college life as engineers and graduate as something else. Sometimes it’s performance related. Sometimes it’s prep related (your kid can be the top math kid in your HS and then realize within two weeks at college that he’s floating in the 20th percentile in an engineering program-- just a more competitive, better prepared cohort). And sometimes- and the reason for my post- is that a kid discovers something that he/she loves more than engineering.
Most kids in HS are not exposed to biostatistics or any of the big data/analytics fields. Most kids in HS don’t even know that econometrics exist or that people earn a good living do that all day. Most kids in HS only have a vague understanding of what actuaries do, or that you can get a cool job with a degree in urban planning figuring out what infrastructure will look like in 2030 when self-driving cars become a reality (or when most cars on the road are hybrids, not gasoline only). Or don’t know that companies hire people to develop risk models for everything from the price of jet fuel to the probability that the next big tsunami will hit an industrial area in the Phillipines.
There are dozens of cool jobs that a kid good in math (which I presume is what OP’s kid brings to the table) can do and love. So I’m not seeing the handwringing if kid needs Plan B. All kids who intend to major in engineering need Plan B- most of them just don’t know it yet.
I’d vote for the U that the kid thinks will bring out the best in him. And go from there.
Lots would depend on the kid. My engineering grad had a GPA >3.8, but would have been very uncomfortable and possibly stressed to the point of being dysfunctional, had the major required this for entrance. This would possibly be true of several classmates with similar GPA’s.
I would be wary of any program with competitive admissions to a major, or a “winner take all” weeding process, especially if there is no attractive back-up major.
There is quite a bit of difference between changing out of an engineering major because the student discovered something else that is more interesting, versus being forced out because his/her 3.2 GPA led to being “weeded out” of an oversubscribed engineering major. In the latter case, it may be a rather bad situation to be involuntarily forced out of the major, when one still has interest in it and could have successfully graduated in it at some other school.
Those who change out of engineering out of interest discover their plan B during college (i.e. finding some other major that interests them more). Those who face an aggressive “weeding” process need to consider a different kind of plan B (e.g. transfer to another school) to complete their major if they are “weeded out” despite doing reasonably well in it and still having interest in it.
Note that aggressive “weeding” is not necessarily limited to engineering majors. Some liberal arts majors at some schools are oversubscribed, so they need to “weed out” prospective majors to stay within capacity.
“I would be wary of any program with competitive admissions to a major, or a “winner take all” weeding process, especially if there is no attractive back-up major.”
This issue caused us to change DD2’s college search from a focus on public flagship engineering schools to Lehigh and Case Western where the schools have the capacity to allow engineering students to choose their own major.
Engineering is difficult enough without the pressure of needing to be in the top 10 -20% of students to get into major x, or if she decides to transfer because a different area of engineering is more interesting than another. I do not think that this level of stress is constructive.
So funny Much2learn my son decided the same thing after getting accepted at several large state engineering programs as a FYE student. The schools he got into required 3.0 or a 3.2 to guarantee your major. Many of the students on campus talked about how difficult it was to even get those GPA’s their first year. One student even said that it was common to require 5 years to graduate. I think a 3.8 requirement would be really difficult.
Even a 3.2 can be difficult because engineering gpas tend to be lower. On school required a 3.2, but also said that 1/2 of the freshmen have a 2.8 or lower gpa, so a 3.2 is not going to be easy.
OP here, a year after the original post. Since this post was revived, I wanted to add an update, S decided to go with the direct admit program (UT Austin) and is very happy there, and has no regrets over his choice of major. He actually managed a 4.0 first semester, so he may not have had any problems getting into his major at the General Engineering admit school, but was glad to not have the added stress. On a side note, the General Admit school (TAMU), has already amended their engineering admissions some to give kids more assurance that they can get into their choice of major if they meet a minimum GPA requirement.
