<p>@mom2collegekids:</p>
<p>Actually it is true. I work (and recruit) in this particular segment. I think the confusion could lie in our respective definitions of “lucrative”. Also remember that I am talking in probabilities, not absolutes. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to dump on U of A or the state of Alabama, there is some pretty amazing stuff going on down there in the Automotive/Aero sector. I need to get some sleep. I will try to explain my point better later.</p>
<p>" average net student attrition rate of zero,"</p>
<p>How much of this is based on Tuft’s “remarkable undergraduate advising system” vs. students transferring from the School of Arts and Sciences (A&S)? In fact, last year they actually experiencing a net gain in enrollment.</p>
<p><a href=“http://engineering.tufts.edu/docs/SOE_strategicPlanningFramework.pdf”>http://engineering.tufts.edu/docs/SOE_strategicPlanningFramework.pdf</a></p>
<p>Without a doubt, advising is far superior at an elite LAC vs a state public university, but that doesn’t explain the net gain. These A&S transfer students either planned on engineering from the beginning (you have to start taking ABET classes as a Freshman, such as Calc, Chem and Physics/w Calc), or they are pursuing non-ABET majors (Tuft’s COE offer several majors that are not ABET accredited). </p>
<p>What Tuft’s numbers do not show, is the number of A&S students that plan on engineering, but after a semester or two of Calc/Chem/Physics, decide on another major within A&S and never transfer over to the COE. At UA, most of the freshman planning on engineering enroll directly to the COE. </p>
<p>I"m sure the attrition rate is far better at Tufts, but you can’t read too much into the claim of an “average net student attrition rate of zero”. </p>
<p>@mastadon your views are so strongly "Tufts’ just as some of us know more about schools our children have attended and what we know about schools via various other information or personal contacts.</p>
<p>Some schools do not admit directly into college of engineering, college of business, etc. I see students who realize they have changed their mind either way - in direct admit situations and where they are still in pre-eng, pre-business. Sometimes students get more clarity once they are in college, while some have really done a lot of soul-searching and career investigation.</p>
<p>Years ago, my DD wanted to go into interior design - gasp, she cannot afford her standard of living. She would not be happy struggling at low pay for many years and maybe have later success. She is excellent in science and math - so I directed her to explore engineering. She took a HS summer program to see various engineering curricula and narrowed down from two areas to her choice. She also had a work internship in her choice field right out of HS, thanks to an opportunity we found out about through my brother. She wants to design within her field of eng. and her large flagship school offers those sub-specialties. She also keeps up with fashion, interior design on a personal level and with pinterest. Many students find their love of something should be hobby and not their way to earn their living.</p>
<p>US News has separate ratings for these two areas of study (eng and business) - maybe in part because they want the quality of these programs to not be clouded by national/regional rankings - so put these colleges/universities all together is these two degree fields for a ranking. However still a listing for separating where highest degree is doctorate and is not. Tufts is tied at #57 in the 2015 doctorate (highest level) engineering rankings in US News & World Report Best Colleges. Tufts is a national university, ranked 27th. It is a fine school. It is not the school that comes to mind when one thinks of engineering. Some of the high regional schools are excellent (like Milwaukee School of Engineering, mid-west regional #14 in eng - where my H attended; he grew up in WI - most students in WI at that time considered and compared UW and MSOE with eng. - the cost difference was there at that time, but not the big gap between private and public like now). MSOE in eng where highest degree is bachelor or masters, was tied for 14th with a long list - Embry Riddle Aeronautical U in Prescott AZ, Kettering U, Lafayette College PA, MSOE, Santa Clara U in CA, Swarthmore College in PA, Union College NY, Univ of CO in Colorado Springs, and Univ of San Diego.</p>
<p>If someone is undecided engineering, they may want to attend a school that is ABET accredited in areas of engineering they are likely to major in.</p>
<p>The opportunity cost of changing majors of course is much higher when it is done later in study (late junior for example instead of early sophomore) when there are courses that will not apply to new degree plan. And of course it is much higher when you are paying a lot out of pocket, or your scholarships will only cover 8 semesters and you will not ‘finish in four’.</p>
<p>Some students spread out their eng or CS curricula over more semesters so they can perform at a higher level or less stress - taking one less class in a term for example. Having internships or co-op can help break up the study in a very productive way. Yes their is an ‘opportunity cost’ for finishing later, but in a tight job market, the extra experiences can help secure a job and often secure a job at a higher pay level. Also you want the student to finish a degree, so if it takes a little longer…</p>
