The benefit outweigh the “problem”.
Texas has auto-admit law, half (48%) of engineering admits are coming from rural high schools with less resources. Many of these students only have a few APs.
ETAM year allows them to catch up. While really well-prepared students can take advance Chemistry, Maths and Physics courses to fulfill ETAM without falling behind. Without ETAM, these 48% will become drop outs. ETAM is a solution to the shortcomings of Texas auto-admit law.
Another benefit is letting students know what engineering is about. Biomedical engineering has as many coding classes as Computer Science, TAMU engineering has an average 30 hours of coding classes among all majors. Many students found true passions of their field that other colleges fail when they admit students directly to major.
TAMU ETAM sees 80.5% getting first choice majors, 88.5% getting first and second choice. That include McAllen, Galveston and TEAB. If you check TAMU GDR, number of engineering students increases from Freshmen to Senior, while other direct-admit colleges drops as students quit or transfer to another colleges.