Work in progress: the relationship between objective and/or subjective admissions criteria and success outcomes in undergraduate engineering

Abstract

University admissions policies throughout the country are undergoing review and revision, and universities are considering options which range from basing admissions most heavily upon criteria, such as SAT/ACT scores and/or high school rank, to favoring more holistic approaches, including individualized subjective reviews of accomplishments and characteristics reported in applications, and application essays. Variations of these approaches have been in practice at Texas A&M University for quite some time, yet little was known about how these admission practices were actually predicting the retention, academic performance, and graduation of students throughout the institution. Moreover, less was known about how accurately university-wide and/or subjective admission criteria predicted success for the students of very different colleges. This study identifies the admission criteria, which have best predicted academic success among engineering students from freshman cohorts 1997 through 2001. It specifically examines the predictive effectiveness of using objective merit-based criteria, in combination with subjective criteria, vs. using only objective admission criteria. Success outcomes of the subpopulation of students exempt from admission review due to high school rank or high SAT/ACT, are examined in relation to criteria only. The outcomes of the students who did not meet exemption criteria and were admitted due to favorable review of both and subjective admission criteria are examined in relation to criteria alone, and also in relation to and subjective criteria together. Results are observed and reported for male & female, white, Hispanic & African American subpopulations.