<p>Students now may have more sophisticated education through grade 12 than was available to most of us parents. That is how my two DDs can handle larger public schools and do well, versus H and I who happened to go to very fine private schools which our parents facilitated us attending. H had attended a very fine private Jesuit HS while I attended the only HS in town. My private school college costs were higher than the public schools available in-state, however not the level of difference now, even with inflation - and I double majored with honors in 8 semesters (coordination between depts on my courses, something not able to do at a large public).</p>
<h1>38: “Since the opportunity cost of switching out of an engineering major and into liberal arts major can be quite high, this is an important number to consider when evaluating engineering programs.” Isn’t this precisely why certain universities have less ‘attrition’ in STEM fields than other universities?</h1>
<p>If I were sending my student who thinks he wants to major in engineering to a school charging $47,596/yr for tuition…I’m going to be darn sure he is interested in, has the aptitude for, and will stick with engineering to do so. Just sayin’. </p>
<p>To the ORIGINAL poster: I hope you will able to visit UA soon and draw your own conclusions as to whether UA Engineering is a great fit for your son. Good luck w/ your decisions. ;)</p>
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<p>Maybe so. </p>
<p>Your post implied that if someone wanted to make a very good income, they wouldn’t likely have that success in Alabama. Now, maybe you’re defining “lucrative” as $300k+? Most people here aren’t asking for such success. If they can earn $150k+ (2014 dollars), they’re going to think “super.” </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the COL in areas where you believe are more lucrative, is extremely high (I am from Calif). So, salaries are going to be relative. Someone earning $150k in Alabama is going to have more discretionary income than someone earning $200k in the high-tech areas of Calif and the NE. </p>
<p>And, for those CS-types who live in the NE or Calif, only the lucky few are earning $300k+…most are earning salaries far below those amounts. </p>
<p>The point is…when someone is posting a Q on CC and someone like you posts as you did, the take-away from your words would be, “Oh gosh, if I major in CS/CE in Alabama, I’m resigning myself to a lowly paid future.”</p>
<p>@Gator88NE You must admit that the “net zero attrition rate” at Tufts is quite impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the data you provided that UF had about 650 freshman engineers in 2009 but graduated over 1000 engineers in 2013. That’s a net positive attrition rate increase of nearly 170%.</p>
<p>Both Tufts and UF look and sound impressive by looking just at Freshman declared engineering majors when comparing that to the number graduating four years later with engineering degrees, but the data really doesn’t show the actual number of declared Freshman Engineering majors who actually go on to receive their engineering degrees.</p>
<p>Clearly UF has more engineering grads than freshman engineering majors because there is a huge number of transfer students that attend UF. UF had only about 650 declared freshman engineers but nearly 9000 engineering students in its College of Engineering in 2009, which is many times as many as one would expect with an incoming class of only 650. So much of the discrepancy between the number of freshman engineers and the number graduating with engineering degrees can be explained by the huge number of transfer students to UF. </p>
<p>Tufts is a bit more difficult to figure out what’s happening there. If the freshman who declare engineering are all graduating with an engineering degree after 4 years, then that is truly an impressive accomplishment. </p>
<p>It seems that at Tufts unlike UA, students apply directly into a specific college as a part of the admission process. At UA you apply to the university and declare a major after being admitted. Because of the requirement of having to apply to a specific college within Tufts, those students admitted to Tufts Engineering are a rather homogenous group with an average SAT Math of 758. </p>
<p>So my guess is that the bottom third of Tufts’ freshman engineering students have an average SAT Math of 700. So the level of cognitive ability for all Tufts’ freshman engineers are so high that “relative deprivation theory” is probably not applicable and nearly all Tufts engineering students are performing at similar achievement levels relative to their fellow engineering students. I would like to see the grade data to see if my theory is accurate.</p>
<p>If my theory is true than Tufts’ high net zero attrition rate is due less to @Mastadon “Performance in this area tends to be a function of and an indicator of the culture of the engineering school as well as availability of support services and curriculum design” than that Tufts’ accepts and enrolls an homogenous group of engineering students who all perform similarly in their course work.</p>
