Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I understand, Virginia Tech's College of Engineering doesn’t admit students directly into a specific major. Instead, students receive general admission into the College of Engineering, and after their first year, they are placed into a specific major—such as computer engineering—based on their GPA and other criteria.

So when a high school student says they’ve been admitted to Virginia Tech for computer engineering, is that a different type of admission? Does it mean they’ve received a guaranteed spot in that major?
What's the process for guaranteed major admission?

For most engineering majors, there is no direct admission to major at VT. VT deliberately has several mandatory "weed-out" classes (i.e., designed to force some % students out of the E School) in Freshman and Sophomore years, so the overall number of Juniors at VT in the E School is visibly lower than the number of Freshmen in the E School.

To get a popular major, such as ComputerE, one must both survive the weed-out classes AND have a high GPA afterwards.

Not all college E Schools have intentional "weed out" classes. Their existence (or not) at a particular college is one of the few meaningful differences between one E School and a different E School. ABET means all accredited E Schools have nearly identical curricula and that all are rigorous.

NP. I feel as if you're talking about "weed out" classes in a negative way. Schools with rigorous, demanding weed out classes ensure that ONLY the best engineering students remain in the program and receive degrees. Schools which coddle all students are dumbing down the curriculum. They are not graduating the best students.

Actually, they are ensuring that the size of the major stays within budget - -grades adjusted accordingly. That's what weed-out means.

It also means exactly what the PP said. Schools with weed out classes only graduate the best students. Anyone can graduate from schools without weed out classes. I know which one I prefer to hire from.
DP

Nah. I hire any with an applicable 4-year engineering degree from an ABET accredited college. The "no weed out" colleges also are rigorous and their students are equally capable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I understand, Virginia Tech's College of Engineering doesn’t admit students directly into a specific major. Instead, students receive general admission into the College of Engineering, and after their first year, they are placed into a specific major—such as computer engineering—based on their GPA and other criteria.

So when a high school student says they’ve been admitted to Virginia Tech for computer engineering, is that a different type of admission? Does it mean they’ve received a guaranteed spot in that major?
What's the process for guaranteed major admission?

For most engineering majors, there is no direct admission to major at VT. VT deliberately has several mandatory "weed-out" classes (i.e., designed to force some % students out of the E School) in Freshman and Sophomore years, so the overall number of Juniors at VT in the E School is visibly lower than the number of Freshmen in the E School.

To get a popular major, such as ComputerE, one must both survive the weed-out classes AND have a high GPA afterwards.

Not all college E Schools have intentional "weed out" classes. Their existence (or not) at a particular college is one of the few meaningful differences between one E School and a different E School. ABET means all accredited E Schools have nearly identical curricula and that all are rigorous.

NP. I feel as if you're talking about "weed out" classes in a negative way. Schools with rigorous, demanding weed out classes ensure that ONLY the best engineering students remain in the program and receive degrees. Schools which coddle all students are dumbing down the curriculum. They are not graduating the best students.

Actually, they are ensuring that the size of the major stays within budget - -grades adjusted accordingly. That's what weed-out means.

It also means exactly what the PP said. Schools with weed out classes only graduate the best students. Anyone can graduate from schools without weed out classes. I know which one I prefer to hire from.
DP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I understand, Virginia Tech's College of Engineering doesn’t admit students directly into a specific major. Instead, students receive general admission into the College of Engineering, and after their first year, they are placed into a specific major—such as computer engineering—based on their GPA and other criteria.

So when a high school student says they’ve been admitted to Virginia Tech for computer engineering, is that a different type of admission? Does it mean they’ve received a guaranteed spot in that major?
What's the process for guaranteed major admission?

For most engineering majors, there is no direct admission to major at VT. VT deliberately has several mandatory "weed-out" classes (i.e., designed to force some % students out of the E School) in Freshman and Sophomore years, so the overall number of Juniors at VT in the E School is visibly lower than the number of Freshmen in the E School.

To get a popular major, such as ComputerE, one must both survive the weed-out classes AND have a high GPA afterwards.

Not all college E Schools have intentional "weed out" classes. Their existence (or not) at a particular college is one of the few meaningful differences between one E School and a different E School. ABET means all accredited E Schools have nearly identical curricula and that all are rigorous.

NP. I feel as if you're talking about "weed out" classes in a negative way. Schools with rigorous, demanding weed out classes ensure that ONLY the best engineering students remain in the program and receive degrees. Schools which coddle all students are dumbing down the curriculum. They are not graduating the best students.

Actually, they are ensuring that the size of the major stays within budget - -grades adjusted accordingly. That's what weed-out means.

Just to make sure we're speaking the same language: Are you referring to "weed out" classes as those general first-year courses required to apply to an engineering major, generally Calc 1&2, chemistry, physics, English, and intro engineering? (This specifically describes VT's approach, but it's generally consistent across pre-engineering programs.)

The key question is whether these courses, mostly taught by different departments and taken by students across various majors, apply special curves specifically to engineering students, or if all students suffer equally when "grades are adjusted" to keep engineering programs within budget constraints.
In other words, are pre engineering students being uniquely targeted by these challenging gateway courses, or is everyone taking these foundational classes subject to the same potentially brutal curves regardless of their intended major?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I understand, Virginia Tech's College of Engineering doesn’t admit students directly into a specific major. Instead, students receive general admission into the College of Engineering, and after their first year, they are placed into a specific major—such as computer engineering—based on their GPA and other criteria.

