<p>OK. Another thread. Hopefully you can help some more.</p>
<p>As I am investigating schools, I note that some posts on threads about engineering and computer science discuss the low retention rate and weeding out of students. Retention rates of schools are easier to find that retention rates of individual majors. </p>
<p>Anyone have suggestions for schools or ways to find them retention rates? I would like to suggest and set my son up to succeed and not fail and have to find another major if he likes and wants to continue on his chosen career path.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if schools with lower admission stats (ie third teir schools) would be more likely to have a student succeed?</p>
<p>Dear Crazed, just my own opinions (and some large generalizations here) but at least this is the perspective of a practicing engineer.
First, as a general rule private schools will be less likely to "weed out" students than publics. This only stands to reason, since the privates have more of a vested interest in your individual success (and the high tuition you will continue to pay for four years). In fact, individual attention and the promise of extra effort to help you succeed are a big part of what they're hoping to sell you. Public schools on the other hand have an understandable mission to offer as many students (i.e., children of taxpayers) as possible a CHANCE to succeed, but only a chance. They fully expect and in many cases need to wash out prospective majors- they count on this happening to keep the number of upper-level students manageable.<br>
Retention rates are tricky. Again as a generalization, typical third-tier schools, especially publics, will have LOWER retention rates than top-tier schools. This is not because the third-tier schools are more demanding, but again because their mission requires fairly liberal admissions standards, bringing in students who have a relatively high risk of not succeeding. At the same time, a given student may have a better chance to succeed at a lower-tier school because performance standards TEND TO drift down somewhat to meet the capabilites of the typical student. This effect may be present although not as pronounced in the engineering disciplines.
And now some totally subjective and personal advice- don't start out your career trying to figure out how to avoid failure. Sure, try to be honest in evaluating your own talents and abilities, and factor that in to which school you pick. But don't go into it focusing on the negative, that's an unhealthy perspecitve in my view. Rather, just resolve to work to the best of your abilities, take on the challenges with a postive attitude and try to enjoy things as well.</p>
<p>I think the lower-ranked an engineering school is, the lower their retention rate usually is. I think it's because engineering is generally a very difficult curriculum (thermodynamics is going to be tough if you're a student at MIT or if you're a student at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania), so students who are able to get into top tier schools can generally handle the difficult curriculum a bit better than those at lower tier schools.</p>
<p>The way the OP has phrased the question carries a huge assumption that unrealistically restricts the answers that can be given. That assumption is that the world contains 2 types of engineering schools; those that intentionally weed out students, and those that don't. That prematurely steers discussion of why students drop out of engineering programs into finding out which schools fall into which category. </p>
<p>But weeding is hardly the whole story in explaining in whether students are going to succeed in engineering. As weldon has started to point out, things aren't so simple. You need to understand not just the difficulty of 1st-year courses but the abilities of the kids that come in (both native intelligence and the prep they've had in HS), what happens when kids see how hard the workload is in other majors (eg. they're out drinking, you're at the library), the motivation of incoming engineering students to get thru difficult coursework, etc. I wouldn't doubt that there are schools that intentionally try to get kids to switch out of engineering, but I don't think its widespread. Or necessarily needed. According to one report in a trade magazine, with a handful of exceptions the dropout rate for engineers is between 1/2 and 2/3rds. So either they're all weeding out, or something else is at play...</p>
<p>
[quote]
According to most statistics, engineering schools graduate between one-third and one-half of the students who start out in engineering programs. Electrical engineering is particularly hard hit, with approximately 20,000 students graduating out of the 60,000 who enter EE programs each year, according to statistics from Prentice-Hall Inc. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.), which is believed to be the world's biggest engineering-textbook publisher. EETimes.com</a> - Undergrad brain drain imperils U.S. industry, educators say
<p>So, can I safely say that my son has the same chance of remaining in engineering (assuming he wants to) regardless of caliber of school (and I'm not talking about the top 10 or so. No MIT or Caltech for him).</p>
<p>I don't think he is concerned about this but obviously, I am.</p>
<p>I didn't know that statistic was from Prentice-Hall, mikemac. It makes me wonder a bit more how they measure the dropout rate. Are they just comparing the sales of their introductory level textbooks versus higher level ones? I know a lot of people that took an intro to engineering as a technical elective to fulfill requirements and never had any intention of doing engineering.</p>
<p>And, crazed, I'd say that's roughly true. Someone had posted dropout rates for engineering in one of the threads within the engineering forum a week or two ago; it actually shows some pretty interesting trends.</p>
<p>dear crazed: your last assumption I think is essentially correct. I would still maintain though that there is some institutional role in a student's success, based on finding an environment where the individual feels most comfortable. Large research-oriented schools will tend to be more sink-or-swim, and all the motivation will need to come from within. If a student can benefit from more encouragement or individual attention, or prefers a smaller "family-like" environment that focuses on the undergrad, then that kind of school will be an advantage. I'm from New York state. I've known people who just couldn't hack it at a huge place like SUNY Buffalo, for example, but who were able to graduate from RIT. You can't really attribute that to "first tier/third tier". But whatever the case it's up to the individual to supply most of the initiative and basically all of the motiviation. And you still have to take the time to learn the stuff for yourself, nobody can do it for you</p>
<p>PS for the OP- I also agree with mikemac that the "weeding out" phenomenon is not as widespread or pronounced as it once was particularly at the big flagship schools. I took my son recently to look at a school that used to be "notorious" for weeding out- Virginia Tech- and asked them about it. I wasn't so much concerned about whether my son could succeed, as about what kind of environment might be created by this Darwinian approach (my own engineering school was not like this). Those we talked to acknowleged that that was how things might have been in the past, but that things had definitely changed for the better and they now focused a lot more on promoting student success. I would bet that this change is probably true at other similar schools like Ohio State, Michigan State, etc.<br>
Another thing: you mentioned CS. This may not be true of most engineering majors, but the number of CS majors has dropped dramatically in recent years. In many programs the numbers are less than half what they were ten years ago. Hence, absolutely no need or motivation to "weed out" anybody.</p>
<p>We are form NY (LI specifically) as well. Son looked at Binghamton and Syracuse and liked both enough to apply. Saw some smaller schools for CS (Geneseo and Ithaca) and didn't care for them. I thought he should apply to Buffalo as well, but think it is too big for him and he'll hate the two campuses and need to take buses for classes (too cold to do that).</p>
<p>A friend at work has a son in the PhD engineering program at V-tech. Loves it. He was a Penn State undergrad. Another friend's knows a soon to be sophomore computer engineering major at V-tech too so I'll get info from him.
Michigan State is a great school (I am an alum- bachelors and masters). It is big and flying home is a pain.</p>
<p>I also need to discuss with my son some of the other things I've discovered on CC that he may not know such as Computer Engineering vs CS and the like.</p>
<p>Thanks for you help. Any other school suggestions would be great!!!!</p>
<p>crazed: I'm not necessarily recommending Michigan State or Va Tech, just using them as examples of how things may have changed at these kinds of schools in the last couple of decades in moving away from the weeding-out phenomenon. Having said all that, I was favorably impressed with Va Tech.
Syracuse and Binghamton, as an in-state choice, are both very good. If you think smaller may be better, you might want to look at WPI in Worcester, Ma. as well.</p>
<p>I cannot speak for the Engineering Department but I can speak for the CS Department at Carnegie Mellon. Their CS program is highly competitive but they retain and graduate over 90% of their CS Freshman Class. The program allows only about 135 students per year and the coursework is very demanding. Since the program is very intense; students seem to help one another allot. This school as most know also has a great Engineering Department but I do not know statistics there. Hope this helps.</p>