"The Problem with ETAM" in The Battalion (student newspaper)

[ucbalumnus]

“Opinion columnist Caleb Elizondo discusses flaws in A&M’s engineering major admissions process”

Analysis: The problem with ETAM

@Caleb Elizondo

Cognizant of the GPA cutoff for “auto-admission” status, many students opt to enroll in fewer hours than they otherwise would, resulting in less coursework and a potentially higher GPA. Some opt to enroll in excess hours, taking many “easy,” GPA-boosting classes.

Many other students retake classes for which they could already claim credit, such as aerospace engineering sophomore Marshall Mann.

“I probably could’ve skipped [Calculus] I,” Mann said. “I chose to retake it because I said, ‘I can easily grind out an A in this class, so it will be a little easier.’”

Worried about ETAM, I personally made the decision to take only 13 hours last semester in order to ensure auto-admit status. While it resulted in the grades I desired, I spent most of my semester feeling unchallenged.

Ideally, freshmen at A&M should be encouraged to enroll in difficult courses to broaden their horizons and invest in extracurricular activities to develop their social lives. However, when the cost of receiving a few Bs can mean being denied admission into top-choice, popular engineering majors, students are discouraged from doing so.

Instead of enhancing their education, ETAM ensures freshmen have an active interest to seek an academic environment where they feel comfortable at the cost of their own growth.

[Rivet2000]

Don’t hate the player - hate the game.

[bluedog23]

This is true for many schools for other reasons of course. My son went to a T-15 school and majored in engineering. In some of his classes more than half the students had already taken the class or were “auditing” it to be taken officially later. At most colleges some classes are known to be GPA killers… so the savvy student will game the system.

[LuviasTexas]

The benefit outweigh the “problem”.

Texas has auto-admit law, half (48%) of engineering admits are coming from rural high schools with less resources. Many of these students only have a few APs.

ETAM year allows them to catch up. While really well-prepared students can take advance Chemistry, Maths and Physics courses to fulfill ETAM without falling behind. Without ETAM, these 48% will become drop outs. ETAM is a solution to the shortcomings of Texas auto-admit law.

Another benefit is letting students know what engineering is about. Biomedical engineering has as many coding classes as Computer Science, TAMU engineering has an average 30 hours of coding classes among all majors. Many students found true passions of their field that other colleges fail when they admit students directly to major.

TAMU ETAM sees 80.5% getting first choice majors, 88.5% getting first and second choice. That include McAllen, Galveston and TEAB. If you check TAMU GDR, number of engineering students increases from Freshmen to Senior, while other direct-admit colleges drops as students quit or transfer to another colleges.

[ucbalumnus]

@LuviasTexas

TAMU ETAM sees 80.5% getting first choice majors, 88.5% getting first and second choice

Presumably because those whose real first choices were computer science, computer engineering, etc. but who do not get a 3.75 college GPA know better than to apply to those majors where they have no chance. So they may get their first choice of their majors applied to, which may not be their actual first choice after ETAM weeds them out with the 3.75 college GPA needed for their actual first choice majors.