Engineering Matriculation Paths:

Outcomes of Direct Matriculation, First-Year Engineering,

and Post-General Education Models

Marisa K. Orr Matthew W. Ohland

Engineering Education Engineering Education
Purdue University Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN, USA West Lafayette, IN, USA
mkorr@purdue.edu ohland@purdue.edu,

Catherine E. Brawner Richard A. Layton

President Mechanical Engineering
Research Triangle Educational Consultants Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Raleigh, NC, USA Terre Haute, IN, USA
rtecinc@bellsouth.net layton@rose-hulman.edu

Susan M. Lord Russell A. Long

Engineering Engineering Education
University of San Diego Purdue University
San Diego, CA, USA West Lafayette, IN, USA
slord@sandiego.edu ralong@purdue.edu

AbstractLongitudinal data from ten U.S. institutions are used
to characterize outcomes of three matriculation models: Direct
Matriculation to a specific major (DM), First-Year Engineering
programs (FYE), and Post-General Education Programs (PGE).
Both DM and FYE programs show high persistence rates, but
FYE programs are less likely to attract transfer students and
switchers. FYE graduates are the most likely to stick with their
first choice of major (after completing FYE requirements),
followed by DM graduates who begin in undesignated
engineering (taking extra time to decide), then DM graduates
who choose their major as part of the matriculation process, and
then PGE graduates. FYE students also have the shortest time to
graduation. We conclude that encouraging students to associate
with engineering or an engineering discipline from the start, yet
maintaining the curricular flexibility to allow alternate entry
points onto the engineering path improves persistence,
accessibility, effectiveness of major choice, and time to
graduation.
Keywords- First-Year Engineering, Persistence, Accessibility,
Transfer Students, Major Change, Switching
I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
This study describes some of the advantages and
disadvantages of different matriculation pathways into
engineering, considering both first-time-in-college (FTIC) and
transfer students. How FTIC students are admitted into
engineering and subsequently matriculate into their engineering
major varies by institution [1]. While the U.S. engineering
education system has a multiplicity of practices, we limit our
discussion to the matriculation practices of the institutions
included in this study. At institutions participating in the
Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering
Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD, described in the
Methods section), FTIC students may follow one of six
pathways into a specific engineering major. They are admitted:
1. to a formal First-Year Engineering (FYE) program that
they must complete before declaring a major;
2. directly to a specific engineering major;
3. after a period as an undesignated engineering student;
4. after completing as many as two years of general
education at their institution;
5. to institutions with a Mostly Common First-Year (MCFY)
where they may declare a major preference, but they
cannot advance until they have met common first-year
requirements; or
6. to a university-level general studies program from which
they may migrate into engineering.
In a formal first-year engineering program, students are
admitted to the College of Engineering and take common first-
year classes, including calculus, physics, chemistry, and an
introduction to engineering sequence. Students in MIDFIELD
FYE programs are advised by professional FYE advisors.
Although a formal FYE program is not the predominant
matriculation model, recent adoptions and planned adoptions of
the FYE model provide evidence that their prevalence is
growing [e.g., 2, 3, 4, 5]. During the years and cohorts in this

