My son is a rising senior who is considering applying to A&M as a history major. Can you guys honestly tell me what you think his chances for admission are for regular admission as a review admit or the alternative admission pathways - Blinn Team and Gateway to Success.
GPA: 3.79 weighted / 3.4 unweighted
Rank: Probably top 35%
SAT: 2070 as follows 790 Critical Reading; 590 Math; and 690 Writing
SAT II World History Subject Test: 680
SAT II US History Subject Test: 740
ACT: 31 (E 34, M 27, R 31, S 31) - April 2015
ACT: 31 (E 36, M 24, R 34, S 28) - June 2015
AP World History: 5/5
AP US History: score to be released July 9
AP Human Geography: score to be released July 9
(He took AP English Comp as junior but decided to not take AP test)
Senior year AP course load:
AP Economics
AP Environmental Science
AP English Lit
AP Psychology
AP Sociology
AP Statistics
AP US Govt.
EC: Track freshmen year; Basketball manager sophomore year; running cross country junior year.
Job: Working at Chick-fil-a since June 2014
Thanks in advance for any advice or input.
He has a shot at full admission as a review candidate, if not Blinn Team is highly likely IMO. His ACT score of 31 is above the cutoff for academic admits, so that is a plus. Rank counts vs GPA, mid second quarter is his challenge to overcome. Any volunteer work? Awards? Leadership? Hardships? Demonstrated interest ( visits, attended anything - they’ll be a list when you apply)? First in college? All those count towards review admits evaluation. 50% is rank/scores and 50% is everything else. Great essays will be critical. You can also submit a recommendation - pick wisely. Use the summer to fill in any gaps - volunteering is an easy one and great for the community. Chances are that history will not fill prior to the review candidates being evaluated, so if he does get admitted to the university he will have a good shot at getting his desired major. Good luck!
Hi @AGmomx2, thanks for your detailed response above. He has done some volunteer work the last summer and this summer at our local library. He also signed up last year to be a blood donor and does so on a routine basis at our local blood bank and there are the miscellaneous volunteer activities from a couple of clubs he joined in high school.
Respecting demonstrated interest, last month he participated in the A&M National Scholar Invitational. As I understand it, selection was based solely on his PSAT scores which are in the competitive range for National Merit, although we don’t think he will actually qualify. (My son is one of those kids who performs better on test than his actual course grades.) In any event, I’m a little surprised that A&M considers demonstrated interest such as campus visits or participation in an A&M campus program. My son left very impressed with A&M and my wife was happy that campus is only 1.5 hour drive from our home.
Can you tell me which is more selective to gain entry to Blinn Team or the Gateway to Success program? I think my son would be happy with either option but I think that the Gateway to Success program would be best because it would allow him to get his feet wet before the fall session begins and once the fall session begins he would be a regular admit. Does the Gateway program have a certain set of class that the kids have to take?
My understanding is the Gateway option is used more often for students they’re concerned might need to ease into college life - meaning special circumstances, rather than just student #16001 if they offer 16000 full admissions. Student 16001 more likely will be Blinn Team, I think it is safe to say that a BT student would always prefer to be Gateway as the transition to full admit is easier and faster. Sorry don’t know about Gateway course selection, both of mine were full admits.
There is a section on the application that you check off the activities you have attended - I’m guessing it will also be there when the app opens again this year. They state that everything on the application ‘counts’ towards a review candidate’s decision. This only applies to review candidates. It certainly isn’t a big decision point, but it is on the application. Academic admits & top 10% only use rank and scores for admissions and over 85% of the freshman classes have qualified for admission under one of those two programs in recent years.
Thanks again for the detailed info.
I like this question. Mind If i ask it for myself? what are my odds? My goal is the school of engineering. I am curretnly a sophomore about to be a junior
GPA: 3.7 weighted / 3.3 unweighted
Rank: top 27% (likely to drop slightly)
I haven’t taken ACT or SAT yet but I intend to take the SAT 2 times and the ACT once this year…
AP World History: Will soon be released July 7th
AP Human Geography 4/5
Freshman
Geometry H
Biology 1 H
Spanish 2 R
English 1 H
World Geography H
Soccer JV H
Art 1 IB
Academic Decathlon 1 R
Sophmore
Algebra 2 H
Chemistry 1 H
Spanish 3 H
English 2 H
World History AP
Engineering Design R
Film 2 - (Fundamental) IB
Academic Decathlon 2 H
Junior
Pre-Calculus H
Physics 1 AP
Computer Science 1 IB
Language & Composition AP
US History AP/DC
Color Guard R
Film 3 - (Engineered Effects) IB
Academic Decathlon 3 H
Self Study - AP Spanish Language & Statistics
Senior
Calculus AB H
*Chemistry 2 AP
Computer Science 2 IB
Language & Composition AP
US History AP/DC
Color Guard R
Film 4 - (Production) IB
Academic Decathlon 4 H
Self Study - Human Geography & Microeconomics & Computer Science A
Extracurricular
- Academic Decathlon (Coordinator)
- Writers of America (President)
- Actso (Vice President)
- Reel Owl Filmmaker association (Treasurer)
- Technology Student Association (Vice President)
- Color Guard (Treasurer)
Out of School
- Fundraising Co Ordiantor of 2 Church youth groups ( I am co President of one)
- Garland Book Clubbers (founder and president)
If you can possibly get into the top 25% that should be your focus your junior year. You can only be an academic admit with a top 25% rank, then work on your scores. Engineering fills quickly, so very few review admits get direct admission to engineering. When a review admit is admitted to the university, often engineering is past the 85% full limit & have to go to engineering review ( along with later applying automatic admits) for another holistic review to compete for the last 15% of slots. IF you end your junior year in top 25%, you can retake the ACT/SAT until you reach the academic admit cutoffs and apply for academic admission early in the admission cycle then be directly admitted to engineering. Well worth the effort.
