That is true. I find it ridiculous that they will select kids based on major interest but won’t admit them to the major directly. Gives them some insurance I suppose if the kid completely bombs in college. If CS is important, I’d look for ABET accredited programs that guarantees admission, especially if your COA will be high. For me high is >in-state flagship.
The benefits of a secondary admission process is not just better resource management in terms of staff and facilities to avoid overcrowding, but also it can help a students find their strength and weaknesses early.
For engineering specifically, if a student struggles with the first year math and physics courses, it’s just going to get harder as the upper level courses build on themselves. Schools do want students to successfully graduate in 4 years.
I have a friend whose child was in a direct admit program and they have retaken calc physics multiple times. On academic probation and has a terrible GPA. They’re “sticking with it” and hopes to be eventually able to graduate in 6 years (pushing 7 now). That’s 2-3 extra years of tuition and with a GPA that isn’t going to attract a lot of interest from recruiters, especially because they haven’t had time for internships because they are trying to make up classes in the summer. At schools with a secondary admission process, they would have needed to switch focus earlier which potentially could have saved their GPA and career prospects, and their parents a boat load of $.
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Both admission by major and secondary admission to major exist for resource management (i.e. to prevent a major from overflowing departmental capacity).
In terms of helping students find their strength and weakness early, it can depend on whether a secondary admission process requires a 2.2 to 2.5 GPA to enter the major (e.g. Cornell) or a 3.75 GPA to enter the major (e.g. Texas A&M for some of its most popular majors). The thresholds, or level of competitiveness where competitive admission is used, generally depend on how popular the major is relative to departmental capacity, rather than helping students find their strength and weakness early. One could argue that it may be effective at the latter if the threshold is between 2.5 and 3.0, but it becomes less effective at that below 2.5, and becomes more “weed-out” above 3.0.
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