<p>
</p>
<p>And Caltech only has a ~6% dropout rate (i.e, 94% of incoming students graduate within 6 years).</p>
<p>The retention rate for every school is different, but nationwide 50% is a rule of thumb for the average retention.</p>
<p>
Is it reasonable to assume the “better” college engineering programs graduate a higher percentage of their engineering students in 6 years? If the overall graduation rate for freshman college students is 50%, wouldn’t there be some programs below 50% to compensate for the better programs that graduate 66%+? If Purdue loses 50% of it’s engineering students before their sophomore year, what is the 6 year graduation rate for those students? It seems as though it would be substantially less.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not really. It is more dependent on public vs. private and large vs. small than anything else.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not necessarily. The vast majority of people who drop out of engineering do so in the first two years, with more of them being the first year than the second. The engineering population levels out after 3 or 4 semesters and there isn’t usually an appreciable change in total size.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your assertion was about public engineering schools, not private. Also, I have yet to find any data to back up that 50% rate.</p>
<p>Keep looking then. I have better things to do than look up data for freshman retention rates, but believe my number is accurate.</p>
<p>Purdue’s engineering program is not hard, so look elsewhere for reasons :)</p>
<p>The latest data I’ve seen has the average at just over 60% nation-wide. Thus, Purdue’s 50% is low, and it’s reasonable to ask “Why?” </p>
<p>Overall, Purdue has about a 70% retention rate for the university, which is about average. So that suggests that people aren’t unhappy with Purdue. The question is why so many people drop out of engineering to other majors. The reason could be anything from “Purdue does an excellent job informing freshman about engineering, thus causing many students to transfer before they get ‘in too deep’ to transfer out” to “Purdue’s engineering program is poorly designed and difficult”. If I was considering Purdue, I’d want to know.</p>
<p>Texas A&M seems (at least in 2006) to be doing better at retaining their freshman engineering students. Do many other schools have a program similar to the their STEP program?</p>
<p>[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)
“Statistics collected by the Office of Institutional Studies and Planning show that the freshman retention rate has increased to 74.4 percent in 2006 as compared to 66.8 percent in 2001.”</p>
<p>
That’s the 1 year retention rate. What we’re talking about is the 6 year retention rate. While the first year has the biggest “hit”, there’s usually also a big drop out rate after the 2nd year.</p>
<p>According to Ohio State University the national average for freshmen retention of college students is 77%. However TOSU is retaining 85% of their freshman engineering students…despite being a public university.</p>
<p>[Engineering</a> Points of Pride :: College of Engineering](<a href=“http://engineering.osu.edu/futurestudents/pointsofpride.php?z=1]Engineering”>http://engineering.osu.edu/futurestudents/pointsofpride.php?z=1)
“From 1988 through today, retention of incoming freshmen through graduation in engineering has steadily increased. The College’s First Year Engineering program for incoming students, puts real engineering experience up front, has been a major contributor to the improved retention and performance of students throughout their programs First to second year retention in the College of Engineering now exceeds 85% compared to the national average for freshmen retention of college students is 77%, last year there were nearly 1,100 new first quarter freshmen in engineering.”</p>
<p>BanjoHitter: Yes, I realize that there is also a drop off after the 2nd year (and the 3rd) but my understanding is that the first year loss is the largest and that is the year the OP asked about.</p>
<p>University of Texas appears to retain about 85% of their freshman engineering students, but graduated only about 60%. Clearly there is a drop-off after the first year.</p>
<p><a href=“Custom 404 page”>Custom 404 page;
<p>Personally, I don’t have much of a problem with low retention rates at state schools. State schools are known for accepting tons of people, even in some of the more prestigious ones. A large portion of these kids have no idea what they want to do, come to college mainly to party or because they were told by their parents that’s what you do after high school, and major in engineering because they “liked” math and science in high school. </p>
