Increasing Engineering Retention Using Only Incoming Data

A four year study of engineering student retention was conducted on the University of Arkansas -Fort Smith campus.The goal of the study was to find which scores (high school grade point average, composite ACT and math ACT) best predicted if a student would be retained in engineering one year after starting the program.The value of such a study is that engineering retention could possibly be increased if we selected a better group of students for admission and scholarships.Results show that high school GPA is the best predictor for engineering retention.The math ACT sub score was the second best predictor and composite ACT was overall the weakest measure in predicting retention.A combination of all three scores suggests that engineering retention of selected groups can be increased significantly through an optimal weighting of each metric.