<p>@aeromom I agree with you that if your a parent who is going to send a child into a program that is going to cost an arm and a leg, that making sure that your son or daughter knows the challenges and the level of work involved prior to committing such a large $$ to their education is extremely important.</p>
<p>@Gator88NE:</p>
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</p>
<p>Tufts is the same as UA in this respect. Most of the freshman planning on engineering enroll directly into the COE. The net attrition rate has been hovering around zero since the 90’s and until the recent surge in interest in engineering across the general populace, the acceptance rate of the engineering school was higher than that of the liberal arts school. If anything, this would tend to bias the net attrition rate (from the mechanism you are suggesting) in the opposite direction. </p>
<p>The real explanation is much more sinister than that. You see the engineering education research zealots at Tufts are secretly plotting to convert the entire world into engineers.</p>
<p>Back in the 90’s, when this person: <a href=“http://www.changemakers.com/users/ioannis-miaoulis”>http://www.changemakers.com/users/ioannis-miaoulis</a> was heading up engineering, Tufts researchers developed Vulcan mind bending techniques that are not only effective in convincing students to stay in engineering, but in some cases can be used to convince students to switch from liberal arts majors into engineering majors. Once these techniques are perfected, the master plan is to lure unsuspecting liberal arts students into Tufts and then convert them into engineers. One might argue that this is “bait and switch” and an obvious breach of engineering ethics, but in the limited trials to date, when parents were informed that their kids were switching majors and becoming engineers or computer scientists, their response has been overwhelmingly positive. </p>
<p>@Gator88NE:</p>
<p>Sorry for the diversion, but I thought a little humor might lighten things up a bit.</p>
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<p>I think that the most important thing to read from this is that it represents a fundamental change in engineering culture. </p>
<p>In the traditional “weed out” culture, if a person dropped out of engineering, it was was considered “normal”, or even “desirable”. The failing was clearly on the part of the student because “that person was not cut out to be an engineer” and therefore, there was no reason to change the academic program. </p>
<p>In the new “lets try to find a way to teach engineering to everybody” culture, if a person drops out of engineering, it is considered a “failure” that needs to be tracked, studied and eliminated. It is viewed as a systemic problem, so one tries to figure out ways to to change the academic program to eliminate the failure. That is the rational behind tracking the attrition rate. In this culture, you also try to eliminate any real or perceived barriers between liberal arts and engineering and try to make it as easy as possible for students to switch into engineering. If you are successful attracting someone into the major that wasn’t in it before, then that is a good thing and it should be tracked as well. That is the spirit of “net attrition rate”. </p>
<p>@sosconcern:</p>
<p>Actually, my views reflect the latest research in the field of engineering education. They happen to strongly align with Tufts because this area is a core competency of Tufts and in the 1990’s one of the leading researchers in this area served as dean of the engineering school and started applying the research. Many of the “vulcan mindbending” techniques that Tufts uses are documented in this ASEE article. Several private and state schools (not just Tufts) have contributed to the research and a growing list are actually applying the research with favorable results. I think it is good for parents/prospective students to at least be aware of the latest research so they can make more informed decisions.</p>
<p><a href=“Page not found”>ASEE.org;
<p>@Mastadon</p>
<p>The need to improve retention rates (particularly with women and URM/low SES students) is a widely accepted concept. Over the last decade most engineering colleges have implemented programs to help in this area. </p>
<p>UA has several, such as the Freshman Engineering Program (FEP), Mentor UPP: Undergraduate Peer Partnering, Research Experience for Undergraduates(REU), and the multicultural engineering programs.</p>
<p><a href=“Programs – Students | The University of Alabama”>http://students.eng.ua.edu/programs/</a></p>
<p>All of these programs are trying to address the retention issue. Even with these programs in place, you can’t stop an 18 year old freshman from deciding Engineering is too time consuming, and that they would rather spend time on a less demanding major (and more time doing “outside” activities). Some attrition (when dealing with 17-18 year old students) can’t be avoided. </p>