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science

Foundation under Grants 0935058, 1025171, and 1129383. The opinions
expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the NSF.
978-1-4673-1352-0/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
study, three MIDFIELD institutions had formal FYE programs,
another began one in 2005 and a fifth will begin one in fall
2012. FYE programs provide early engineering experiences,
inform disciplinary choice, and enable engineering faculty and
staff to oversee the transition to engineering. Results of two
national surveys of FYE programs describe the status of such
programs across the country [6]. Upon completing the FYE
requirements, students enroll in a specific engineering major
such as electrical or mechanical. A summary of research and
practice related to first-year engineering programs was created
by the Foundation Coalition [7].
Four other MIDFIELD institutions admit qualified students
directly to their choice of engineering major. Students majoring
in engineering who are not sure which discipline they wish to
pursue may be admitted as undesignated engineering students.
The first-year curriculum at these institutions is nearly identical
to that offered in FYE programs with respect to the basic math
and science courses. All of the schools offer an introduction to
engineering course or sequence although not all require
students to take it. Students are already identified with their
departments and generally are advised there. Undesignated
students are generally advised by engineering student affairs
but may be advised elsewhere in the university. These
programs are defined as direct matriculation (DM) programs.
Although no MIDFIELD engineering college currently
waits to admit students until after they have completed two
years of general education, three colleges did so until the mid-
1990s and thus their cohorts are included here for analysis.
The comparison is useful even now because other universities
around the country continue to use this matriculation model for
their engineering students. In this model, students declare their
major preference upon enrollment, but complete their first two
years of general education in the arts and sciences college of
the university before formally selecting an engineering major
of their choice. In the first two years, these students are advised
by arts and sciences advisors. To be eligible to select an
engineering major, these students must take the engineering
math and science courses as part of their general education
core. These programs are defined as post-general education
(PGE) programs.
We have termed a hybrid between an FYE program and
direct admission as a mostly common first-year (MCFY). In
these institutions, students identify with a preferred department
and may be advised there, but they may not formally
matriculate into their preferred major until they have
successfully completed required first-year math, science and
introduction to engineering courses. Of the three schools with
the MCFY model in MIDFIELD, all have migrated or will
migrate to a formal FYE program.
Clifford Adelmans metaphor of paths is used as a students in the included cohorts who ever declared a major in
framework [8], because it captures the fact that there are many
ways for students to navigate the process of getting an
engineering degree. Note that this is somewhat in contrast to
pipeline metaphors, which suggest only one entry point with
many leaks or exit points [9]. In keeping with this paths
metaphor, we discuss persistence (do students stay on the
path?), accessibility (do students enter the path from other
institutions and majors?), term of major declaration and
effectiveness of choice (when do students commit to a
particular disciplinary path and how likely are they to stay on it
through graduation?) as well as time to graduation (how long
does it take them to reach their destination?).
II. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The overarching research question for this study is What
are the advantages and disadvantages of these three
matriculation models: first-year engineering (FYE) programs,
direct matriculation into a specific major (DM), and post-
general education programs (PGE)? Key outcomes to be
examined include persistence patterns of those who matriculate
in engineering, i.e., those who start out on the engineering
path;, accessibility to those who matriculate outside of
engineering (switchers) or outside of the institution (transfer
students); the time at which students commit to a disciplinary
path by declaring a major and the effectiveness of their choice;
as well as time to graduation.
III. METHODS
These four matriculation models (FYE, DM, PGE, or
MCFY) are mutually exclusive. Each cohort from each
institution was categorized into one model group; MCFY were
excluded from further study because the number of cohorts was
not sufficient to protect institutional identity. These models
represent the most highly-trodden paths, but individual students
may follow alternate paths, which are still influenced by
institutional structures and guides, some of which are described
next.
Four schools admit students who do not meet college of
engineering admissions requirements to a university general
studies program. Students admitted to these programs who
express an interest in engineering are advised to take the
engineering math and science courses and may take the
introduction to engineering sequence on a delayed basis. Upon
successful completion of the engineering requirements, they are
allowed to enroll in an engineering major. One FYE school,
two DM schools, and one MCFY school offer students this
option. Students who enter via general studies are included as
switchers, discussed in section IV.B. Another institution
requires students who are only conditionally admitted to
