<p>Does anyone have an idea of what the freshman engineering retention rate is at Texas A&M? What percentage of engineering students don't make it to the beginning of their sophomore year? Any help or insight would be appreciated.</p>
<p>74.4 percent in 2006 from
[The</a> Battalion - Program encourages retention](<a href=“http://www.thebatt.com/2.8485/program-encourages-retention-1.1188478]The”>http://www.thebatt.com/2.8485/program-encourages-retention-1.1188478)</p>
<p>I don’t think they publish much of that kind of thing actually. </p>
<p>If it is up to 80%, then that can be flipped around to say something like,
“1 out of 5 students don’t continue in the program to the next year,”
Which really does not sound good at all. </p>
<p>Email one of the engineering advisors?</p>
<p>That STEP program sounds great. Do they still have it?</p>
<p>The only mention of it I could left on google was here
[TAMUK</a> STEP](<a href=“http://www.engineer.tamuk.edu/STEP/]TAMUK”>http://www.engineer.tamuk.edu/STEP/)</p>
<p>Sounds better than “1 in 4 don’t continue in the program”, which is what 74.4% is haha… And wow. Thats kind of scary. I wonder how TAMU compares to other engineering schools for retention rates? (I’m an incoming freshman in MechE)</p>
<p>That rate actually sounds really good compared to some others. According to a thread on the Purdue subforum, the retention rate there is roughly 50%.</p>
<p>EDIT: Link - <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/purdue-university-west-lafayette/929682-freshman-engineering-retention-rate.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/purdue-university-west-lafayette/929682-freshman-engineering-retention-rate.html</a></p>
<p>My son has 2 friends who have never taken even one honors/AP/PreAP math or science. They took the easiest route through high school. They have had mediocre grades in the classes they did take. These kids are both “supposedly” going into engineering. I give them one semester. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but they will be competing with kids who have taken every math/science available and worked hard. </p>
<p>I think the retention rate is worse than you would hope due to kids like these who will wash out in the first year.</p>
<p>^^^
AllThisIsNewToMe: Do you think that whichever college admitted the two students that you were referring to has done these kids a favor by admitting them? Part of the reason I ask what the freshman engineering retention rate is to determine whether a college is realistically attempting to match it’s admissions criteria to the difficulty of it’s curriculum. Whether they are just trying to bring in as many students as possible in the hopes that those that don’t succeed in engineering will just stay in their college and change majors.</p>
<p>Let me just say this. In my first-semester freshman engineering class (ENGR 111), I had a group of 5 different engineering majors to do projects with (including myself). After our junior year, only me and another guy still remain in engineering (2/5). Small sample size, but not unrealistic numbers.</p>
<p>When engineering kids come into college, they are not expecting how time demanding the workload of engineering really is. It’s nothing like high school, even for the really smart ones.</p>
<p>On the A&M website I searched for “engineering retention rate” and found a pdf for the engineering dept that had this info:</p>
<p>First-Year Retention
(within same college, Fall 2008 Fall 2009)
Engineering 74% University 72.1%</p>
<p>Thanks berkmanfan! Just what I was looking for.</p>
<p>AllThisIsNewToMe, it depends on how motivated your son’s friends are. I took the easy route in high school in comparison to the top 15%'ers and such. Now I am at UT majoring in engineering and making a 3.8 GPA after my first year (Yes, I got an A- and a B+ in calc 3 and diff eq respectively -_-). It all depends on the level of motivation the students have. There are some cases where you can be extremely motivated and just not get the material at all. They won’t be able to know that until thier sophomore year when they take the harder classes.</p>