18 year olds may have recently had a brilliant and inspirational high school teacher and they mistake the connection they had with that teacher with a passion for the subject. If you couple that with weak or uninspiring teachers in his/her area of strength, then it’s not surprising that so many kids start out college in the wrong majors.
“…that include a GPA minimum that is higher than 2.0 or grade minimums higher than C”
I guess there could be a reasonable major where you need to take one course that is related but slight off-major where getting a C is a struggle. One example might be a music performance major who struggles to get a C in music theory, but who shines in actual performance. In such cases a student might take that one course that they find difficult again, get tutoring outside of class, struggle to get a C, then go on with the other parts of the major that they do well.
However, in general I can’t imagine majoring in any subject for which getting a C is hard.
I agree with @TooOld4School:
“Being weeded out is telling you that you do not have the aptitude for that major, no matter how much you want or like it. Better to find out early than face decades of misery”
Probably time to find another major. Fortunately there are a LOT to choose from. Most students change majors for one reason or another.
The best CS Prof I’ve ever had in undergrad double-majored in CS and Philosophy.
Or the opposite.
My AP English teacher said to me, “I can’t understand why you signed up for this class. You can’t write.”
She was wrong. I was perfectly capable of writing. My difficulty was with interpreting literature.
I’ve been earning my living by writing for 35 years. None of that writing has had anything to do with literature.
Not necessarily. Some majors at some schools are so competitive that GPA 3.5 or higher is needed to avoid being weeded out, while the same major elsewhere may only need a 2.0. So a 3.0 student would be weeded out in one if the school’s but not the other.
Example would be CS at the UWs (Washington versus Wisconsin).
Near me at University of Washington, there are three times as many pre-CS students as there are junior level CS slots. To be safe, students need around a 3.8 and good recommendations when they apply. Not only that, but the CCs around are filled with kids also competing for spots.
Surrounding area colleges and other in-state options are getting the benefit. Many transfer to Seattle U, Western, or WSU to finish up. Many going in for CS/CSE are avoiding UW altogether.
To me, there are two types of weed-outs. One is where kids are competing for a limited number of spots. May well be the case that you are capable of doing the work but there are others who are better qualified to do so thus you do not get into that major.
Second type of weed-outs are the classes themselves. For engineering, chemistry, physics and calc are often weed-out classes freshmen year. There are kids who simply cannot pass those classes and are thus weeded out.
Re #26
I was referring mainly to the first type, where students do well enough to indicate that they can handle the major, but the major is capacity limited so that it cannot take all qualified students. E.g. 3.0 students weeded out because the major only has enough space to take 3.5 and higher students.
Long, long ago, I was a biomedical engineering major. Loved the idea of it and I was a strong math and science student. Well, that lasted all of about one semester when I got Cs in both Calc and Chemistry in my first year of college. (I had used my APs to test out of classes and that was probably a big part of the problem. Bad idea.)
I spent the next quarter trying to stay off of academic probation and took a poli sci class and a literature class. Only took me a few weeks to realize that engineering was not my thing as I was LOVING my new schedule. Switched to poli sci/econ double major and had an awesome experience. Was very gainfully employed out of school and for the 15 years after that until we had kids. 
That is certainly how I read your post. To me when I hear “weed out class,” I think the second rather than the first types I referenced.
The Seattle Times just did an article about this issue in the Engineering School at Univ of Washington. If you really want to be an engineer, and you’ve done well in your classes but just miss the cut, settling for another major would be a big bummer. I wouldn’t want my kid to take that chance and would advise applying to direct entry programs.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/students-frustrated-trying-to-get-into-uws-strict-engineering-program/
Re: #30
For an idea of how competitive it is to get into an engineering major at the University of Washington, see https://www.engr.washington.edu/current/admissions/admitstats .
General Science or Sociology were popular with my friends who were “weeded out” - but that was a long time ago.
Not quite the same but I know someone who wanted to go to medical school. I know she got her Bachelor’s but I’m not sure if she was weeded out or just didn’t get into medical school. She ended up applying for medical school in Ireland and going to medical school there then returning to the US where she is currently a physician.
Interestingly enough, I knew someone who went to Trinity College Dublin for Medical School straight out of HS here in the US because he was so keen on being a doctor. From what he recounted, there were other students like him there and none had issues finding internships/residencies as of the mid-'00s when he was in his third year there.
When my wife and I applied for colleges (and our kids) we excluded any university with minimum GPA’s for particular majors. Everyone wanted certain admittance to the major they were interested in. The GPA related capacity controls speak more of poor planning on the part of the university than any issues with unqualified students.
Re: #31
http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/13/engineering-direct-to-college-admission/
(But you already knew that.)
Changing departmental capacity happens more slowly than changes in student demand for a major, unless the department wants to rely on adjuncts (as opposed to tenure track faculty) to increase or decrease capacity on demand. Even research universities that have somewhat more flexibility through the use of TAs have some limits on their ability to expand and contract capacity based on demand. Some in-demand majors can be expensive to expand, due to facilities requirements (e.g. labs and other equipment), or must hire faculty in competition with industry (engineering, CS, elite business).
Having all majors be open majors means that the school needs to have sufficient unused reserve capacity in each major to handle potential increases in interest. A budget constrained school may not want to increase capacity just to be able to have unused reserve capacity.
Advice from UW CSE to admitted freshmen:
Re: #36
The selectivity of majors within engineering for direct-to-college admits is obviously unknown at this time, though presumably lower than currently. https://www.engr.washington.edu/admission/directtocollege/faq does mention that the minimum prerequisite GPA is 2.5 for a direct-to-college admit to be eligible to apply to an engineering major, but that some majors may not have the capacity to accept all eligible applicants (i.e. they may be more selective than the 2.5 baseline).