Any chance of getting admission for my son? In application: 1st choice major Computer Science, 2nd Choice major Computer Engineering, he wants to do Computer Science:
Details:
3.75 GPA
Rank in 2nd Quarter (333/750)
SAT: 1230 (math: 700)
Lot of APs including Computer Science AP.
Computer Science Club 2 years (1 hour a week), Volunteer 2 years (2 hours a week), Competed in UIL Computer science but didn’t win any.
No work experience.
Applied in late Oct, didn’t hear any acceptance or rejection notice yet from UT or TAMU or UTD.
Got acceptances from University of Houston, Texas Tech, and Arizona State University
@VK13 also apply to UT Arlington. They admit directly to major
UT is going to be no.
His math score is very good. Unfortunately, his rank makes him less competitor. However, A&M might offer an engineering academy decision.
Thank you @Thelma2. I will review the Blinn Brenham link. His first choice is College Station. He has AP Physics 1, AP Physics Mechanics, Pre-Cal, AP Calculus AB, AP Computer Science along with several other APs. But his rank and SAT scores are not so great. Any chance of getting accepted at CC in engineering (Comp Sci)?
He got accaptance at University of Houston and Texas Tech in state and Arizona State OOS so far. Will Blinn Brenham would be better than U of H or Tech?
@VK13 having the physics and math classes that he does, combined with his math SAT score do help demonstrate his calculus and physics readiness for the major.
While second quarter makes an applicant less competitive, it doesn’t mean they will not get a full admissions offer to College Station or first year at Galveston or the engineering academy at Blinn (TEAB), which is a pathway to College Station and not considered full admissions. The Blinn Brenham Engineering Academy is also a pathway to College Station that can be applied to directly, whereas Blinn Engineering Academy and McAllen Engineering Academy are admission decisions.
If he was offered an engineering academy route, he would have to decide if being an Aggie was more important than full admissions elsewhere. And if he was not offered any pathway admissions, Blinn Brenham Engineering Academy would again, be a pathway to being an Aggie engineer over his full admissions elsewhere.
What he must not do is plan to go to U of H or Tech and then transfer into engineering at A&M. Competition is fierce and external transfers have lower priority over the general engineering students applying to a major and internal transfers. Sometimes, there is as little as 5 or less open spots for external transfers into the most popular engineering majors. A few years ago, in Petroleum, there were 0 spots and transfer applicants waited months to find out that no one got in.
You might get into Texas A&M, but getting into computer science is going to be a different story. Most are chosen as top freshmen, and the rest get to compete for a few slots like an academic version of the Hunger Games. I would say Houston is probably your best shot. It has an excellent CS program that’s not so cutthroat competitive. You’re also right in the middle of Houston where there’s plenty of internships and job prospects.
@coolguy40 , @Thelma2, thank you: The Entry to Major process where one gets 3.5 GPA in few specified subjects is automatically allocated the major of choice in next year, if not 3.5 GPA a holestic review process to get into his choice of major. Given my son has 3.75 high school GPA and not so great SAT or class rank and may be termed as an average student. Is it risk to get into A&M (if admitted in one of the ways!!) with the anticiapation of getting into Computer Science major for this type of student?
It’s hard to say. He might or might not get into Texas A&M. If he gets in, he might or might not get into his choice of major. And CS is not easy to get into unless he’s a top student. As a programmer myself, prestige is not a requirement for finding a good job out of college, nor is it have any impact on future salary. In fact, location is a better advantage because it’s easier get internships. In my current job, when I was interviewing, they didn’t mention education at all. The only thing employers are concerned about is work experience. I never went anywhere prestigious. I have interviewed with 4 fortune 500 companies in the last 3 months and I just got an offer from one of them. I promise, wherever he goes, he’ll be just fine.
UT is a slightly smaller organization so that’s probably unlikely. With A&M, however, the whole organization is massive so there is a high likelihood they will offer some form of admission, like Blinn TEAM or a transfer from Kingsville, Galveston etc. They rarely offer no path to admission at all for qualified students.