2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Alternative Pathways to Excellence (APEX): Engineering a Transfer-Friendly Experience program at the University of St. Thomas is an NSF S-STEM 25-514 Track 2 project, award number 2130042. The aim of the grant is to build a foundation for non-traditional students and transfer students through recruitment, academic support, community-built retention efforts, student success, networking, graduation, and post-graduation placement in industry and/or graduate school. Key to the efforts is development of the support system for high academic potential students from low-income households through removal of systematic curricular barriers, strong empowerment through a community of peers, hidden curriculum mentoring from culturally informed faculty, industry coaching, and up to $10,000 annual scholarships.
The inaugural APEX scholar cohort enrolled in Fall 2022. The effectiveness research examines data related to enrollment, retention, and success metrics for students in engineering, specifically comparing these factors among engineering transfer students and the APEX scholars group. Although not all APEX students are transfer students, the program targets the transfer student population by creating new pipelines from five community college partners. This paper reviews key comparison data points, quantitative analysis of this data, qualitative analysis of student feedback, and demonstrates the initial success of the program.