I happen to come across a brochure from the U of Minn. (I graduated many years ago, and my children went to the U, so I get these brochures extolling the U's virtues and requesting a check.)
They are trying to be a leading University, and their plan towards excellence of the past few years has revolved around cutting undergrads in order to get the best undergrads. It has not worked out, as evidenced by the increased loss of their top professors. (Hey, its not my plan - and after writing it down just now, it does seem to be a pretty stupid way to get top profs - by allowing only the best students in and then later having these desired profs cut half the best of the best.) So the Uof Minn wants more money to continue along the same course. And I thought how oddly theoretically academic that it hasn't worked but they want to keep doing it.
And then the brochure numbers regarding their engineering school struck me as kind of odd and contra-logical. So I thought I'd post it and see if anyone else has seen this at other universities.
some background-
First, to apply to the engineering school as a freshman at that University, you must be in the top 25% of your HS class and have an ACT around 26. And of those who apply, according to the President of the U last month, only one in four makes it in. (Proudly said by them as evidence of their high standards, BTW.)
Second, much of the grading in IT is done on a curve of those in the particular class.(I suppose it doesn't matter if it wasn't, the 5-15-40-15-5 a-b-c-d-f ratio holds, I assume). Thus, a C means you are average, i.e., among the 40% of a class. Except this class is the best of the best, as they say.
Third, to get into the dept of mechanical engineering at the U of Minn after completing two years of lower division, you must have a B- in your technical grades (math, physics, chemistry). No matter your other grades, like was required in the balanced engineer of old: it has now been set up to skew so pure-geeks advance. So if you do not have the B- in the techs, you will not be allowed into Mech Eng. upper division. On face value, seems logical - except the curve was on the hand-picked best of the best. So you must score much better than the select group's median C to stay in their school.
Fourth, you may apply only once in your lifetime to upper division (I know, it sounded stupid, but I checked - and that is absolutely correct.), and it must happen at 60 credits earned. Be way above average at the U of Minn in order apply to the school, and you can get rejected by the ME department for not being above average enough in your above average group, and you will never get a degree at the U of Minn. It seems to somehow go against basic engineering, and does it say something about the engineering approach of such a school? (land-grant, at that)
The contra-logic inherent in the system is from having a relatively high entrance standard and then having to be better than the average of that highly-selected group to advance. It automatically cuts (no, actually it rejects from the University) over half of the highly-selected group. Now, if the entry standards were lower, say comparable to non-U engineering colleges, then maybe - maybe, it might make sense. OK, at first blush it seems to say - You need to have a solid technical background to advance. But that is NOT what it says, given the highly select entry requirements - it actually says that the professors the department selects are not able to teach that very select group they started with, or it says that we will start with a select group and dump over half based not on overall ability, but on physics and math skills.
Kind of like giving an engineer 100 bars of special T&G stainless steel and having him ruin 50 because he can't get them machined properly. It's not like I gave him 100 bars of crap steel and he had to cull them. He ruins half the best we can get and thinks nothing of it. It somehow seems very un-engineering-like to waste the best material on those who profess to be engineers and cannot use it properly
Looking at the mechanical engineering school logic another way, if the top 100 professors of mechanical engineering from Caltech, Stanford, and MIT are accepted and take classes at the U of Minn, over half will be rejected and not allowed to advance to upper division because they are unable to meet the standards. (Hey, MIT profs apparently just can't cut it at the U of Minn Dept of Mechanical Engineering undergrad program!)
Oddly enough, I didn't find that as being the most egregious problem with their solicitation for money. It seems that the cut for selection for upper division is entirely done on technical credits, and not done on other engineering skills like leadership, management skills, business acumen, foreign language, understanding of surroundings, and those skills gained not from calculus, but rather from non-technical courses in other schools at a University.
What I am going to get in my firm is not the engineers of old, who can meet and talk with people and run projects, but rather the blind techie chosen by the blind techie professors who seem to have some theory that lower division tech ability translates into upper division creativity and then into good engineers. The old saw about unscrewing the new engineers for a year after school before they are useful is going to have to be revised.
So my question is - Do other schools use this method of very high entry selection standards and then a reselection to reject 50-60% at the halfway point? Or is the U of Minn plowing new ground in this apparent nitwitdom?
thanx....