Status of the Agricultural Engineering Exam

Perhaps you may have thought the number of those taking the professional agricultural engineering exam each year in October is small, but you probably didn’t realize just how few actually take the test each year.  NCEES requires that there be at least 50 first-time takers of an exam within any two-year period. The numbers from recent exams are shown in the table below.  

As a result of these low numbers, the agricultural engineering exam has been under review due to low numbers of takers since 2005.    ASABE, the sponsor of the agricultural engineering exam, was given time to improve the numbers of takers or face possible elimination of the exam. (Exam production and administration is an expensive process and these numbers do not come close to supporting the required effort and expense.) It is important that the numbers of first-time test takers increases.

Why are the numbers so low?  It is reported that many agricultural and biolofical engineers are sitting for the PE exam in other disciplines (civil, environmental, mechanical, etc.). This can be attributed in part to pressures from employers, but it is also partly due to the lack of materials and programs to support those preparing for the agricultural engineering exam. The ASBE has thus provided an excellent review guide and online review series in hopes of changing things for the better.

Also note that the NCEES has introduced new specifications for its Agricultural PE exam, effective with the October 2010 exam administration. 

Statistics from http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/www3/pe/general/why.htm

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 11:33 am and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.