If you are close to top 25% but don’t quite make it, I’d say you have a good resume going with leadership & involvement. You will need some pretty decent scores to move to the front of the potential review admits in time to be considered for engineering (they cutoff the engineering review group usually in January- meaning you have to be admitted to the university by January with both majors declared as engineering to be part of the pool). Write compelling essays & have a good recommendation on file.
Looking at your schedule plan - I’d say for a 3.3 student, it is overly ambitious and you should look to excel in the courses at school vs. trying to pretty up the resume with lots of self study goals that will just take time away from studying for your actual courses. Class rank trumps AP count for TAMU and most other schools - to quote another college’s advisor from a college visit “What’s best for admission, a B in an AP course or an A in a regular course? Answer: An A in an AP course”. They are looking for your grade as well as a passing score, but honestly the grade is what counts in the ranking. The closer you can get to the top 25 % the better off you will be, put your efforts into an unweighted 4.0 junior year. Good luck!
Thank you. I guess I should take a few self studies out off the list. The reason they are their is becuase in Acadmic Decathlon, we care covering Statistics this year and though I may get credit. As far as my grades go, I normally get high B’s and A’s, but spanish normally ends up a C, which drops my entire average. hopefully, since its gone this year, I will score better.
Next, What is considered a “decent” ACT score? Or SAT score? (I mean the new SAT)
But over all, would you say I stand a chance?
Your best bet is to shoot for academic admission standards or above - 30 ACT or 1300 SAT (M+CR). Those are recognized benchmarks at TAMU. You are too early in the game to really give you a good answer, there is too much uncertainty ( borderline rank & no scores ). Do you have a chance, sure. I think anyone who is in the top 30% & involved at the end of sophomore year has a chance - the bigger question is what do you do to increase/decrease your chances in the pivotal junior year.
@fatherof2boys When you say he does not have good enough grades for National Merit, do you mean he has several Cs? As far as I know, you can have one or two Cs and still qualify. Make sure his SAT score is qualifying ( you have to remove the essay from the writing score and use the MC subscore times ten.)
I also wonder if he gets semi finalist and applies early if they won’t go ahead and accept him in the Fall. You won’t hear about finalist until February.
Thank you @AGmomx2 I needed that answer. Thank you !! (so just to clarify, i need to improve my rank and SAT scores this year. right?)
@gettingschooled I was speaking in reference to whether his PSAT score will qualify him as a finalist or semifinalist for National Merit. I recall when he received his score that neither he or I thought it was in the range of National Merit. We received a paper score report and neither he or I can locate it now. We sort of forgot about the whole thing until we received the email invitation from A&M to attend the National Scholar Invitational. We were both surprised at first because his class rank/GPA are solid, but not great. When we looked further into the selection criteria we realized that it was based solely on PSAT score, which is consistent with what we were told in College Station. He does fairly well on tests, (with the exception of math), he was amongst only about 6% of the kids nationally who received a 5 on the AP World History test and he’s confident he did the same on the AP US History & Human Geography tests - hence his desire to major in history.
In all honesty I don’t know if his PSAT scores are competitive or not for National Merit, its just we don’t want to hope or rely on something that may not work out for him in the long run. The conservative perspective seems to be for me and my wife to plan that we will have to pay 100% of the sticker price for a school like Texas A&M.
I think what gettingschooled is trying to say is that you should get his app in ASAP, so the decisions are in -process rather than made… as each phase of NM marches forward, he’ll be ‘in’ or ‘out’ so apply early while he’s still ‘in’ the potential NMF group. They do not change admission decisions based on future results, so it will benefit him for admissions purposes, even if he doesn’t end up as a NM scholar.
Oh, thanks for the clarification. I did speak with my son last night and this morning and we discussed the essay topics. Because he will be a review applicant, he will be drafting all three essays and will complete them this month. His high school registrar returns to work at the end of July and we will submit the official transcript to A&M at that time. We hope to be able to submit the complete application on August 1.
A&M has a counselor for Merritt Scholars you should give Katie a call (979) 458-0954.
@fatheroftwoboys Can you log in to your son’s college board account and find out his PSAT score? Now I am intrigued. Visit the National Merit forum for details on requirements for National Merit semi finalist and finalist.