If you are preparing for the FE Mechanical exam, the first number you want is the honest one: how many people like you pass it. NCEES publishes that number every year, split by whether it was the candidate's first attempt and by whether they hold a degree from an EAC/ABET-accredited program. This page collects the FE Mechanical figures from the last six NCEES annual reports, shows how they compare with the other six disciplines, and explains what actually moves them.
Key statistic: In NCEES’s latest report (2023–24 exam year), 68% of first-time FE Mechanical takers passed (10,487 sat it for the first time). Among first-time takers with an EAC/ABET bachelor’s degree the rate was 71%; among other first-time takers, 50%. Repeat takers passed at 35%.
The FE Mechanical pass rate in the latest NCEES report
Roughly 7,100 people passed FE Mechanical on their first attempt in a single exam year. That makes it the second-largest FE exam by volume, behind Civil, and the pass rate is a population statistic over that whole group: graduates who prepared for three months and graduates who walked in cold, candidates sitting the exam in their senior year and candidates ten years out of school. The splits NCEES publishes are more useful than the headline, because they tell you which group you are in.
View the data as a table
| Taker group | Volume | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| First time, EAC/ABET bachelor’s degree | 9,238 | 71% |
| First time, all takers | 10,487 | 68% |
| First time, other takers | 1,249 | 50% |
| Repeat, all takers | 1,850 | 35% |
| Repeat, EAC/ABET bachelor’s degree | 1,461 | 36% |
| Repeat, other takers | 389 | 28% |
Two things in that chart matter more than the headline. First, the degree split: candidates from EAC/ABET-accredited programs pass at 71%, other first-time takers at 50%, a gap of 21 points. NCEES does not say why, and the “other” group mixes graduates of non-accredited and foreign programs with people who simply left the education field blank, so read it as a signal about preparation and recency of coursework rather than a verdict on any degree. Second, the attempt split: repeat takers pass at 35%, 33 points below first-time takers, even though NCEES grades both to the same standard. The exam does not get harder the second time; the candidates who return are, on average, the ones whose first preparation did not work, and most of them return with the same preparation.
How FE Mechanical compares with the other disciplines
Mechanical ties Industrial and Systems for second place among the seven disciplines and trails only Chemical. It sits above Environmental, well above Electrical and Computer, and eight points above Civil, the largest FE exam.
View the data as a table
| FE Discipline | First-time, all takers | First-time, EAC/ABET degree | Repeat takers | First-time volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FE Chemical | 72% | 73% | 34% | 1,847 |
| FE Industrial and Systems | 68% | 73% | 25% | 525 |
| FE Mechanical | 68% | 71% | 35% | 10,487 |
| FE Environmental | 67% | 70% | 36% | 2,359 |
| FE Electrical and Computer | 62% | 64% | 30% | 5,132 |
| FE Civil | 60% | 63% | 33% | 15,619 |
| FE Other Disciplines | 59% | 61% | 27% | 2,374 |
| All disciplines (weighted) | 64% | — | 33% | 38,343 |
The ranking is stable from year to year: Chemical and Environmental at the top, Civil and Other Disciplines at the bottom, Mechanical in the upper half. The full seven-discipline picture, with the first-time and repeat gap for every exam, is on the FE exam pass rates page; the FE Electrical figures have their own page.
Six years of FE Mechanical pass rates
One report is a snapshot. Six are a trend, and the trend for FE Mechanical is not flat. In the 2018–19 exam year 75% of first-time takers passed (77% with an EAC/ABET degree); in 2023–24 it was 68% (71%). The first-time rate peaked in 2018–19 at 75% and bottomed in 2022–23 at 66%. Repeat takers moved between 35% and 42% over the same period. Volume fell to 8,114 first-time takers in the 2019–20 year, when test centers closed for part of the spring, and has since climbed back to 10,487.