3.8 is insane … One approach is to take no AP credit, which could set you back, and then still hope that the average grade is not a C. Or take a low course load. Or drop classes a week before finals when you have a C. Second 2 might delay graduation …
10 classes per year … you need 38 grade points. So let’s say you get 9 As, you can get one C. Or let’s say you get 8 As, you can get 2 Bs. Anything less you are not competitive …
Unless your kid is one of those people with 5s on 15 AP tests who always is the smartest kid in their class, which is of course a vigorous high school … or the 2 schools aren’t really top tier (but I think they are)
Take the school with direct admit and without a lot of restrictions to get into other engineering disciplines. I hope they are the same.
Engineering all starts with calc, chem, physics, an intro class and some english type class and maybe computers. You can go into any engineering discipline with that.
If this isn’t true, please point me to the website and show me the mandatory freshman class(es) …
However, TAMU’s guaranteed-admission-to-engineering-major GPA is 3.5, which is quite high, and higher than at some other schools with a similar system (e.g. Virginia Tech 3.0, Minnesota 3.2).
@ucbalumnus True, but at least it is a tangible goal to strive for instead of a holistic measurement that depended in part on their “A&M- ness” which is how the previous standard felt.
@PickOne1, does the AP credit just satisfy the course require but not contribute to the GPA?
AP credit can satisfy the course requirement, or sometimes just give literally advanced placement (you can take English II rather than English I, but have to take 3 credits of English). There is no grade point assigned, so if you have say 15 AP credits, your denominator goes down by 15 credits, and you have no grade for the class.
There are some who say, oh repeat say Physics - Mechanics, get an easy A … but some schools will have no easy As. So if you are say a future ME, you may want to repeat only if you feel your background is weak (but if you get a 5, you probably have mastered the material, there is no grade inflation on AP grades).
For my example, I had 10 classes, where you could get at most 1C or 2Bs and keep a 3.8. If you place out of 2 and don’t take anything else … you could potentially get all As … or you could take Easy Basketweaving 101 …
3.8 is rare at most schools … even that state school your kid doesn’t want to go to because they would rather attend prestigious school X.
At that point, it is almost a lottery … with sort of a very bad prize, leave your beloved school after 1 year … or change to something like physics with much worse job prospects (and probably no easier at all).
OK - looking at this really at a top level, if TAMU is only accepting like 34% of applicants … that is really probably a full 33% less than would normally keep plugging away at an engineering degree (some of those will not graduate as engineers … but that is OK), and about 15% less than would normally graduate in engineering (about 50% drop out, more women than men, but this is a different topic).
It is a service of sorts to gently prod people out of engineering who are not willing or able to do the work … it just does not get easier and few people are going to “get calculus” or "get physics’ in an ah-ha moment in junior year of a dreadfully hard engineering major.
it is a disservice to those who are getting mostly As with a few Bs who genuinely are interested and are likely working really hard to get those As and Bs … to not allow them to matriculate into the engineering major they want …
UC-San Diego had a similar system, which is one of many reasons my OOS D did not attend.
in their defense, all schools publish their criteria to enter the engineering fields, which are really almost all limited enrollment in one way or another …
but personally I think 3.8 is too high … and that schools that allow flow into the system and flow out … with adequate space for interested and qualified students … are the best.
States need engineers, so state schools should open more slots … pay faculty better, near industry standards, etc … give our PhD engineers something to do and train more good engineers at top state schools.
We could argue more about the logic of lower tier schools … but ABET accrediting and difficult classes pretty much eliminates the dumb engineers who build bridges that fall down (not the ones that fall down after not being maintained for 50 years).
Thank you @PickOne1
Not exactly. UCSD does direct admission to most engineering majors (see exception below), but may admit students rejected from the major to an alternate major or undeclared. Because the only space available for current students wanting to change major to an engineering major comes from attrition (which is low at a school as selective at UCSD), changing into an engineering major after enrolling at UCSD is very difficult – generally more difficult than at schools where all engineering students are admitted to pre-engineering and must compete for the total number of available space in engineering majors. See https://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/curric/SOE.html . Some other schools, like UIUC, have similar systems.
At UCSD, one engineering major, engineering physics, admits to a pre-major status, where all students must compete for the spaces in the major in college, similar to how Texas A&M, Purdue, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, etc. handle their engineering enrollment.