Being a CSU, its price is lower than UCs. But the application deadline has passed.
@OhiBro and OP - There are benefits to a secondary admission process. First off, if a student is struggling to get Bs in intro courses or even worse, the likelihood of success in advanced engineering courses is going to be even more of a challenge. Most employers want to see a 3.0 on resumes for internships and co-ops. What’s the point of squeaking through 4 years of engineering with a terrible GPA if you aren’t going to be hired after that 4 year investment?
Secondly, by having a secondary admission process, it helps a school manage class size and resources. There are no issue getting into courses or problems graduating in 4 years because of over capacity issues.
Lastly, not everyone is cut out for engineering. A first year common engineering program exposes students to the foundational math, physics, and design courses to see if they even like what they’ll be studying.
All that said, at Purdue, well over 90% of students get their first choice of engineering major. Those that don’t, usually can get into a similar major. For example, BME was highly competitive for my D’s year. Her friend who didn’t get into BME was able to get into biological engineering and is still able to take most of the same courses. She also has her internship at a bio tech company all set.
My point is that a secondary admission process shouldn’t necessarily be a deal breaker.
PS. My D has a ton of friends at OSU. Only one didn’t continue with engineering and that was by choice. The others had no issues transitioning to their preferred major.
The “secondly” point you mention (keeping enrollment in a major within the department’s capacity) appears to be the reason behind most if not all secondary admission processes to majors (engineering or otherwise).
The fact that different majors at the same school set different GPA requirements (which are often different from 3.0) or use competitive admission indicates that your “first off” point is probably not a significant consideration when setting up a secondary admission process. For example, at Penn State, students need a 3.20 GPA to get into biomedical engineering, but only a 2.00 GPA to get into biological (agricultural, food, or natural resources emphasis) engineering (see https://advising.psu.edu/entrance-major-requirements-college-engineering-2018 ). Is Penn State saying that biological engineering is much easier (and hire-able with lower GPA) than biomedical engineering, or is it saying that biological engineering is not overflowing with interest the way biomedical engineering is?
@ucbalumnus - I totally agree that the majority of it is resource management to avoid overcapacity. I just don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
However, at least at D’s school, different majors have different minimum GPA requirements for co-ops. For some engineering majors it’s a 2.6 and for others a 3.2. At least from the students’ perspective, some engineering majors are considered more rigorous than others. Not sure if the GPA thresholds to transition to a major is related to that in any way.
@momofsenior1 , all good points.
But having minimum standards to enter a major is entirely different than nebulous requirements that are used for capacity control.
If a university doesn’t have capacity, this is analogous to an airline overselling a flight, involuntarily bumping a few people… and leaving them stranded without putting them on a future flight. “Sorry, no space. And BTW, we’re not giving you a refund.”
If this is truly the way things are working at some places, it is very wrong.
Different GPA minima for different majors’ co-ops may be related to the expected amount of hiring and employer GPA desires for co-op students. I.e. not too different from departmental capacity control by GPA minima to enter majors.
It is more analogous to the university or division having sufficient capacity for all students, but some specific majors having insufficient capacity compared to interest. For example, if the university’s engineering division enrolls 2,000 per class and has capacity for all 2,000, but the CSE department has capacity for 200 per class and 500 of the 2,000 engineering students want to major in CSE, that is the kind of situation seen here. Meanwhile, the IE, MSE, CivE, etc. departments are undercapacity, hoping that those not able to get into CSE choose them.
The airline analogy would be if the number of passengers matches the number of seats in the aircraft, but the distribution of different classes of tickets (economy, premium economy, business, first) does not match that in the aircraft, so some passengers get bumped to different classes (in practice, airlines usually have a surplus of the higher class tickets, so this kind of bumping is typically upward to the satisfaction of the passengers).
However, airlines usually do also overbook the entire aircraft, on the assumption that some passengers will no-show for whatever reason; their goal is that the yield of passengers actually reaching the gate, plus any standby passengers, fills up the aircraft. This could be analogous to a university or engineering division estimating attrition and therefore enrolling a frosh class larger than the number expected to make it to upper class levels (with internal transfers analogous to standby passengers).
How do you think the <10% who don’t get their first choice feel? I bet they’re not all happy about it.
S20 is looking at business schools. Direct admission is a deal breaker. I don’t blame him. If you have other equal choices not sure why anyone would risk it.
@ucbalumnus
So at these schools that are using secondary admission for capacity control, are the high school seniors admitted to general engineering or to a specific discipline?
If they are admitted to a specific discipline, even if it says something like “pre-BME”, the university has an obligation to admit them to the major if they meet a minimum requirement. And that minimum requirement can’t be a 3.0 GPA one year, and 3.3 the next.
Do you mean to say that lack of direct admission to the business major (or, more properly, needing a secondary admission process to get into the business major) is the deal breaker?
Most of the colleges in this thread that have this type of thing admit frosh into a first year engineering undeclared state, from which they later need to apply to specific majors after completing frosh year courses with a high enough GPA.
