<p>Weeding out is primarily a phenomenon of the mismatch in difficulty between American high schools and American colleges. Secondary factors include non-English-speaking teachers and lack of proper motivation in students.</p>
<p>I went to RPI, and I still remember the words of George Low (school president) at freshman orientation. “look to your left, look to your right. You were all near the top of your high school class, and that only means one thing here. You are now average.” </p>
<p>I didn’t fail out, but I did struggle for my 4 years. Reasons–
- high school had been easy for me and I never had to study. Image my surprise at RPI.<br>
- first time away from home. So I could do whatever I wanted (with in reason).
- mismatched school. I majored in Computer Science, and knew I wanted to work in business. But I was at an engineering school. So I made the best of it and minored in Management.</p>
<p>In the end I graduated and found a job. And many years later, I am proud that I was able to get through my 4 years at RPI. And occasionally I even run into people who have heard of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute!</p>
<p>As far as weeding out, I too think it is more the case of students not being properly prepared for college. Although I will say that colleges are also admitting students that are probably marginal just to get 1-2 years worth of money from them.</p>
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<p>Again, the money that colleges make from tuition is small peanuts. It is absolutely minuscule compared to research grant overhead. Tuition dollars are not a factor.</p>
<p>STATEMENT: “I study my ass off, so do most of my peers and getting B’s is hard enough, sometimes impossible. I go to Iowa State-an average engineering school, our department is top 20 and so far, engineering has been nothing but a lot of work and mostly mediocre grades.”</p>
<p>My comments: Too bad you study your ass off but only have mediocre grades. I go Tulane University (bottom rank school in Engineering according to UNSWR but freaking expensive, go figure why it is expensive not ranked). I started in BME and have been able to maintain GPA 3.8 and did not like it then switched to Dual Degree Program with Vanderbilt (Physics and Mechanical Eng). </p>
<p>When applying into the program, the Dean of Engineering of Vandy asked me: what is your GPA…that’s his first and only question. After mentioning my GPA then he said: you are in and go ahead talk to the admissions office to complete the paper work.</p>
<p>YES, high GPA is easy to get it…lots of my BME friends have been able to maintain it. So, If you can not get high GPA that does not mean that it can not be achieved or doable.</p>
<p>FYI, I am on full ride and have to maintain high GPA…if my GPA would drop then my full ride would be gone with the wind…got it. More importantly, without high GPA and scholarship, I would not be able to afford going to Tulane, Vandy…</p>
<p>Once again, I am truly sorry to hear that you work your ass off like there is no tomorrow but only able to get mediocre grades.</p>
<p>First, that was a really condescending post, Jan2013.</p>
<p>Second, not all programs are created equal. For instance, in looking at various schools who report their grades every semester (e.g. [Wisconsin](<a href=“http://registrar.wisc.edu/documents/Stats_distribs_2012-2013Fall.pdf]Wisconsin[/url]”>http://registrar.wisc.edu/documents/Stats_distribs_2012-2013Fall.pdf)</a>), BME tends to have higher grades than most other engineering disciplines. In the above example, BME averaged nearly a 3.6 GPA while other engineering majors such as mechanical and electrical are hovering in the 3.2 range.</p>
<p>I am not quite sure what causes this effect, though. It may be that the grades get inflated due to the number of students aiming for medical school, it could be that the classes are easier in BME than other engineering majors, it could be that there are brighter students going into BME, or it could be a combination of these factors or others I haven’t named here. However, in looking at different schools, it does seem like that tends to be a relatively repeatable trend.</p>
<p>That isn’t to take away from you having a 3.8, which is still a nice feat to accomplish in any course of study, but particularly with BME it doesn’t seem like you can compare apples to apples with other engineering majors very easily based on the statistics I have seen.</p>
<p>boneh3ad: work my ass off system works for me…and I am not condescending at all. Of course like any systems, it may work for someone but may not.</p>
<p>You said: “I am not quite sure what causes this effect, though. It may be that the grades get inflated due to the number of students aiming for medical school, it could be that the classes are easier in BME than other engineering majors, it could be that there are brighter students going into BME, or it could be a combination of these factors or others I haven’t named here. However, in looking at different schools, it does seem like that tends to be a relatively repeatable trend.”</p>
<p>My comments: are you saying BME classes are easy and easier?..and brighter students going into BME?..</p>
<p>brighter students if not studying like there is no tomorrow, they still will not be able to get High GPA…just like those law students, they also study like hell in order to pass LSAT tests. How about them accounting students who will seat on CPA exams, they also study like there is no tomorrow.</p>
<p>Perhaps the terminology “like there is no tomorrow” seems scary and you dont like it?..how about changing it into Study hard and harder to get super stellar high GPA?..what do you think? would that terminology work for you?..just curious…</p>
<p>Jan2013 – may I ask which engineering/physics courses you have taken so far. I think in earlier posts you stated that you have taken 18-19hrs at least a couple of semesters</p>