So when a high school student says they’ve been admitted to Virginia Tech for computer engineering, is that a different type of admission? Does it mean they’ve received a guaranteed spot in that major?
What's the process for guaranteed major admission?

For most engineering majors, there is no direct admission to major at VT. VT deliberately has several mandatory "weed-out" classes (i.e., designed to force some % students out of the E School) in Freshman and Sophomore years, so the overall number of Juniors at VT in the E School is visibly lower than the number of Freshmen in the E School.

To get a popular major, such as ComputerE, one must both survive the weed-out classes AND have a high GPA afterwards.

Not all college E Schools have intentional "weed out" classes. Their existence (or not) at a particular college is one of the few meaningful differences between one E School and a different E School. ABET means all accredited E Schools have nearly identical curricula and that all are rigorous.

NP. I feel as if you're talking about "weed out" classes in a negative way. Schools with rigorous, demanding weed out classes ensure that ONLY the best engineering students remain in the program and receive degrees. Schools which coddle all students are dumbing down the curriculum. They are not graduating the best students.

Actually, they are ensuring that the size of the major stays within budget - -grades adjusted accordingly. That's what weed-out means.

Has any VT freshman in last couple of year successfully switched their major to Computer Science before the start of sophomore year? If so, what was their original first-choice preference major? What factors contributed to the successful switch—did the student complete specific CS-related courses or meet particular criteria?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If admitted based on preferred major as computer engineering or electrical engineering, what are the chances of successfully changing major to computer science after freshman 3.0 GPA? Does specific freshman course selection influence the change approval?

What's an easy major to get admitted into and the switch to one of the restricted major?

They're called "restricted majors" because you can't switch into them. There aren't that many, but are mainly in engineering and business.

+1 however, you could apply to Computational Modeling & Data Analytics in the College of Science and add a CS minor or double major or accelerated 1 yr CS masters. CMDA has a 65% in-state admit rate. Many students minor in CS because the program has a lot of overlap with it

I think the ease of admission to VT for engineering in-state will depend on location and HS attended. If your child is attending one of the better Northern Virginia schools, admissions will be tough. My child was waitlisted this go-around with similar coursework as previously mentioned. The acceptance rate from my child's high school at VT is about 20 percentage points lower than the overall acceptance rate at VT, and it's one of the best-performing schools in the area. This likely factors into the low acceptance rate.

There may be nuances depending on the specific major you apply to. At this point, the VT website states that construction engineering is the only major that is not restricted. For this major, a student needs a 3.0 in the required core courses to be guaranteed their first choice. It does appear that you can change to computer science. This is the only school that I have seen with a secondary admission process where nearly every major is restricted.

DC is very much interested in VT Engineering, has taken rigorous APs like calc bc, Bio, chem, physics, englidh lang, CS A, etc.,but has a couple of Bs. What are their chances of getting into VT Engineering? Does first choice major mentioned in the application influence admission offer? And if it does, mentioning which one has best chances of getting an offer? Assuming freshman gpa of 3.0 or higher, do they allow declaring major as computer science from another first choice engineering major that was mentioned in original admissions application?

Is it easier to get admitted into computer engineering than into computer science?

Has anyone recently transferred into computer science in sophomore? What made it happen?

Anonymous wrote:If admitted based on preferred major as computer engineering or electrical engineering, what are the chances of successfully changing major to computer science after freshman 3.0 GPA? Does specific freshman course selection influence the change approval?

What's an easy major to get admitted into and the switch to one of the restricted major?

From a jobs perspective, Computer Engineers are scarcer than CS majors, so often get paid more. Think carefully. The ComputerE major will be qualified both for software work and hardware work. The CS major only for software work.

Anonymous wrote:If admitted based on preferred major as computer engineering or electrical engineering, what are the chances of successfully changing major to computer science after freshman 3.0 GPA? Does specific freshman course selection influence the change approval?

What's an easy major to get admitted into and the switch to one of the restricted major?

They're called "restricted majors" because you can't switch into them. There aren't that many, but are mainly in engineering and business.

Anonymous wrote:If admitted based on preferred major as computer engineering or electrical engineering, what are the chances of successfully changing major to computer science after freshman 3.0 GPA? Does specific freshman course selection influence the change approval?

What's an easy major to get admitted into and the switch to one of the restricted major?

VT publishes a lot of data. You can filter on major & then by instate (or oos), gender, etc

https://udc.vt.edu/irdata/data/students/admission/index#university

If admitted based on preferred major as computer engineering or electrical engineering, what are the chances of successfully changing major to computer science after freshman 3.0 GPA? Does specific freshman course selection influence the change approval?

What's an easy major to get admitted into and the switch to one of the restricted major?

Anonymous wrote:What specific APs and DE courses make for a competitive application for admission to Computer Science major, especially for students from Northern Virginia high schools?

Not specific either to VT or to NoVA, but most E schools in the US want to see the rigorous APs, both STEM (examples: Calculus, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, etc) and non-STEM (examples: English, History, modern Foreign language, Government). It is a myth that E School applicants are usually weak in language or writing.

The regular AP in CS is preferred over AP CS Principles. AP in Envi Sci is viewed as less rigorous than Physics or Chem or Bio. There is a laundry list of non-rigorous AP classes, mostly from the humanities.

What specific APs and DE courses make for a competitive application for admission to Computer Science major, especially for students from Northern Virginia high schools?