<p>I’m dubious about the concept of recruiting non-STEM majors to engineering. The ABET curriculum is fairly demanding and requires that you take Calculus, chemistry and Physics in the first two years. If a student doesn’t start taking these classes as a freshman, it’s unlikely the student would be open to transferring to an engineering program. You’ll have to reach these students when they are still freshman and convince them of the joys of engineering.</p>
<p>What is Tufts’ claim? Are they claiming that 100% of the CS frosh majors in their CoE graduate?</p>
<p>“average net student attrition rate of zero”</p>
<p>If 200 students enter the COE at the start of the year, 200 students remain in the COE at the end of the year. It’s “average net”, so if 10 students drop out (attrition), they would be replace by 10 transfers students (in Tuft’s case, from the college of A&S). For the most recent year, Tuft’s average net student attrition rate was positive (or is that negative?); they had more students transferring into the college than transferring/dropping out. </p>
<p>All I know is that my Tufts nephew who graduated last May, started as CS in the CoE, but it was too a little too much for him, so he changed to CS that is in A&S. </p>
<p>He’s now working at a start-up company and likes it. </p>
<p>Anyway…when a school offers a CS-alternative outside of its CoE, then that may account for a better yield.</p>
<p>@gator88NE:</p>
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<p>You nailed part of it…</p>
<p>Students in the liberal arts college have “distribution requirements” including 2 math and 2 science courses. They meet with their “pre-major” advisers before the start of the first semester to help them select courses. The general philosophy within liberal arts is that you are encouraged to “find your passion” (which, in “engineering speak” means get the distribution requirements out of the way first). </p>
<p>The "freshman engineering program " at Tufts is not one course, but a whole suite of really clever courses each designed to peak interest in a particular engineering specialty. They are taught by some of the best professors in each department. For all intents and purposes these courses are designed as recruiting vehicles for each of the engineering majors. Some of them are also designed so that they qualify as meeting the science distribution requirement for liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>If you were a liberal arts student, which would you rather take a standard chemistry course, or a Microbrewery Engineering course (with site visits to a local microbrewery) through the Chemical Engineering Department? A standard physics course, or a Music And The Art of Engineering course from the Electrical Engineering Department and a Simple Robotics course from the Mechanical Engineering Department?</p>
<p>Kind of makes engineering appear like more fun than the stodgy old traditional sciences, doesn’t it? </p>
<p>This fall’s offerings:
<a href=“http://engineering.tufts.edu/docs/ES93IntroEngFall2014.pdf”>http://engineering.tufts.edu/docs/ES93IntroEngFall2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>A more complete list:
<a href=“https://isis.uit.tufts.edu/psp/paprd/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.SSS_BROWSE_CATLG.GBL”>https://isis.uit.tufts.edu/psp/paprd/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.SSS_BROWSE_CATLG.GBL</a></p>
<p>I just looked at the updated figures for this Fall’s classes of Engineering students at both UA and Auburn, and saw that UA now has more total undergrads in Engineering than does Auburn AND UA’s Engineering students have a higher average ACT. I imagine that Auburn still enrolls more Alabama student residents in Engineering than does UA, but I didn’t see figures for that. This is quite the change from years ago, when Auburn was known as “THE state engineering school” and UA was labeled as the the state’s “Lawyers and Bankers” school. </p>
<p>UA still doesn’t have as many Engineering graduate students as does Auburn, so Auburn still has the largest total enrollment including both undergrads and grad students. Hopefully, UA will grow its graduate enrollment in Engineering. That will help the school to advance in the rankings. </p>
<p><a href=“https://oira.auburn.edu/newstu_factbookFA14.pdf”>https://oira.auburn.edu/newstu_factbookFA14.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://oira.ua.edu/d/webreports/enrollment2/Fall_2014/front”>http://oira.ua.edu/d/webreports/enrollment2/Fall_2014/front</a></p>
<p>@voiceofreason66:</p>
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<p>Based on ASEE collected data (available from the link provided by @gator88ne) the bottom 25% of SAT Math for Tufts is 730. This would tend to support your theory. But there is a the problem with your theory. The second example of relative deprivation theory given in the video was Harvard’s Economics Phd program (which is ranked number 1). There were around 45,000 economics grads in 2010 (in the US alone) and Harvard admits about 25 people into their Phd program each year drawn from a worldwide pool. That means we are talking about the top .05% (or less) of econ grads. That is going to be a very “homogeneous” group - if measured by academic metrics. The premise behind relative deprivation theory is that rank is what matters, not “intelligence” (at least if you define “intelligence” as what is measured by standardized tests).</p>
