Better than the SAT: A study of the effectiveness of an extended bridge program on the academic success of minority first-year engineering students

The purpose of this study is to show that with the proper academic enhancements, African-American, Latino/a, and American Indian students who would be considered at-risk on traditional admissions criteria can perform academically and be retained at the same level as White students who meet higher traditional admissions criteria.;The academic achievement and retention of African-American, Latino/a, and American Indian student participants in the University of Cincinnati Emerging Ethnic Engineers (E;A one-way analysis of variance was used to compare the fall quarter mean GPA.s of the three groups. The results of the ANOVA shows the F value was F = 0.60. The critical value was determined to be F crit = 3.019. These results support the hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the mean GPA among the groups at the 0.05 significance level.;The freshmen-to-sophomore-year retention rates of the three groups were compared using a Chi-square test. The calculated test statistic of x;The results showed that E;We have seen from the results of this study that using SAT scores as a conclusive means of judging a students' potential to succeed in a engineering curriculum would exclude a significant number of minority students. With the proper academic interventions, such as a Bridge Program, students can develop the academic as well as affective skills needed to succeed in science, mathematics, and engineering disciplines.;Knowing the glaring disparity between underrepresented minority students' and White and Asian students' SAT scores, institutions of higher education practice institutional racism if these scores are used as the primary criteria in minority admissions decisions. THis study has shown that participation in an extended Summer Bridge Program can compensate for lower SAT scores by improving and providing the specific skills needed for minority student academic success in the first-year engineering curriculum.