<p>Going from high school to a state school, it’s not easy to pick out the ones that are serious about engineering/college. There are honors kids that flunk out because they are not used to the environment of college, and there are kids with mediocre grades in HS that excel in college. The only relatively “fair” way to level the playing field is to make classes very difficult, and find out who wants to put in the hours to do well (or even just get by). </p>
<p>Yeah, it sucks… and as I’m finishing up my junior year I’m still going through some of these classes that seem like they want to fail a portion of their students. It’s just the nature of the beast.</p>
<p>gstein: Why do you think some public universities seem to do so much better than other public universities of retaining their freshman engineering students?</p>
<p>It depends. Some public universities have professors that care more, and so they are more willing to help students. Some public universities just recruit a more devoted freshman class, and so their students are harder working (not necessarily smarter). It varies, and it’s hard to put a sole reason why some schools are better at others when retaining their engineering students.</p>
<p>In my experience, I’ve seen that extra-curricular involvement stimulates interest and devotion. Some of the public universities try hard to get students involved in outside research teams, engineering organizations/clubs, etc. This is key in retaining students, and the statistics I’ve seen at my school show that. If you can show the engineering student that something they learned in the classroom which seems abstract or not relevant is actually applicable towards real-world engineering projects, then you can stimulate their mind to learn further in the respective subject. I’ve experienced this myself, first-hand.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I just reread his post. I assumed he meant from first year to graduation, because a 50% retention rate for just freshman would be absolutely terrible.</p>
<p>Well Purdue just revamped their first year engineering (FYE) program and apparently it failed, hard. They’re revamping it again apparently.</p>
<p>I just heard last week from a Purdue freshman ChemE major that she was told in one of her classes that Purdue’s first year engineering retention rate is only 50%. Evidently it was said to encourage them to continue in the program after Summer. Judging by the number of students remaining in her classes she felt the number was not an exaggeration. Does anyone have any hard data to support that number?</p>
<p>Update: I wrote (email) Purdue to as them specifically what their freshman retention rate and 4,5,6 year graduation rate actually was. The following was the response. Interesting (in my opinion) title of the person responding.</p>
<hr>
<p>The latest data we have is as follows: </p>
<p>First year retention to engineering = 85.7%
First year retention to university = 91.8% </p>
<p>Graduation Rates:
Engineering 4 yrs 24.32%</p>
<pre><code> 5 yrs 49.97%
6 yrs 58.04%
</code></pre>
<p>University 4 yrs 33.14%</p>
<pre><code> 5 yrs 70.37%
6 yrs 77.90%
</code></pre>
<p>Roxanne Martin
Retention Consultant
College of Engineering
Purdue University
Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering</p>
<p>During a recent Purdue Engineering tour I learned the following:</p>
<p>Evidently all Purdue freshman engineering students start off as "undecided’ engineering during their freshman year. After their first semester they fill out a form expressing which engineering major (ie EE,ME…) they wish to pursue during their 3rd semester and beyond (sophomore…). Here is where it gets interesting: Depending on how many people are requesting a certain major (ie EE), Purdue picks a “cut-off” GPA for that major and THEN informs the students (at the beginning of the 2nd semester?) what freshman GPA they will need to pursue that major after their freshman year.</p>
<p>Supposedly 2/3 continue on with their first choice of engineering majors during their sophomore year. What happens to the other 1/3? Evidently some stay in engineering (included in the “retention” portion of freshman retention rate) and re-take core (Calculus, Chemistry & Physics) classes to improve their GPAs to continue into their sophomore year in their specialty. Others (also included in the “retention” portion of freshman retention rate) choose to change engineering majors to a less competitive (lower GPA) field.</p>
<p>While I don’t personally have a problem with Purdue using a minimum GPA cutoff to determine who should move on with engineering, I don’t particularly care for their method of adjusting that GPA number based on how many engineering students THEY admitted. Seems to me that if the Engineering Department thinks that a 2.8 freshman college GPA is the minimum necessary for a student to succeed and continue in engineering during their second year, they should state that BEFORE accepting the student and requiring them to enroll. Smacks a little of admissions manipulation.</p>
<p>Do all engineering programs wait until students are attending classes before determining/informing them of what criteria will be needed to continue in their major?</p>