<p>It is important to note that engineering is an “applied” science, rather than a “theoretical” science. One of the keys to success in engineering is the ability to translate theory into practice. This is most easily done if you have some sort real world reference frame to compare the theory to as you are learning it. So the “stereotypical MIT engineering applicant”, who spend his Saturday nights in high school disassembling and reassembling the family car is going to have a more suitable framework for assimilating engineering theory than your more typical kid - even if that kid has equivalent SAT scores. </p>
<p>The challenge we face in increasing the number of engineering grads, is that there is a very limited number of “stereotypical MIT engineering applicants” - probably because most parents do not encourage their kids to take apart the family car ! The proposed solution (a few decades ago) was to “increase the pipeline” by introducing Engineering into the K-12 curriculum. </p>
<p>Research has shown, that in order to do this, we need to flip the traditional engineering educational model on its head. Instead of teaching all the math and scientific theory as a prerequisite to learning how to apply it, you use hands on applications of the theory (which is engineering) to teach the math and scientific theory. In hindsight, this is actually nothing more than applying the notion of “experiential learning” to the engineering education problem. </p>
<p>Tufts has a very strong research program in engineering education (US NEWS doesn’t happen track engineering education Phd programs as one of their engineering specialties). To engineering education researchers, it seemed logically inconsistent (logical inconsistencies drive engineers crazy) to say that you could teach engineering to all K-12 students, but you could not teach it to high school graduates with a 730 Math SAT. The problem must be with the curriculum and teaching methods, not with the students. It was time to stop trying to “weed out” students and time to start finding ways to teach them. This is the cultural component I was referring to. I think you can see how it might be hard to get to this point without both a culture that was biased in the direction of undergrad teaching (Tufts LAC history) and a Dean of Engineering that was a recognized expert in this space. </p>
<p>The curriculum component revolves around finding ways to push the “hands on” project work (modeled after what was learned in the K-12 research) towards the beginning of the college curriculum (rather than holding it off until the end) as well as making the application areas interesting and fun. The set of intro courses in the links above date back to the 90’s. Other fun, intermediate level courses have been developed since. Another area of activity is to develop new variants of traditional theoretical courses that are based more on applications. An example of this is offering a version of calculus that uses applications (rather than proving theorems) to learn the material. </p>
<p>To echo some of the sentiments on this thread, engineering is hard, but lets not make it any harder than it absolutely needs to be. Young students are not very good with delayed gratification, so lets expose them to some of the fun parts of engineering as early as possible, and it will help them get through some of the not so fun parts without giving up.</p>
<p>@Mastadon If Tufts’ bottom 25% Math SAT is 730 then it appears to support my theory that Tufts has discovered that homogeneity is important in maintaining a high percentage of its engineering freshman to successfully complete their degrees in engineering. As you can see in the Gladwell video, even Harvard has a greater spread in Math SAT than what is the case at Tufts.</p>
<p>This data supports my theory that homogeneity of freshman student engineering majors is very important.</p>
<p>As to your analysis of Harvard PhD Economic students, you are very correct that these students are the top of the top of all econ grad students. There is no dispute that each of these students are outstanding as compared to everybody else. What relative deprivation theory suggests as to the Harvard PhD students as it pertains to publishing in noted journals is that relative standing has a greater correlation to publishing than absolute ability compared to the general population. This relationship is clearly born out by the Gladwell data in his video. The top Harvard PhD’s did the best compared to everyone, but the top PhDs from other institutions did better in getting published than the rest of the Harvard PhDs not in the top part of their class.</p>
<p>This data does not mean that the bottom of the Harvard Economic PhDs are not outstanding but if success is based upon publishing in peer journals, then relative deprivation theory would suggest if publishing is important to a person that that person not go to Harvard even if accepted unless the person knows that he/she will be in the top portion of the Harvard PhD class. Being the Big Fish in a Small Pond will yield a better chance of success (publishing) than being a Small Fish in a Big Pond even if the pond is Harvard.</p>