View the data as a table
| Exam year | First-time, all | First-time, EAC/ABET | First-time, other | Repeat | First-time volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018–19 | 75% | 77% | 61% | 40% | 11,018 |
| 2019–20 | 75% | 77% | 64% | 42% | 8,114 |
| 2020–21 | 71% | 73% | 57% | 35% | 10,198 |
| 2021–22 | 68% | 70% | 56% | 36% | 8,982 |
| 2022–23 | 66% | 68% | 56% | 37% | 9,346 |
| 2023–24 | 68% | 71% | 50% | 35% | 10,487 |
NCEES does not publish causes and this page will not invent one. Two facts sit inside the window, though. The current FE Mechanical specification took effect with the July 2020 examinations, so the earlier years were tested against a different set of knowledge areas. And NCEES sets the passing standard by subject-matter judgment, not by a target percentage of examinees: in its own words, it “scores each exam with no predetermined percentage of examinees that should pass or fail.” A falling pass rate therefore means the candidate pool is clearing a fixed bar less often, not that the bar was raised to fail more people.
What the pass rate does not tell you
Three things about NCEES scoring change how you should read every number above. The exam is reported as pass or fail only, with a diagnostic report by knowledge area for candidates who fail. The score is the count of correct answers, with no deduction for wrong ones and no partial credit on any item type, converted to a scaled score that adjusts for differences between forms; NCEES does not publish the passing score because it varies slightly with form difficulty, so “you need 70%” and similar rules of thumb have no official basis. And first-time and repeat takers are graded to exactly the same standard, which is why the repeat gap is a fact about preparation, not about the exam.
Where FE Mechanical candidates lose the exam
FE Mechanical is not lost on obscure material. It is lost on breadth and on units. Six knowledge areas — Statics, Mechanics of Materials, Dynamics and Vibrations, Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics and Mechanical Design — can carry between 58 and 88 of the 110 questions under the current NCEES specification, and a candidate who is strong in three of them and skips the others is gambling on which form they draw. The FE Mechanical topics guide walks through all 14 areas with their question ranges and an order to study them in.
The second leak is arithmetic, not knowledge: lbm against lbf and the missing gc, gauge pressure where absolute was needed, a steam table interpolated in the wrong direction, a fatigue or gear formula pulled from the Handbook without the conditions printed beside it. None of these show up as a weak topic on the diagnostic report NCEES sends to candidates who fail; they show up as a score a few points short in areas the candidate thought were fine. Timed practice under exam conditions is the only place they surface before test day.
The repeat trap. 35% of FE Mechanical repeat takers pass. The ones who do almost always changed something concrete: a study plan built backwards from the exam date, timed practice by knowledge area instead of re-reading, and the Handbook open during every session so that finding a formula is no longer a search on exam day. Retaking with the same preparation is the most expensive way to get the same result, and NCEES allows one attempt per testing window and three in twelve months.
How to be on the right side of the number
- Find out which group you are in before you plan. Ten timed questions across the knowledge areas tell you more than any average: take the free FE Mechanical diagnostic and rank your weak areas.
- Size the effort from the NCEES ranges, not from fear. The FE Mechanical topics guide lists every knowledge area with its question range and an order to study them in.
- Plan backwards from the exam date and expect to miss sessions. The day-by-day planning guide shows how to build the calendar and what to do when a week goes wrong.
- Drill by knowledge area, under time, with the Handbook open. Start with the free FE Mechanical practice problems, each with a worked solution and the Handbook page behind it; put what you missed on flashcards.
- Take a full-length mock every two weeks from week four. 110 questions, 5 hours and 20 minutes, the break where NCEES puts it. The mocks are what tell you whether you have moved from the 50% group to the 71% group.
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68 out of every 100 first-time FE Mechanical takers pass, 71 out of 100 when they come from an accredited program, and 35 out of 100 when they are back for a second try. The number has drifted down over six NCEES reports, from 75% to 68%, against a passing standard that NCEES fixes by judgment rather than by quota. None of that is a verdict on you. The groups that pass at the highest rates are the ones whose preparation was recent, structured and timed, and every one of those is a choice you can still make.
Sources: NCEES, Squared: A Year in Numbers, FE exam pass-rate tables in the 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 reports; NCEES, Examinee Guide (scoring, scaled scores, pass/fail reporting, attempt limits); NCEES, FE Mechanical exam specifications (effective July 2020); NCEES, FE exam.