<p>Our son has been accepted for Mechanical Engineering at several good schools, with Cal Poly SLO being his first choice.</p>
<p>He has good scores and grades, as well determination and apparent aptitude, but I know that the majority of students drop out/are dropped from engineering programs during the first two years. My concern is that if he were to change directions, Cal Poly appears to offer fewer choices in the way of strong alternatives (outside of engineering) than some of the other schools where he has been accepted. </p>
<p>With this in mind, could someone here comment on the washout rate from engineering at Cal Poly, especially Mech E, and whether it is any higher/lower than average. Also, I assume that like most engineering programs Cal Poly has certain weeder classes, and I would appreciate hearing if anyone knows which these are, especially Freshman year. </p>
<p>This may not be the exact info you are looking for, but you may find it helpful.
The 4,5, and 6 year graduation rates for Cal Poly Engineering are 8.2%, 48.5%, and 64.7% respectively according to the Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis at Cal Poly. That means more that one third of the students that begin in Engineering don’t finish Engineering at CP. It is a tough program and I think ME is one of the most demanding.</p>
<p>(These numbers are from a couple of years ago, but more recent numbers are probably similar.)</p>
<p>A 35% total washout rate from engineering isnt too bad, and is lower than most schools we know about (a LOT lower than some). I agree that ME is harder and may have a lower survival rate than some other disciplines, for a variety of reasons.</p>