I saw that at Wabash College, you can get a BA in engineering and then, by way of the dual degree program, get a BS at Purdue, Columbia or WUSTL. Is it still as hard to get into these engineering programs as it normally would be? Or does the dual degree program make it easier to get acceptance to one of those schools?
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“harder” or “easier” are not absolute terms, as I’m sure you are aware. But I’d say harder.
First off, you don’t exactly “get a BA in engineering and then, by way of the dual degree program, get a BS”. What they offer, like many colleges without an engineering school, is a 3:2 program. You spend 3 years at the 1st school taking engineering prep classes as well as other classes that may be a special feature of that college (such as small seminars at a LAC). Then you xfer and do 2 years engineering upper-division. After 5 years you get both degrees, BA & BS. 5 years of college is harder & more expensive than 4.
More to the point, the requirements can be difficult to satisfy. Go to the Wabash site and click on the links to see what they require at the partner schools. Columbia, for example, requires an overall and eng-specific GPA of 3.3 with no grade ever below a 3.0 in any eng-specific class. To me, that’s harder than getting in as a frosh.
Lastly, from what I’ve read just about nobody actually completes these 3:2 programs. They are like lures that colleges without an engineering school dangle in front of prospective students, who think they are “keeping their options open”. But after 3 years they decide in 1 more year with their friends they can get a degree like everyone else is doing, or pack their bags for parts unknown. Or maybe they find they don’t meet the tough xfer requirements. If you are seriously considering this route, ask Wabash how many students they sent off to each of the partners in each of the past 3 or so years.