2024 is the tenth anniversary of the comprehensive reform of the new college entrance examination. This reform has had a profound impact on high school education and higher education. The mode of free selection of subjects in the reform has created difficulties for the cultivation of science and engineering professionals in colleges and universities. Not selecting physics and chemistry in the college entrance examination has caused pain to both the teaching and learning sides, which in turn has led to an increase in the failure rate and a decrease in the graduation rate, as well as the contradiction between the increasing demand for changing majors and the quota limit. The reason is that the utilitarian choice of subjects to avoid physics and chemistry has left the students with a weak foundation in physics and chemistry. Solving the problems is a constant improving process rather than an action overnight. At present, the measures taken by colleges and universities to address the problems in cultivating science and engineering professionals include offering remedial courses, lowering the difficulty of professional curriculum and increasing students’ learning intensity, and practicing stratified and categorized teaching and peer support. Therefore, there have been voices calling for a return to the traditional model of two types of exams for college entrance, namely the science exam and the liberal arts exam. Another option is to guide candidates for science and engineering majors to take both physics and chemistry through the scientific setting of guidelines for elective subjects for college admissions.