A&M Engineering Galveston

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
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@MomHopesNxtGenAg we have two main concerns about Galveston: 1. campus life (lack of) and 2. lack of a viable back-up plan academically.

First…I keep hearing that Galveston is a “suitcase school.” Everyone goes elsewhere for the weekends. That’s just not the college experience we were imaging. And driving to C-Stat every weekend is not an acceptable solution either…highly counterproductive for being successful in a rigorous engineering program.

Second…I found a TAMU report online which shows the distribution of grades for every course and every professor at TAMUG as well as freshman GPAs. If memory serves, the freshman AVERAGE GPA is a 2.5. That makes ETAM to your major of choice seem more challenging than it’s presented. (They make it sound easy peasy). So if you don’t make it, then what? You certainly don’t have the option to go Mays Business. People say Ag Business is another alternative to Mays. But I just can’t see how employers would take an Ag Business major when they could instead have a May Business major. It’s like wearing a neon sign that says “I wasn’t a top 10 percenter as an incoming freshman so I didn’t qualify for Mays.”

Tech, on the other hand, academically checks all the boxes. My husband is in oil & gas/engineering and has a high regard for his Texas Tech colleagues and employees. He finds them to be well educated and able to practically apply their knowledge on the job. Plus, unlike A&M, Tech does not narrow students’ ability to change majors (i.e. to business) if they feel the need to change. But on the negative side…Tech is faaaaarrrrr from Houston. And lastly, Tech isn’t A&M and we are all having trouble swallowing the fact that he wouldn’t be an Aggie.

If there was some way to change from Galveston to Blinn Engineering at Bryan, this would be a slam dunk and without a doubt it would be the very best fit. Instead, it’s nearly the end of March and we continue to kick the can down the road.

Any advice is greatly appreciated! And yes, we do plan to visit Galveston again on 3/22. We may take another trip to Lubbock also.

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@93txag It sounds as though you or your son may be interested in business for him, and almost any parent would be concerned about transferring to Mays. If your son is mature, then the distance isn’t too far. How does Tech’s business school rank? Or would you all be ok with an MBA rather than an undergrad business degree?
You may eventually have to try to second guess the direction your son will end up going, whether engineering, business. or something else, and act accordingly. I am always pushing honors programs as a counterbalance to not being at one’s more preferred school. Could your son get in an honors program at Tech?
I am not discounting your desire to have another Aggie in the family. As you know, I am an Aggie. But A&M is a different animal now than in our days there in terms of competitiveness and ability to move around. I find the exclusivity of business admissions at Mays and at UT McCombs to be pretty off-putting. But it is what it is right now. My son at UT decided that an MBA would always be available if he wanted a business degree someday and thought that might be just as meaningful if not more so for him than a typical undergrad business degree. As your husband is an executive, what does he think about the value of an MBA later if your son pursued undergrad engineering? What do you all think about your son being an engineer? These are pretty different pursuits. Which do you think fits your son’s interests and skills and talents better?

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Hi, we are from out of state and also contemplating about accepting TAMU Galveston admission offer for General Engineering. We hear that a GPA of 3.5 or above is auto admit to first choice major in CS. Even CS freshmen also have to go through the ETAM process. My only concern is what if both the first and second choice majors accept the student at the end of first year. Will he/she have to keep continuing at TAMUG?
Being out of state, we don’t have much visibility into the student life at TAMUG without much student activities as CS. We do plant to visit sometime but it is a choice we have to make without much info on TAMUG campus, campus life, teaching quality etc…

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@93txag No … we haven’t decide until we attend the Engineering Preview day this Thursday. It is down to UTD and TAMUG … Tech is too far - and it is in Lubbock…

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BTW, not sure about TAMUG being a “suitcase school”… I meant all students are required to stay in a dorm so most likely the majority will stay on campus over the weekends. Galveston is only about 55 minutes from our house, but I doubt my son will want to waste 2 hrs each week commuting instead of spending those time doing things more productive. The same can’t be say for UH though since I knows students commute there daily since it is much closer.

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I just spoke with the Engineering at Galveston representative. She told me that there are 400 engineering students there this year, the program having grown each year starting from 250 students in 2016. They are anticipating possibly 500 students in the Fall, but they haven’t seen acceptance numbers yet, so this may be too optimistic. However, it seems likely that there will be as many as this year. I told her that I just wanted to make sure there would be some critical mass. 400 is a decent sized group, I think. She told me that they are expecting the program to grow to about 1000 students in 2025. We are proceeding on faith that this will be a good program.