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<p>I was merely floating those as possible explanations. I don’t know the actual reason why BME seems to have a higher GPA than most other engineering degrees and probably never will.</p>
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<p>This simply isn’t true. I knew people (albeit not many) who rarely studied in engineering and got through with extremely high GPAs. I had a good friend who made it through computer science with straight A’s except for one A- on his transcript without much studying. These people are outliers though. I know far more who worked their tails off.</p>
<p>Law students are a terrible comparison. The essence of law school and the LSAT is rote memorization of rules and precedents. That is entirely unlike engineering, where physical intuition and mathematical intuition rule the day. If someone is approaching engineering by trying to simply memorize everything, they are doing it wrong.</p>
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<p>Not especially. I already have my degree and am nearly finished with my PhD, so the idea of “studying like there’s no tomorrow” doesn’t scare me. I am no stranger to studying. I certainly advocate working hard and getting a good GPA. I don’t advocate devoting your life to studying, though.</p>
<p>The ultimate goal, of course, is to get a degree and a job, and having a good GPA helps you with that, certainly. However, a lot of people undervalue leisure time due largely to the fear of falling behind and simply being afraid to fail, and many of those people are worse off for it. You have to give your mind time to relax. That is in addition to the fact that this time in your life is when you should be doing a lot of other things to grow as a person, not just academically. You have to find a way to balance at all and a lot of people neglect one for the other and either flunk out or burn out.</p>
<p>PeterW: I will take this Fall 2013 as follows:</p>
<p>Modern Physics I<br>
Classical Mechanics
Dynamics<br>
Jewish Studies<br>
Physics Colloquium<br>
Leadership in Robotics </p>
<p>I will take in Spring 2014:</p>
<p>Modern Physics II<br>
Advanced Laboratory
Thermal Physics<br>
Foreign Language 2 </p>
<p>after taking these classes, I am done with Physics. Then I will join Vandy Fall 2014 in ME.</p>
<p>I have taken classes like:</p>
<p>Product and Experiment Design
Intro Cell and Molec Bio
Calculus III
Intro to Applied Math (Ordinary Differential Equations)
Engineering Statics
Mechanics of Materials
Electric Circuits
Materials Science & Engr
Thermodynamics
Computing Concepts & App.</p>
<p>What about you?..</p>
<p>boneh3ad: Thanks for the advise : "You have to give your mind time to relax. That is in addition to the fact that this time in your life is when you should be doing a lot of other things to grow as a person, not just academically. You have to find a way to balance at all and a lot of people neglect one for the other and either flunk out or burn out. "</p>
<p>I will try to balance my study and leisure/relax. Once again, that is one of my problems since I am scared of losing my full ride if not maintaining high gpa. THANKS.</p>
<p>My ‘profit center’ theory focuses more on math departments where the failure rates are more severe. Phys, Bio, and Chem have a sizeable lab component and that helps. While it is true that research funding is a big part of funding STEM programs, I don’t believe that math departments receive as much of their funding from research funds as more ‘applied’ departments like engineering or life sciences. It’s not like the NSF is funding solutions to Fermat’s last theorem… I think the key is enrollment and churn. If 100 kids take Calc 1 and 50 have to repeat it, that increases student headcount, ergo, faculty positions, and so on. Maybe my theory is just that, a theory, but I fail to understand how kids that ace AP Calc BC all of a sudden freeze up like deer in the headlights and bomb college level calculus. </p>
<p>As far as salaries go, I’ll tell you one thing. Take a walk around the student parking lot at your school and the faculty parking lot for engineering. When I was at Purdue in the mid to late 90’s many of the student parking lots had noticeably better cars than the faculty parking lots (nothing to twist the prof’s panty into a knot - darn those American idioms 
than you making a presentation of ergonomics of your (student) car, a Saab, versus the prof who was driving a Plymouth Horizon… I talked with the prof about cars as we were both car enthusiasts and he, on his own, mentioned the issue in no uncertain terms.</p>
<p>But, again, it’s a theory. In the late 80’s Mrs. T. was doing her kapstone in graduate Statistics so she interned with the university administration, the group that does the yearly faculty EEOC / other federal agency acronym to show how many men, women, minorities, etc. LOOOOOOTS of statistical analysis. To do this she received a spreadsheet with every faculty member’s department, title (prof, assoc, assist, etc), years of experience, gender, age, and so on. While one would expect a normal curve, it was anything but. Instead of a few people making a TON of money, a few working for peanuts, and most people making decent money, it was a bathtub, meaning a decent number were making good money, a bunch were working for peanuts, and the remaining few were working for the mean. This was across departments… She did not have peoples’ names but it was a smallish school so it took little time to figure out who was who in her department… Entry level PhD’s in math/stat before tenure paid as much as my buddies were making with a BS degree at Intel and the like, mid-upper 30’s… </p>
<p>I could also give my experiences with English as a Second Language, the OTHER major profit center from my experience… But, as I said, it’s a theory. Maybe one day…</p>