<p>I didn't know there were actually schools without senior design projects. I always saw that as something unique to engineering.</p>
<p>DD's school has a senior engineering project as one of the options for graduation. I'm not sure it's required..but it's there.</p>
<p>"One of my sons at a State U has just noticed a new grading policy in his engineering college. A c- is now considered failing and the class will not count toward graduation or earn any credit. The class must be retaken. This school is rated in the 70's by US news in Engineering."</p>
<p>My son was freaking out when he made a 67% on his physics midterm. I think he made an 80% on his final. He ended up making an A in the class because the curve was so huge. This may be why a C- would be unacceptable--if a curve was taken into account.</p>
<p>I think a lot of people do better junior and senior year, although the material is harder, because they have learned how to deal with the work load and most of the people who didnt work hard (or weren't capable of doing the work) had been weeded out.</p>
<p>I think a lot of people do better the last two years because the courses are finally ALL in their field of interest. That happens in a LOT of majors. Students who are fulfilling core requirements and taking prerequisite courses often do a lot better once they are into the "meat and potatoes" of their major.</p>
<p>I'm fine with that, and most of you should be as well.</p>
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Now, will you be able to predict outcomes for every potential engineering student? Of course not, and I am not asking for perfection. I am simply asking for an admissions system that is better than the one we have currently, and the current system is pretty mediocre. When over half of the students who enter engineering programs nationwide don't finish them, there is significant room for improvement.
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<p>That's the only problem... you can't predict everyone's outcome by statistics. Recent history of similarly ranked students isn't always accurate, and especially for state's like mine. Under Texas state law, the top 10% of any public high school is accepted into any public U within the state. Now when you have schools like UT-Austin and TAMU-College Station within the state, many of the top 10% students who are satisfied going to those engineering programs (as they are both ranked in the top 20) don't take any standardized tests seriously. Why should they? It's simply required, not necessarily needed for acceptance. Just one example. </p>
<p>But yes, I do agree... the system needs tweaking. And as I have just finished my last semester of weed-out engineering classes, I have very recent personal experience with this travesty.</p>
<p>Columbia_Student: You're right we don't officially have a senior project but everyone is required to take a design course in their pathway (or concentration). For example, I am in the Signals and Systems pathway and chose to take a Digital Signal Processing Design course where we worked on a project in teams throughout the quarter. In some universities I think this would be called a Capstone course.</p>
<p>In my experience at UCLA upper div EE courses, the curve is set at around B- and the lower students get only a C+ at worse, although this depends on the professor. The worst I encountered was a student getting a D but that's because the professor was pretty strict about grading. I would say it's quite possible for an average student to get a B in most of the upper-div EE courses here at UCLA without trying to hard.</p>
<p>BTW the average EE gpa at UCLA is around 3.0-3.1 I believe.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's the only problem... you can't predict everyone's outcome by statistics. Recent history of similarly ranked students isn't always accurate, and especially for state's like mine. Under Texas state law, the top 10% of any public high school is accepted into any public U within the state. Now when you have schools like UT-Austin and TAMU-College Station within the state, many of the top 10% students who are satisfied going to those engineering programs (as they are both ranked in the top 20) don't take any standardized tests seriously. Why should they? It's simply required, not necessarily needed for acceptance. Just one example.
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<p>It is of course true that I won't be able to predict everybody's outcomes, and I'm not proposing that we can. All I am proposing is a system that is better than the current admissions system, and let's face it, the current system is pretty mediocre. Right now, as you have seen yourself, under the current system, plenty of admitted people won't make it to graduation, and plenty of other people who were rejected might have actually successfully graduated. The reason for this is simple: current admission criteria are not predicated on admitting those who are actually going to graduate, except in an indirect sense. High school GPA and SAT scores do have some correlation to graduation likelihood, but clearly not as much as would the variables that would be computed from a retrospective statistical analysis of past students. </p>
<p>The fact is, we have to use some sort of admissions system. Nobody is seriously proposing open admissions; some people must be rejected. Therefore we ought to be rejecting those people who are likely to fail anyway, as determined by statistical data mining analysis. Now, will it be able to predict everybody's behavior perfectly? No, but neither does the current system. A new system would, by definition, be at least as good as the current system, for if absolutely no variables other than overall high school GPA and SAT score were found to be significant (a highly unlikely outcome), then we could just stick with the current setup.</p>
<p>Sakky I must say that I don't agree with you on the notion that undergrad admission committees should have more rigorous screening. When you do that you rule out possible successful students. I was one of those students. My U took a chance on me, and I did pretty well. While my HS gpa and stuff were pretty decent 93% and NHS, my Sat's were horrible. I got like a 480 of 800 on math. But then I went and took Calc and did great. Moved up in math and have done pretty well. So in all instances I was the student to rule out of the engineering program. But in my undergrad experience, the students who may have seemed more likely to succeed are the ones who actually dropped out. Not the top ones, but the ones who were a step above me with higher sat marks. One thing engineering is pretty good at bringing out is the people who work hard. You have to be pretty committed to sit and do a single problem for hours or a project for 20+ hours.</p>
<p>Dr. Horse, I have to disagree. Again, we have to compare it to the current system, which right now rules out some students who might possibly be successful. </p>
<p>In fact, I think your story actually supports what I'm saying. If indeed SAT scores are not strong predictors of success, then this fact would naturally be detected in any data regression and hence admissions committees would learn now to rely on them as heavily as they do today. Hence, people like you would have a more likely chance of being admitted under my system, not less likely.</p>
<p>I had a 3.02 GPA after my sophomore year of EE. I'm pretty sure that was considered above average at my school.</p>
<p>Also, my school doesn't give out "minuses", but a D is sufficient for passing a class around here. A GPA of 1.75 is required to stay at the school, so it's not like you can accumulate D's though.</p>
<p>
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The fact is, we have to use some sort of admissions system. Nobody is seriously proposing open admissions; some people must be rejected. Therefore we ought to be rejecting those people who are likely to fail anyway, as determined by statistical data mining analysis.
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<p>Since we are talking about something that is unique to engineering programs, there possibly isn't enough data in a student's life prior to entering these programs to make reasonable predictions of success (or lack thereof). Especially since we are talking about some of the top engineering schools, where most of the applicants (and nearly all of the admits) excel in quite a few areas.</p>
<p>Since you (sakky) mention Stanford engineering often as a model for admissions standards, I should point out that it is not highly regarded in some professional circles. I'm sure you've heard a lot about honor code violations, grade inflation, etc.</p>
<p>At GT, a D is passing is a passing grade I think.</p>
<p>Man.. ya'll have it easy. </p>
<p>You need at C at UT Austin to pass if you're an engineer, and you need to maintain a 2.50 or above to stay out of probation. </p>
<p>I would like to disagree with the person who talked about having a more detailed admission screening. If this were true, there would be plenty of smart kids who didn't work in high school get denied admission. You just can't predict these things. There should be a general cutoff for admission but not so much that you don't give a 2nd chance for those who made mistakes in high school. Kids will be kids in high school... doesn't mean they wont mature. </p>
<p>I was on the opposite spectrum. I cruised through high school AP classes and basically had UT has a safety school.. yet somehow I had trouble adjusting to the college ways, and I ended up getting a 2.76 my first semester. It hit me pretty bad because I rarely got any B's in high school let alone even seen a C in my life. </p>
<p>With that said, it's a relief to say that I've raised my GPA significantly every semester and now I have a flat 3.0 going into my 2nd semester as a sophomore. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, I'm a EE.</p>