engineering to enter as Freshman Engineering, which is
classified as undesignated engineering in this study because
they are not allowed to declare a specific major at
matriculation.
The Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating
Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) contains
records for 977,950 unique students at eleven public
institutions in the U.S. For reasons mentioned above, only ten
are included in this study. This paper focuses on the subset of
engineering and for whom we have six years of data (110,896).
Of these, 72,728 matriculated in engineering as first-time in
college (FTIC) students. The rest were transfer students.
While many institutions are not represented in MIDFIELD,
the experience of MIDFIELD students is representative of the
experience of a large fraction of U.S. engineering students
attending large public institutions. A detailed description of the
MIDFIELD dataset is available elsewhere [10].
 Any semester or quarter in which a student is enrolled is
counted as a term, including summer semesters. Since not all
students enroll in every term, term counts do not necessarily
correspond to calendar time. Consistent with previous
literature, graduation is measured at six calendar years from
matriculation [11]. For transfer students, this timeline is
reduced by one year for every 30 semester credit hours the
institution accepts as transfer credit.
Persistence rates are calculated based on FTIC students
who matriculated in engineering (including first-year
engineering and engineering undesignated); a student who
graduates in engineering is automatically considered to have
persisted through all terms. Accessibility is based on the
number of engineering graduates who did not matriculate in
engineering. Graduation was chosen over enrollment because it
captures the product of access and retention.
IV. FINDINGS
Differences were observed between FYE, DM, and PGE
programs on all outcomes examined.
A. Persistence on the Engineering Path
In comparing persistence, only FTIC students are included
so that everyone has the same starting point. Although
persistence rates are similar for FYE and DM, PGE programs
lag behind as early as the fourth term and the gap grows over
time (Figure 1). While 51% of FYE (N=38,062) and 50% of
DM (N=28,173) engineering matriculants graduate in
engineering in six years or fewer, only 32% of PGE (N= 6,493)
students do so. Students may exit the engineering path early
from the PGE programs because without engineering
experiences they lose interest or discover other opportunities.
Others may leave later because once they finally start their
engineering classes they realize it was not a good match.
Comparing FYE and DM, the FYE programs lose a slightly
larger percentage of their students in the first four terms than
do the direct matriculation programs. We speculate that much
of this is due the fact that requiring a change of major from
FYE to something adds a gate to the pathway. That is, students
must successfully complete a set of courses before they are
100
100
8080
% of Matriculants
6060
4040
2020
00 44 88
Number of terms after matriculation
Figure 1. Engineering persistence patterns of engineering matriculants
for direct matriculation (DM), first-year engineering (FYE), and post-
general education (PGE) models.
allowed to matriculate into a particular major while those who
were admitted directly to a major who have not successfully
completed prerequisite courses may still register without
making satisfactory progress.
Losses between the twelfth term and graduation could
represent students dropping out of engineering, leaving the
institution, or taking more than six years to graduate. Some
variation by race and gender is expected as there is with
comparing outcomes at semester 8 versus six-year graduation
[12] and this will be an area of future research.
B. Accessibility from Other Paths
To study the accessibility of engineering programs to
students who start on other paths, all students who graduate in
engineering within six years of matriculation are considered.
While the structure and early engineering experiences of direct
matriculation and first-year engineering programs may
contribute to their higher persistence rates, it also appears that
these fenced paths are not easily entered by those who do not
matriculate in engineering at the institution. On average, 47%
of engineering graduates in PGE programs are transfer
students, compared to only 14% and 29% in FYE and DM,
respectively. It should be noted however, that all of the PGE
programs have strong transfer agreements with two-year
colleges in their states. Figure 2 shows that two of the three
FYE programs have proportionally fewer graduates who
entered as transfer students than average. This is also important
from a diversity standpoint because other work has shown that
underrepresented minorities who transfer into a four-year
institution are more likely to persist in engineering and
outperform similar students who enrolled as freshmen [13].
Further, proportionately fewer switchers, or students who
migrate into engineering from other majors within the
institution (including undecided), are found at FYE schools
(Figure 3). Overall, PGE programs have double the proportion
of graduates (26%) who switched to engineering from another
major as the other programs (FYE = 10%, DM = 12%). Here,
all FYE programs fall below the average for all institutions
indicated by the vertical line in Figure 3.
Model
aggregate
DM-1
PGE-1
DM-2
PGE-1
DM DM-3
FYE-1
FYE DM-4
PGE-3
PGE FYE-2
FYE-3
12
12 6-y
16ear 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
grad
T ransfers % of engineering graduates
Figure 2. Engineering persistence patterns of engineering matriculants.
To maintain institutional anonymity, model label numbers are not
consistent across figures.
 Model
aggregate 100
100
PGE-1

