2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This full paper examined the outcomes of a policy-based factor in a student’s ability to declare their first-choice major in engineering after matriculating to a university. Declaring an engineering major is a life-changing event for many undergraduates. Within engineering major research, there is a plethora of research focused on student motivation to increase choice and persistence into engineering schools (i.e. pre-matriculation factors) and less focusing on post-matriculation factors such as competitive application processes (CAPS).
At the University of Virginia’s (UVA) School of Engineering and Applied Science, we found students in minoritized groups were more adversely affected by major CAPS. This engineering program, starting with the entering class of 2016, shifted from CAPS to a major declaration process. This shift enabled students to pursue their first-choice major and resulted in an increase in equity. In UVA’s 2018 Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey, significantly more African American or Black students (31%) said they could not major in their first choice major when compared to Asian (3%) or White (4%) students. Two years later in 2020, that significant difference was eliminated. We attribute the elimination of difference to the removal CAPS and an increase in holistic student support personal in spring 2017. All engineering students responding to the 2020 survey had the chance to declare their engineering major. Removal of CAPS likely enabled students to pursue their first-choice major and resulted in an increase in equitable access. A preliminary examination of retention data indicated a small improvement in percentage of Black or African American entering engineering undergraduate retention and no change in other ethnic groups.
Ultimately, the engineering program shifted from asking departments how many students they could take to asking what resources departments needed to take all the students who were interested in their majors. We explained key players to remove CAPS and the resource reallocation to make declaration possible at the departmental level. One recommendation was engineering program policy decision makers at research universities look at their SERU data, identify inequity in access to first-choice major, and remove any policy barriers and increase resource and supports for engineering students to pursue their interests.