I have quite some positive experiences working with European/Asian/Canadian engineers. Based on my small survey sample, these engineers all came from colleges admitting students by merit (i.e. academic performance/math/science/critical thinking ability).
Meanwhile, looking at the global STEM universities ranking, you see schools from UK, Canada, Australia, China, Singapore, Switzerland. I am not sure all of them are merit based? From reading some discussion here, at least UK, Canada, China are merit based. I can’t help to wonder, why STEM majors admission process in US can’t be purely merit base? Those engineers I spoke to are just as talented/interesting. Being STEM-awesome doesn’t discount their personal skills or being interesting.
Thought? (Noted, I am not interested in going into the debate of “holistic review”, just thinking purely for the demand and rigor to work in STEM fields)
In most cases, college admission (for engineering or any other major) in the US is mostly or entirely based on some measure(s) that attempt of proxy academic merit (grades, rank, test scores).
Or are you referring to the most selective colleges in the US, which are relatively small compared to the national population (unlike in most other countries you name other than China) and where the usual measures have low enough ceilings and/or enough inconsistency that they are not adequate to get to the desired admit class size (unlike in the other countries you name)?
Of those most selective colleges in the US that practice holistic admission, Caltech is the one with the most emphasis in using holistic evaluation to find the highest level of academic strength in applicants, which is necessary because its minimum rigor level is very high compared to other colleges in the US.
Yes, I’m totally with you on acceptance by merit. Unfortunately, that’s not the system in the US and won’t be unless there is a huge change. It’s going the other way with SATs being optional and more emphasis on subjectivity.
Yep and there’s lot of diversity too right? Merit and diversity via merit based acceptance is not only possible but more probable. But try telling that to supporters of holistic admissions. They can’t see that diversity in humans is the norm.
One other thing, STEM majors have to reach a higher bar in many cases to be able to do the work. You can’t fudge most STEM subjects. While everyone takes English in high school not every kid takes AP physics or math that leads into STEM areas. So there is already a distinction.
It’s not impossible. Like everything there are trade-offs.
At the engineering schools that I know outside the US, entry is based entirely on a specific set of exam results. The exams are most often fairly narrow (eg, mostly science and math based), and students have often been on the STEM-only track for at least 2 years, sometimes 4 years. Think admissions based entirely on how you did on AP Calc BC / Physics (all) / Chemistry (or in some countries, those + a modern language, and your national language).
Because these schools are fully/nearly fully funded by the government, they are affordable for almost everybody, but resources are stretched, so when you arrive at university you are thrown straight into the deep end. It’s a production line, with little to no subject choice in the first year or two, huge lectures, few if any support mechanisms. You may have no graded continuing assessment, just finals that cover the entire year. So, it’s sink or swim, and the attrition rate is high. Even at smaller universities it is remarkably regimented and impersonal, especially in the first 2 years.
I taught in the engineering school of a smaller university outside the US. A new Dean (homegrown, but did their PhD in Stanford)- was introducing radical concepts such as student feedback surveys. People were shocked to find that the longer students were in the program the less they actually wanted to be engineers.
As @ucbalumnus said, nearly all STEM applicants are admitted based on merit. There are some schools where there are so many fully qualified candidates that other intangibles are used, but at nearly every school GPA and course rigor are the top benchmarks cited on common data sets. Students who aren’t qualified don’t typically get slots unless the school just doesn’t have enough STEM applicants to be selective.
2 currently does not exist in the US, and getting such a thing made widely available in the US would mean setting up a new testing organization (expensive) or getting an existing one to handle it (unlikely, given that SAT subject tests were discontinued) for the benefit of a small number of highly selective colleges.
Whether 4 is practical for any given college depends on application volume, or at least the volume of applicants who pass the other measures.
I have a fear that if our higher education drift away from the core and rigor, likely we will lose the innovation edge and brainpower. I don’t feel US education is lack of resources and participation in STEM but honestly, are we losing competitiveness comparing to other countries because of how the higher education admit or develop STEM minds? The engineers I worked with half of them aren’t educated here. I can’t understand why.
Can you share your impressions of the US-educated engineers/other STEM professionals with whom you’ve interacted whose merit for admission to their college or university might be in question? Have you noticed a greater variability in the quality of US-educated engineers vs. those educated only on merit (as you define it) somewhere else? IOW, is there a problem?
If not, then why is it on its face problematic that schools look beyond a bundle of evaluative criteria (of which you and most of us approve) to learn more about the person they’re admitting to their community? It’s going to happen when you interview for jobs, I can promise you. And, as much as I hate to say this, you will be evaluated on criteria that will make the criteria typically considered by admissions people seem entirely benevolent by comparison. In fact, in your professional career, I’d bet $100,000 that you will be evaluated, for the better or worse, on criteria that would be legally actionable if you could prove it (which you probably won’t be able to do): height, weight, appearance, gender, manner of dress, perceived socio-economic background, observable disability … and of course the ever elusive catch-all of “how well you present yourself.” I’ve seen it all make its way in, albeit in the most subtle manner. The world is a tough place.
So if I’ve got a kid who fits the bill with the top-order criterial, and one of them just outshines the other in some other way, why can’t I pick the shiny one? Again, that’s how the world mostly works. If you want pure objectivity with no favorites or “soft considerations”, I’d go with Track & Field: the stopwatch and the measuring tape don’t lie.
Meeting my D’s friends and hearing about what they are doing, I do not share your concerns about US STEM education.
I think you are seeing so many engineers not educated here, because we don’t have enough kids going into engineering to fill all the demands in the workplace.
I never said it is a problem. IMO, the problem is developing the right mind. All those subjective attributes simply irrelevant if students or job candidates simply can do the work.
I don’t mean to sound disrespectful or in any way demean your point of view. But, to me, the very best thing I can say about that sentence is that it is terribly simplistic.
And at any rate, posters in this thread who know a lot more about engineering than do I have already told you there is no shortage of people who can “do the job”; and so, now, how to choose from amongst them?
If I have two applicants with the right GPA, rigor, test scores and whatever else you think matters, and one shines more than the other in other ways, why can’t I have the shiny one? What if one was born on third base, has had every advantage you can think of, and the other has overcome incredible obstacles to be where he is, which is the equal of the other? Am I not allowed to take that into consideration? Why not? I can tell you from the perspective of someone who has worked in organizations for years and done a lot of hiring, people who have truly managed to overcome hardship are demonstrating something that often translates very well at work.
But I digress. Tell me how to pick for my 5 openings among 20 with equal pedigree for the criteria you think important.
iPhone hardware is an example, lot of main parts (glass display, chip, camera) are designed and manufactured overseas. Is it because of talent gap or no talent? Tiktok is software example, which isn’t developed here, is it talent gap or no talent? (But lot of students studied or want to study CS.) Pfizer vaccine is developed in Germany. is it talent gap or no talent?
Right, potentially naive because I am not AO and fairly new to this forum as well
You could. I think the key is there are quantifiable way to define “shiny” besides the “subjective” view. I am hoping for the better, good STEM schools are educating the next innovating mind. The focus should be that.
And it’s counterpart at Moderna was created in Boston.
The US has long been punching above its world population percentage in math and science, in part because it’s higher education system is extremely strong, and in part because it traditionally has been able to get many of the world’s best minds to come here to attend college, or for work (in which case their bright kids attend college here).
