The number of admitted students for COE went from 1,864 in Fall 2012 to 3,325 in Fall 2015. That is a 78% increase in 3 years, which is simply insane. In comparision Mays Business school has gone up 25% in that time frame and Liberal Arts has gone up 9% and Life Sciences has gone up 21%.
Just posting this for students considering A&M. It is a great school culture-wise but it seems to be destroying one of its best Colleges. Many current students are very frustrated with the difficulty of getting the courses they need for graduation.
I know the 25 by 25 initiative also includes the Engineering Academies that have been started are surrounding supporting campuses. But what I guess what I find interesting is that my two daughters have not had any trouble getting the classes they need for graduation including the first semester sophomore (2014 hs grad) who just registered for her second semester of upper-level engineering classes. Older daughter had no problem this year either and the faculty advisor met with her twice to make sure she had everything she needed to graduate with an ME degree and two minors (hard to fit all those classes). They have had difficulty getting some of the favored professors, for sure, but they have always been given classes and worked with their advisors to stay on track within their academic degree plans. Weird.
I can tell you first hand as being a fall engineering 2015 admit, registration has been a nightmare. Lots of my friends couldn’t even get into their required classes that they need for entry to a major, and if they’re lucky to even get an appointment with one of the advisors, they’re not helpful and can’t even force them in for classes like physics, for example. They are all depending on add/drop week at this point for hope. Even honors students like me with priority registration had trouble since many classes were flat out closed to even register early on. Some professors Ive talked to have offhandedly told me they don’t like this initiative, they should focus on quality, not quantity. I completely agree with you, TexasAtHome.
@KievanRus Sorry to hear that. My son is 2nd year and cannot get into a class he needs to take 2nd year to graduate on time. I am very sorry to see A&M do this to itself. I graduated from a UVA School of Engineering in 1985. We never had problems like my son has encountered at A&M.
These problems are just the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid. My oldest Ag had problems at A&M but not as many as my next Ag, who had problems registering, problems with loose-cannon professors, etc. But my third Ag has had so many issues with registration, profs, etc., that it is truly disappointing. In fact, Ag #3 forwards to me the ranting profanity laced emails from his current physics prof just so I believe him when he tells me the guy is bizarre and probably insane. I have to concur.
I attended a large public Ag/Engineering university as well, and I can honestly say I did not once have a professor use profanity or call me stupid (or any other names, for that matter), but my kids have each had A&M profs call them or their classmates names in front of other kids (stupid is most common).
Based on data from ASEE’s web site, it is clear that A&M engineering has become very popular. Applications more than doubled from 2012 to 2014 (last year data available). Admissions nearly doubled. The quality of students admitted did not decline. But, the number of tenure-track faculty did not keep up. Note, that it would not be necessary to double the number of faculty if the number of admitted faculty doubled. But as those kids move through the pipeline, faculty hires will need to keep up.
@Beaudreau I never meant to imply that the quality of student was falling. Simply that with the huge increase in student numbers without a similar increase in faculty that the quality of the education would fall.
This seems to be coming true as students cannot get enrolled in the courses they need to graduate on time. Logically, taking more time means spending more money to get a degree they could have obtained cheaper and faster at a comprable school.
I listened to the Dean of Engineering speak at an Aggie Moms meeting recently and she explained the 25X25 plan. She made it a point to stress quality would not decline (it was one of the guiding principles of the plan). What I see as a potential problem (and some posts seem to bear this out) is the COE cannot control colleges that engineering students depend on (i.e physics/math). She gave a compelling talk, but there will be bumps along the way they will need to deal with for it to be successful. The dean truly believes quantity and quality can go together. Hopefully, she’s right.
@TexasAtHome I’m not sure that you can simply divide engineering undergraduate students by engineering professors. Engineering students also take classes from professors in the Physics, Math, and Chemistry departments for science courses, and other professors in other departments for general university requirements. On the other hand engineering professors are not likely to teach non-engineering students. So, non-engineering professors share in teaching engineering students and would have to be factored in some way. I doubt that we could get the data.
I’m not saying that there are not serious growth pains with Engineering.
There really is a lot of apathy from the advisors my class is facing. Just the other day I attended the last engineering honors seminar this semester, and the biggest complaint everyone had was the advisors. One student said that he asked the advisor a question about future internships/research and she [the advisor] replied you’re just a freshman and shut him off. Plenty others said that their advisors didn’t answer their questions and just wanted to get rid of them (and this is after waiting weeks for an appointment to even talk to an advisor). I myself emailed my advisor expressing my concern to get into a class and she took THREE DAYS to reply, her tone was kind of rude like as if its not her job to answer my registration/degree plan concerns, and I didn’t get my class at the end. This is all a result of too many students and too little faculty to meet their needs. A relative who goes to UT says that all of their professors names and times are always shown and open well before preregistration, unlike right now where I have a dice throw chance of getting a good math professor since no one knows who is teaching what section. It pains me to see a lot of classmates who had to drop physics because of bad professors, and now are worried that they might not even be eligible to apply to get into a major. Make no mistake, first year engineering is stressful and meant to weed students out but not in the way you think. They want to weed you out from the popular engineering majors that most students dream of and put you into a less popular major to fit their 25 by 25 quota. I hope Texas A&M hires more faculty and gets better organized in the future. I would hate to see this prestigious engineering institution lose its quality.
