Reply to Engineering: Rigor, Grading, and GPAs

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[quote=Anonymous]This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted. [/quote]

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