Cumulative % Graduates
DM-1 80
80
DM-2
60
60
PGE-2 DM -U
DM-3
40
40
PGE-3
FYE-1 20
20
FYE-2
DM-4 00 FYE
FYE-3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10+
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Term in which students declare a major
Switchers % of engineering graduates

Figure 3. Engineering persistence patterns of engineering matriculants. Figure 4. Term of major declaration for first-year engineering (FYE)
To maintain institutional anonymity, model label numbers are not graduates and direct matriculation graduates who entered as undesignated
consistent across figures. engineering (DM-U).

C. Term of Major Declaration and Effectiveness of Choice
As mentioned, one purpose of FYE programs is to inform
disciplinary choice. While direct matriculation models do not
require students to choose a discipline right away (they have
the option to start as engineering undesignated), FYE
students are not permitted to declare a major until they have
learned about all of their options. This leads to the question: do
students make more effective major choices when they after
completing a FYE coursework than they would have at
matriculation? We consider a major choice effective if the
student graduates in the discipline. Note that different groups
identify with a specific major at different points in the
academic process. For FYE students this is the first major after
FYE. For most DM and PGE students, this happens at
matriculation. For students at DM and PGE institutions who
matriculate as undesignated, we use the first major after they
leave their undesignated status.
One potential drawback of giving students extra time to
decide is that their connection with their future discipline is
delayed, so we also examine the term when students declare
their first major. When a student submits a change of major
form, the major change does not take effect until the following
term. Therefore, if a student selects a major during their second
term (as expected in FYE programs), they are categorized as
declaring their major in term 3. For this portion of the study we
consider only FTIC students who matriculated and graduated in
engineering in six years or less.
We first examine the timeline for FYE students declaring a
major (Figure 4). Although FYE students are encouraged to
declare their major by term 3 and most do, some spend more
than one year in first-year engineering, possibly retaking
courses or improving their grade-point average (GPA) to meet
the standards of their chosen degree program. While the
majority of students enter their discipline in term 3,
cumulatively only 70% of the students have entered the
discipline by term 3, then 90% by term 4, and 95% by term 5.
Ninety-eight percent of graduates were in their discipline by
the end of their sixth term (recall that this count includes any
summer terms in which the student was enrolled). Whether a
student is allowed to take courses in the discipline before
officially declaring a major varies by department. Once FYE
students declared a major, 89% of those who graduated in
engineering did so in the first engineering major they chose
after FYE.
In the DM model, 22% of FTIC students who completed an
engineering degree in six years started as undesignated
engineering. Eighty-five percent of graduates who began as
undesignated engineering students in DM programs graduated
in the first major they chose. As was the case for FYE students,
the selection of a specific major by undesignated DM students
is distributed in time (see Figure 4), however the majority of
students (55%) choose in their second term. Overall, only 78%
of DM graduates stayed with their first major choice.
The record-keeping practices at the institutions with the
PGE model make it difficult to identify students who indicated
an interest in engineering but had not decided on a specific
discipline. Future work will explore ways to identify these
students and define their entry point into a specific discipline.
We do know however, that only 60% of FTIC PGE
engineering graduates remained in their matriculation major.
D. Time to graduation
Finally, we compare the average time-to-graduation for
FTIC students graduating in each matriculation model (Table
I). These estimates represent the number of regular semesters
the student was actually enrolled. An academic quarter is 0.75
of a semester. A full summer term is 0.66 of a regular
semester, and a half summer is 0.33 of a semester. The total
credit hours earned for all academic work is also included in
Table I.
TABLE I. AVERAGE ENROLLED TIME TO GRADUATION AND CREDIT
HOURS EARNED
Matriculation Model Enrolled time to Credit Hours Earned
Graduation
(semesters)
FYE 9.0 128.8
DM 9.3 128.9
PGE 11.0 141.6
 Although graduates of FYE and DM models earn the same
number of credits, DM students typically require an extra 0.3
semesters to do so. PGE graduates are enrolled for 1.7 more
semesters and earn more credits than both other models. This
could indicate several things. The most likely possibility is
that since more students change majors, some of their credits
do not count towards their final major, and thus they must take
more coursework overall. However, other possibilities include
students taking more credits as part of a double major, a
minor, or for personal interest, as well as differences in
engineering curriculum requirements.
V. IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Different matriculation paths appear to have advantages and
disadvantages. FYE programs seem to be successful in helping
students make informed choices about specific engineering
majors, as evidenced by the high (89%) percentage of students
graduating in their first choice. These programs also foster
persistence within engineering as a whole. It is well known that
advising is a key element in student retention, particularly of
first-year students [14-16], so perhaps the professional advisors
act as guides along the path to an engineering degree at least
until a student is ready to pass through the gate to a specific
major. FYE programs are also the quickest path to graduation
in engineering. The drawback of these programs is that the
common courses and experiences that tend to keep students on
this path also seem to keep transfers and switchers out.
An advantage of direct matriculation is that students can
identify with the major and its culture early in their academic
careers through advising and possibly early introduction to the
discipline. On the other hand, given the overall lack of
familiarity with engineering in K-12 and the general public,
students may be making their major selection based on limited
information about the disciplines and what they have to offer.
If there is a poor initial match, it may be difficult to switch to
another engineering major because they may not have taken the
appropriate courses for the new major. On a positive note,
persistence is very high in these programs and students who
enter as undesignated engineering are almost as successful at
finding a good disciplinary fit as those in FYE programs. Also,
transfer students are less likely to encounter the barriers created
by institution-specific introduction to engineering courses.
The engineering persistence rates in Post-General
Education matriculation models are troubling, but there are
some positive aspects from which to learn, primarily that the
common first and second year are more accommodating to
transfers and switchers. Although the additional time to degree
may be a hindrance to completion, the additional coursework
and higher likelihood of changing majors may be enriching to
the students. The additional time to degree and lower
persistence rates could also be a result of the potential of being
advised by people less familiar with engineering requirements
and career paths. This may explain why all three schools in this
study have moved away from a PGE model to either FYE or
DM.
It seems that the ideal matriculation model allows students to
associate with engineering or an engineering discipline from
matriculation, yet maintains the curricular flexibility to allow
alternate entry points onto the engineering path. Note that this
work only examined a few of many possible outcomes. It is
important to understand a broad spectrum of outcomes related
to matriculation pathways, because if we understand what
outcomes result and how they come about, it may be possible
to design pathways that improve all outcomes rather than
improve some at the expense of others.
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