The other thing about having to vie for one’s major, is the endless competition. It just gets old. Kids now start competing against each other as freshmen in high school, maybe even sooner in some places. It’s just nice to get a break from that. Of course, competition is hardwired into some, but even a modicum of relief is nice.
Not a bad thing at all. Good for him.
Engineering grad school students are crème de la crème, forming a brand new bell curve with only the very top college graduates – a small margin for error indeed.
Looking at Naviance scatterplots for our four local high schools (stipulation: Naviance data is specific to the school not the program and shows results for applicants not matriculants), I would replace UW with WSU in your paragraph as the graph’s make it clear that WSU takes a significantly broader range of students than UW or even WWU does. Likewise, while I agree that there’s a noticeable preparedness gap between someone who got a 27 versus a 33, I’m guessing we’d find smart people who disagree.
@ucbalumnus is correct about why physics isn’t yet competitive. UW’s physics department is large and reputed to be well-run.
In the case of the engineering students at WSU, the ACT range is 22-28.
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/7426/screen/19?school_name=Washington+State+University