Word might be getting around because even though the number enrolled in the COE in 2015 was a huge jump over 2012, only 48% of those admitted actually enrolled.
Percent of admitted that enrolled
2015 48%
2014 54%
2013 56%
2012 51%
2011 55%
2010 52%
Maybe an effective way to voice concerns is to email or write a letter the Dean of Engineering. I think she would value this information, if she doesn’t already have it. My son started as a freshman in the 2013 engineering class, and has not had any problems registering at all. He has a fantastic advisor. It’s disheartening to hear that they may be taking on too much, but it’s important to bring this up to the administrators.
TexasAtHome, I also have a 2nd year. My 2nd year daughter said she didn’t have trouble with registration because she has a very high registration priority but has heard of some other kids with the registration problems you mentioned. I don’t know but maybe they can rearrange your son’s schedule with a junior year class now and take the sophomore class next semester. She said she knows other kids who did flip-flop some classes on the standardized degree plan flow chart to creatively make it work and, hopefully, graduate on time. Just a thought. Since the University and the state of Texas always seem so hot and heavy to get students graduated in four years, you would think the administration would have an answer for the problem. Of course, per the website “On average, students in the college of engineering graduate in 4.5 years” which I always thought was really closer to 5 years.
Beaudreau – I think you are right about the quality. It seems more and more engineering students are coming into the university with tons of AP credits and many hours of college credits and higher and higher stats. Maybe that is related – Those students get the high priority registration and, as some other posters have mentioned, they have had years of AP Physics and AP Calculus and make it harder for others (with class curves) without these credentials to stay on track and in the program. I believe I read there is a 55% percent retention rate for kids who enroll in engineering and those who graduate – many won’t make it through the program and it has always been this way. Of course, in Texas a lot of that may be attributed to the whole top 10% rule. But it was even this way at Penn State back when my husband and I were in the engineering program in the mid-80s.
KievRus – To answer you and your friends’ question about internships and research – More than 400 companies (and there is a waitlist for companies) are coming to the A&M engineering career fair in January. It is the largest engineering career fair in the nation! As always, you will receive emails reminding you of the dates and times. Like they did this past fall, there should also be SEC members reminding you in the ENGR 111 and 112 classes about the career fair. There is a whole separate forum, during these classes, to ask questions about those topics specifically. So if you or any other freshman have questions about internships or research (they show up too) you should go! Both my kids had internships after their freshman year and not a lot of their other high school friends, who attended other great Texas engineering schools, got that opportunity. Since I’m just a mom, take my advice for what its worth – probably not a lot. I have, in the past, asked my engineering kids to write their advice in their own words and not what just what they tell me but they both said, as engineering students at A&M, they are way too busy. Good luck on finals to all the students!
About the quality of students applying. At the presentation the Dean gave at the Aggie Moms meeting, she said on e of the reasons she pursued the 25x25 plan is because they were having to turn away so many qualified applicants and she did not feel this was “right” and that A&M could do better and needed to do better for the state of Texas. In addition, another driving factor was the demographics of the state. She feels the need to do a better job educating the future workforce. That’s why you see the distance learning programs like the Chevron Academies, whereby kids who are qualified, but can’t attend the College Station campus can get a start in engineering at a satellite campus with A&M professors. She is a Civil Engineer herself and is passionate about engineering. My impression was that she feels its good to have an engineering degree even if you don’t go into engineering! She maintains “ENGR” classes will be no more than 100 students (very emphatic about that). My concern, though, is how are they going to deal with the College of Science that houses math, chemistry and physics and is there really an engineering shortage? (topic for another discussion, I’m sure).
@NETarrantMom Thank you for the suggestion. My son did get forced into one junior class. The others require the course that was too full for him to register.
I am worried more about the future direction of the program since I still have another child in middle school interested in A&M. Hoperfully these kinks are short-term problems that will be resolved soon.
@Mathman97…Of course, no one can tell you what to do. Be aware of the growing pains, though, and be on top of administrative issues. I will also say that at the Aggie Moms meeting, there was a room full of new parents (a majority of them in engineering), and no one had any real contentious issues when discussing 25x25. Most were concerned with normal transition problems. Now, this was all before freshman registration, so I will keep an ear out at the next meeting in Dec.