Wisconsin is one college that does direct admission to engineering majors, but has GPA requirements that may be significantly higher than 2.0 to continue in the major: https://www.engr.wisc.edu/academics/student-services/academic-advising/first-year-undergraduate-students/progression-requirements/
Yes. Lack of direct admission is the deal breaker. As for GPA requirements it depends on how it’s used. Most schools have a minimum to continue or stay off of probation like a 2.0 which is a good thing.
However, when GPA varies from year-to-year I see that as a sliding scale probably based on available seats. That’s risky for perspective students. I suppose as long as everyone is aware of how it works before sending in their deposit it’s acceptable. I don’t think I’d take the risk.
Back on the original topic. What about UIUC? Not a safety for sure but maybe a high match or low reach if he is not applying direct to CS. They accept to specific engineering majors.
Also I wouldn’t give up on GT if he really has an interest. No harm in applying.
I really appreciate all this continued input!
The conversation around direct admissions to a specific engineering major has been interesting. I think for my S the general ‘first year engineering’ model is fine b/c some exploration will help him find the right fit. He’s just not certain at this point so exposure to different kinds of engineering through the first year design courses would be beneficial. I know there is a small chance he’d not have the grades to get to his first choice. I feel like in that situation, however, it’s likely that engineering overall isn’t for him, and he’d switch to business or maybe CS outside of engineering, if that’s avail.
So his current list is the following, though some of these may fall off after he visits:
(* next to the one he’s already seen and knows he’ll apply to). It’s a mix of reach, match and low match/safeties, depending on his test score.
NC State*
VT*
WI*
Case Western*
UNC (only for CS)*
Pitt
Penn State (maybe – we’re going to visit since we’ll be in that area but need to learn more about their engineering)
Lehigh (IBE)
Clemson
Colorado College of the Mines (maybe – need to learn more)
Interestingly, I checked our Naviance and every student from our school who applied to Penn St. or Pitt has gotten in the last 3 years so that seems good! If he didn’t get an early rolling admit from Pitt (or if it comes off the list b4 applying), we may look at adding Iowa St. and/or Utah as additional easier admits, but he won’t be able to visit first.
He’s going to look at WPI again and might add it back to the list. UIUC and Purdue are still hanging out there too in his mind. I think they’ll just stay in limbo for a while. Not sure how many really big schools he wants to consider.
Some high reaches he will consider adding if he gets a terrific ACT score. (That said, since he won’t apply ED, I won’t hold my breath on any of the privates. . .)
Carnegie Mellon
GT
Cornell
Rice
Targeting no more than 10 to 12 total apps so a few of these limbo and high reaches might replace some on the first list – again, depending on his testing.
Tks again everyone!
In addition to Pittsburgh (first year engineering program, but all engineering majors are open), Michigan (same) and Minnesota (most engineering majors are open) may be worth adding if he wants to enter as engineering undeclared but avoid secondary admission weed-out.
Regarding CMU, note that CS is in a different division from engineering majors, and switching to the School of Computer Science is very difficult.
Meh. If my kid can’t be in the top 90% of those applying to the major he probably doesn’t belong there. I’m sure more than 10% of students that go to college to major in engineering find out that it’s not their cup of tea once they actually get into the classes. That’s why we’re deliberately choosing large universities with a lot of other options if that happens.
But really, weeding out happens if you’re direct admit or not. Iowa State is direct admit, but the attrition rate for engineering is very high. They never kick you out, you can keep trying no matter what your GPA, but I’m not sure whoever is footing the bill would be thrilled with you constantly retaking classes either.
@ucbalumnus – thanks for the reminder about CMU and CS.
I told him to take Michigan out of consideration because from what I’ve gathered from CC there’s pretty much no chance he’d get any need or merit aid as an OOS student. We can’t afford full pay ($68/70k). Would love for someone to say I’m wrong about that since it’s great for engineering and business. Esp. since we have have family roots – my parents went to grad school there and my brother did his residency and fellowship. So if anyone has any ray of hope on getting $$ from Michigan, let me know!
I’ll suggest he look at Minnesota!
Tks again!
“If he didn’t get an early rolling admit from Pitt (or if it comes off the list b4 applying), we may look at adding Iowa St. and/or Utah as additional easier admits, but he won’t be able to visit first.”
Just be aware that applying to Utah by Nov 1 is critical for merit eligibility (those early action applicants find out the result and merit award on Jan 15).
CMU is very competitive for engineering. That ACT score is going to need to come up a lot to be in the running and it should still be considered a reach school.
@momofsenior1 – he doesn’t have an official ACT score yet! 
The title of the thread was around looking for safeties/low matches if he lands in the 30/31 zone – he took a mock test at a local test prep center and was in that range.
He’s doing prep now and his goal is at least 32/33 which should serve him well for his current targets, esp. given his 4.0 UW GPA at a top public school and very good rigor.
CMU would be high reach with any score, even if if he lucked out with a 34+!
@AlmostThere2018 make sure he’s not mixing up Colorado school of mines with Colorado College; very different schools. Seems like a great list, good luck!