<p>Even CalTech and MIT seems to have taken relative deprivation theory in consideration since both of these institutions have Pass/Fail for freshman year. This encourages the “bottom” students at MIT/CalTech to continue because at least for the first year when self-esteem is so important, the lack of pressure of competing against other outstanding students encourages the “bottom” students to stick with their desired engineering/STEM degrees. </p>
<p>I use “Bottom” in only relative terms since all CalTech and MIT students are outstanding relative to the entire population of students. </p>
<p>If relative deprivation theory is what is truly happening, then the division of students into homogenous groups might be a good idea to foster completion of STEM/Engineering degrees of freshman engineering students. It appears that since Tufts has only a spread of 50 points in the average SAT Math from top 25% to bottom 25% and it translates to such a high percentage of its freshman engineering students achieving STEM degrees, that the other schools follow suit to limit the enrollment of its freshman engineering students by the same small spread in SAT Math to foster such high freshman engineer retention/graduation rates.</p>
<p>BTW I do like the “fun” nature of the engineering courses at Tufts and I am sure that such courses do have a positive influence for freshman engineering majors to continue to pursue their degrees, but I am unsure how many are actually influenced compared to those negatively affected by relative deprivation theory. I do believe that what Tufts is doing is a good thing as well as all that you mention of K-12 and making STEM fun. You provide great insight and for that I very much appreciate your post.</p>
<p>RE attrition rate and A&S. One school offered DS an A&S place in a pre-engineering course doing the same courses. They said that it was cheaper to do it that way, that he would get an Eng advisor and an A&S advisor and he was guaranteed a place in either department if he kept a reasonable GPA up. They sold it as a good choice to those who thought they wanted engineering but weren’t entirely certain. DS applied for general engineering to most schools because he wasn’t sure which discipline he wanted. So he would have looked like an A&S student transferring into Eng if he had gone there and decided to stick with engineering. So I’m not convinced with all these numbers. A number of schools offered pre-engineering as an alternative to regular engineering.</p>
<p>I did engineering my first year. I had a challenging course of Math, Chem and Physics at school because I took A levels in those subjects which meant I entered university with 7 years of Chem and Physics. I really enjoyed the engineering classes but really didn’t enjoy the physics in particular but also the math. I met with my advisor at the end of the first year and he told me I needed another two years of math and physics and I decided I was done. The physics I did at school was more practical physics, but was much more theoretical at college. I agree that not everyone who drops engineering because it is hard or boring. I found it a lot of fun (well minus the fortran, but it was pretty easy) and if I could have just done my engineering classes without the rest I would have stayed.</p>
<p>@voiceofreason66:</p>
<p>I have no direct knowledge of Caltech, but I am pretty familiar with MIT. It is 4 miles from Tufts, and engineers are a very social bunch :-). MIT went to the pass/fail system for freshman year many years ago as a means to reduce the high suicide rate, not based on any considerations of relative deprivation theory. </p>
<p>Your reasoning touches on an interesting aspect of culture though, that I hadn’t really thought about in the context of deprivation theory. Tufts is known for its, artsy, creative, non-competitive culture - very different from MIT and Harvard. The point that you appear to be making is that the symptoms explained by deprivation theory are rooted in the notion of competition. I would tend to agree with this. Without competition, there is no ranking. Without the notion of ranking, there is no deprivation theory. So, if you eliminate competition, you eliminate the symptoms that deprivation theory is attempting to explain. There is a book titled “No Contest, the Case Against Competition” written by Alfie Kohn (while teaching at Tufts). It is somewhat controversial, but it makes some similar arguments - you might find it interesting. Note that the MIT pass/fail program was intended to allow a year to adjust to the MIT culture, not to change it. Although MIT has softened a little over the years, it is still a pretty intense place. Not everybody thrives there, but some do.</p>
<p>Not sure it changes the argument much, but the top 25% SAT Math figure for Tufts Engineering is 790, which creates a 60 point spread. </p>
<p>If you are willing to expand your definition of homogeneity to include more than SAT scores, then I can go along with it. You see the incoming class is not homogeneous in all factors needed for success in Engineering - just test scores.</p>