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@93txag My brother and I are both Aggies. He is more diehard than me with season tickets and the Former Student sticker on the car. But I still own a closet of t-shirts and we spent a lot of time in Cstat when our kid was younger.

NONE of our engineering major kids go to TAMU. None…all three go to other schools where they are not packing in the students like a warehouse and where the kids have a bit of flexibility to move around within their major or to another school. This is despite being raised a lifetime in a house of maroon. I would never pay for all of their satellite programs (except maybe the Blinn program) that they are hocking now. It’s ridiculous. And you are very wise to realize the importance of those key features. If I was in your shoes I would choose Tech in a heartbeat.

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Who attended the Preview Day yesterday? What were your impressions?

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@mamabeartx My son didn’t receive the sticker with the Aggie Engineer. What did it say and what did it look like? Was it in a separate mailing from the admission packet (which we finally received a little over a week ago)?

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I was there for the preview day . The Q&A sessions were good. Most of the questions were discussed in here and I was able to confirm the answers. Parents raised questions on security Hurricane evacuation measures etc which was all answered well. I didnt get the big University vibe but felt quite close knit and friendly . We visited the Pacific hall (housing) and my son really liked it .

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@GLYToo There was a letter from Engineering with the sticker. I will try to get you the contact info. This letter might have been triggered by scheduling NSC, not sure. I bet you could get one if you asked the right person. Stand by on this until I can post that information.

@carachel2 It sounds as though you have some very high performing kids, but certainly some students would not be able to get into a higher ranked or arguably better engineering program in state, much less out of state, and some will stay in engineering. It’s getting very difficult to get into A&M and a lot of other schools–harder each year, it seems. There have been transitions to the main campus from Galveston for those who change majors, sometimes even mid-year. But transfer to business is the toughest transfer in the university, and that is what @93txag is looking at. I hope their family will have a chance to visit Tech again!

In life, things are so often what we make of them. We shouldn’t underestimate how difficult this is.

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@GLYToo The sticker is clear and reads" AGGIE ENGINEER- Class of '22" - with an A&M symbol My son received his inside the large packet with the “Congratulations you are an Aggie” fold-able and a letter dated 2/14/18. He had been accepted, but did not register for his NSC until 2/26/18.

He has not had any mailed confirmation of his NSC, but has the printed payment of confirmation and status confirmed on his AIS.

Son was unable to attend the Engineering at Galveston on March 22 due to school obligations. I wish they offered other dates for the kids to know what to expect. He is still undecided about where he wants to attend college. He would have attended in CS in a heartbeat, but being separated for a year makes him feel like he isn’t getting the 4-year experience his friends will have.

We plan to take him for a visit as soon as his schedule allows. Hopefully after seeing the campus and getting to talk to someone there will help him make a decision soon. -Only like 60 days left in high school!

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@GLYToo We attended the Engineering Preview day and it was very good. Here are our impressions of the day.

Campus is growing - they are building the 2nd phase of the Academic Services buildings (to house new classrooms and offices). 2nd building is almost completed. The 1st building was completed last Fall and it looked great. Huge classrooms and conf rooms with the latest multi-media, comfortable seating, open spaces, and even a food kiosk outside the classroom …

Parking was a little confusing since construction is on-going. You park by license plate # so make sure you pay for it at the station the end of the lot if you are coming in from the main entrance. Park only at the YELLOW marking lots.

We arrived at 9:00 AM and check-in at the student center. They gave us a schedule for the day and realized that the session won’t start until 10:00 AM. In the mean time, we walked around and talked to various groups, clubs, advisors, etc… Lunch are provided for both students and parents so that was a very nice touch.

Session started off with the COO of TAMUG, Colonel Fossom - a very impressive person who made a case for prospective students to attend TAMUG. Dr. Foster was next and he explained and discussed about the Engineering in Galveston program - and why we should consider other engineering programs in Galveston as well. Dr. Figlus also went in-depth about Ocean Engineering and its opportunities. Just trying to give parents and students an idea of the possibilities that exist for studying in Galveston. Very informative.

Next, the students went as a group to a Q&A session. Parents stayed behind for lunch. When the students came back, they went to lunch while the parents went to a Q&A session. Free lunch so that was good.

The parents Q&A session was setup with a panel of 8 - each from different departments, student life, academic services, engineering, financial aid, corps cadet, etc… It was moderated by Dr. Donna Lang. The panel then take questions from the parents for an hour straight. We thought this is a great idea - you get answers straight from the sources and there are no ambiguity. Most questions are already answered on this site, but some notable answers are below:

Math Placement Exam (MPE) - for Galveston Engineering student, they are taken on the 1st day of the NSC (instead of 2nd day for CS students).

Panel members stressed that you need to study for the exam to be place in Math 151. Very important for Physics 218. If you don’t make the grade for Math 151, you are placed in Math 150 (similar to pre-calc), but will still be on schedule to apply for ETAM in Spring 2019.

ETAM - difference between Engineering Galveston and Academies: Galveston min. 2.0 GPA for all TAMU courses. Academies min. 2.0 GPA for TAMU courses, min. 2.5 GPA for academies equivalent courses.

Stats wise: of all the Galveston engineering students in the program, 76% of them apply to CS and got accepted to an engineering major. (Note: this is for an engineering major - not necessary your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice major - no analysis on them yet). However, this meant that 24% of students did not got accepted and/or dropped out of the program.

Payments are broken down into 4 - Sept, Oct, Nov, and December. You don’t have to write one big check.

Student life/housing: Director of housing recommended applying ASAP once you made a decision. He said though he would put a freshmen application in before a senior application if they run out of room - so no worries there. Visited Pacific hall and it is a 4-person suite, with 2 rooms - all sharing the same bathroom and shower. Nice, clean - decently size rooms. Each person is allowed a small fridge and microwave. You can rent them per brochure they gave when you check-in.

The director mentioned that 3 out of 4 students have a vehicle. So definitely it is needed since they are so isolated on the island to move around.

Overall, despite the early confusion, I thought the engineering day was well-run and very informative. We liked the Q&A format a lot since you have access to all the right people. Even after the Q&A session, the folks made themselves available to us to talk afterward and answered additional questions. All the TAMUG staffs genuinely seemed to care about the students and their success and empathized with the decision process the parents have to go through.

My son didn’t give us any hints what he thought about the day. He made some quick friends with a small group so that might affect his decision. For us, this will allow us to make a more informed comparison between TAMU and UTD.

Hope this helps …

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@aeromum BTW, there were a lot people there yesterday - between 300-350 - with 2/3 being parents. We kickoff and ended the session in the gym. They said this year they are expecting about 400 engineering freshmen.

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@mikeinsugarland Thank you.

Were you able to talk with any current students to assess what they thought about the education?

One thing I have wondered about is the quality of the professors/teaching there. Historically, engineering was a pretty small part of that campus. Did they hire additional hopefully good professors to accommodate all the additional engineering students? There would need to be several more math, physics, and engineering professors than before. Did you get any feel for the quality of the freshman education there for the additional students?

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@ToCollege2018 Did you meant “My only concern is what if both the first and second choice majors DON’T accept the student at the end of first year” ? If the student is not accepted with first opportunity (Spring 2019), he can try again in the Fall 2019. If he is not in a major by the end of the fourth semester, he is dismissed from engineering.

BTW, see my latest post of yesterday preview day.

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@MomHopesNxtGenAg We break into different groups so I didn’t have a chance to talk to the student guides. But my son did. He said the students said that most professors are good but to be successful, you need to get to know them, ie, go to the office and talk to them and attend any additional tutoring/review sessions. The hardest classes in order are: Engr 112 → Chem 107 → Phys 218 → History 106. Easiest is English 210.

Not sure about hiring - but right now my son said most freshmen engr classes will be around 60-80 (unlike the 200+ size class in CS) so it seems they still have room to grow.

It is hard to quantify “quality” per se as that is subjective in most cases and varied from student to student. I would say that the faculties and staffs we talked to seemed genuinely caring and excited about their jobs. Good group of folks down there so if your son/daughter go there, I think they are in good hands.

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Thank you, @mikeinsugarland.
I look forward to meeting everyone here who or whose student decides to go to Galveston.

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Thank you for clarifying my question. Yes, I meant what if the student doesn’t get into the first and second choice major. I see now that they can keep trying till 4th semester per your comment. Also, I want to thank you for giving a detailed description of Engineering preview day. It is very informative.
The quality of education at TAMUG is also in my mind. 76% of TAMUG students transitioning to CSTAT is promising.

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Hey guys! I am an international student. I got into many universities like UCD , UCI, Tamu galv , Penn state university university park, osu-columbus .
I am more leaned towards PSU university park and tamu Galveston. What according to you would be a better choice? Is getting transition to cstat easy? Would they make engineering program the first year more difficult so less student get transition to cstat? Is securing 3.5 GPA easy ? I am pretty confident that my academic backgrounds! Still wondering is it really difficult to take a transit from galv to cstat?