<p>In essence, the net result of the early hands on project experience is to bring the students who didn’t have that experience before college up to the level of those that did. This makes the class more homogeneous and makes it less likely that someone will say “gee, I didn’t take things apart and put them together when I was a kid, so I must not be an Engineer.” Remember, students with high SAT scores are relatively easy to find, but students with high SAT scores that also took things apart when they were younger are harder to find. </p>
<p>Tufts also likes to encourage underrepresented minorities to go into Engineering. The problem for a few years was that the yield for this group of students was lower than the overall yield. Rather than say, these students “don’t have what it takes to be engineers”, the problem was studied and a special summer program was created to improve the chances of success for these students. </p>
<p><a href=“Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST) | AS&E Students”>Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST) | AS&E Students;
<p>By the way, another possible explanation for the results at Harvard is that there is a an attribute required for success in publishing papers that Harvard doesn’t select for. It has been my experience that standardized test scores and grade point average are not sufficient for predicting engineering success - when success is defined as inventing new products, or starting new companies.</p>
<p>@Mastadon To clarify, the use of SAT Math scores was just a point of emphasis to establish some level of homogeneity in cognitive ability. I like you would expand the definition to include more than just SAT scores. </p>
<p>I used CalTech and MIT as examples of pass/fail freshman year because this policy whether intentional or unintentional counteracts the angst these high performing students have of potentially being at the bottom of their class and the resultant relative deprivation theory issues. I was not aware of MIT’s pass fail/freshman grade policy until I asked my best friend in high school who was attending MIT how he was doing some 30 years ago. I was attending BU at the time. We both graduated in the top 10 of our class in high school. </p>
<p>He mentioned that none of the freshman received grades because it alleviated the stress of competition. He stated that it was almost impossible to fail, if you did fail you could retake without any adverse affects on your transcript, and this policy allowed students to work together without jealousy that sometimes grades and rankings bring. Because the students at MIT were quite extraordinary, he stated that the students did not need grades to be motivated to learn. Learning was the primary goal of all the students he encountered at MIT. These high achieving students not only had high SAT scores, but they shared a common trait of wanting to learn for the sake of learning. </p>
<p>These factors probably helps explain why MIT freshman STEM majors graduate with STEM degrees in such great numbers. That first year experience helps establish a bond and camaraderie during freshman year to support the “relatively lower performing” STEM students by the higher performing students all the way to graduation. This differs from Harvard where competition for grades begin from day one. Unlike MIT where freshman students of all relative ability will work with each other, at Harvard I suspect, top students collaborate with other top students and bottom students collaborate with bottom students as result of grade competition. This was similar to my experience at BU. Study groups were with like level students. Yes, there were occasionally a lower performing student with a high performing group but that was the exception and not the norm. </p>
<p>To combat the effects of relative deprivation theory, I think that homogeneity of ability would help, but also, if professors and institutions encouraged students of all relative abilities to work and study together, make learning the most important goal vs obtaining grades, the result would contribute to a greater percentage freshman STEM majors graduating with STEM degrees. </p>
<p>And Yes, I think that what Tufts is doing to make engineering courses more fun also helps but I am unsure to what degree. Similarly, UA’s methods as pointed out by @Gator88NE to encourage freshman to stick with STEM is also helpful, but I think that the additional UA Engineering Scholarship money is contributing more to students sticking with STEM than its other programs. Given the lack of homogeneity of its students in STEM at UA, I believe in order to achieve a higher percentage of freshman STEM students to graduation, UA will need to take actions to counteract relative deprivation theory that we have discussed and/or provide greater Engineering Scholarship funds to those lower cognitive students in subsequent years as a monetary incentive to stick with STEM. </p>
<p>As to your comments about Harvard PhD publications. I agree with you. Publication is not necessarily the goal of most students even with somewhat homogenous high achieving students in Harvard PhD programs. I suspect that if the standard of success was changed from publication to $$$ that the earnings breakdown of Harvard Economic PhDs might be pretty impressive from top to bottom compared to any other PhD program. </p>