Recently me and my family moved from KSA in the spring of my sophomore year to Dallas, TX. Currently, I’m a junior and I’m researching universities which fit for me. One of the things that I’m struggling to meet with is the academic rigor part of the requirements at most universities. It is because I was in KSA during my freshmen year, and there is nothing such as Honors, AP or IB classes that I could potentially take. I moved in the middle of my sophomore year and as a result I couldn’t take any AP classes again. However, in my sophomore year, I did take one Honors class. For my junior year, I was left with no option but to complete my credits as the subjects here were completely different from back in KSA. I managed to fit in 2 Honors classes in my junior year. I’m stressed out about my college apps and my question is that do you think I’d be able to get into universities like UT Austin or A&M. I currently have a GPA of 3.82 and I’m doing quite a bit of extracurricular activities. Plus, can you also suggest me which universities which be best for me (the ones I could possibly be admitted into).
AOs are well aware that students transfer schools for a variety of reasons.They are also aware the schools in Saudi Arabia don’t follow the American curriculum. They are also aware that students transferring mid-year have less choice of classes than those who start in Aug/Sept. So I wold not stress out much about that. And your GC can certainly speak to it in the GC rec. The challenge for you is to do the best you can with the classes you have now.
Colleges will see that you transferred schools and it wont be penalized for limited course selections. I would also ask your guidance counselor to highlight in their letter of recommendation that your previous courses precluded you from taking more honors/AP.
There are tons and tons of schools where you could be competitive. Impossible to help you narrow down your list without more information - standardized test scores, financial constraints, intended major, what part of the country you want to live, large vs small school, university vs LAC, etc…
Thanks for answering. I really appreciate it and it helps a lot. For my senior year, should I opt for more AP classes or should I do dual credit? Plus, do colleges even care about the classes we take in our senior year?
Your chances of getting admitted to UTexas or Texas A&M, or to another Texas public university, may well depend little on whether you have AP, IB or honors classes, and a lot on your class rank and whether you will be considered a Texas resident when you graduate from a Texas high school.
In the 1990’s Texas passed a law for Texas residents, who attend and graduate from high school in Texas, that guarantees their admission to any Texas university if they are in the top 10% of their graduating class. It mattered not what your SAT or ACT test scores were or what level of courses you took, as long as you completed any required courses for admission. That rule has had a variation added for UTexas, which currently admits the top 6% rather than 10% under it, and the creation of different automatic admission rules by other Texas unverisities, e.g., Texas A&M automatically admits top 25% of their graduating class if they have certain minimum ACT or SAT scores. Go here to begin some research into the rules: http://brandcollegeconsulting.com/assured-and-automatic-admissions-at-texas-colleges/
The rules created determine admission but not necessarily into the major of your choice. As to who actually qualifies as a Texas resident attending high school in Texas so one can qualify under the rule is somewhat murky, and I am not personally up to date on all the possible Texas residency rules, and you will need to look into them further, but my understanding is that even some internationals can potentially qualify if they can establish acceptable residency by living in Texas and attending and graduating from high school, while being in Texas on some permemant basis or have applied for permanent residency.
The opposite issue is that if you do not qualify for automatic admission under one of the applicable rules created, then you may have quite a difficult time being admitted even if you have all those AP, IB or honors courses, because you will be competing with many for the small number of seats left over after automatic admission is determined.
As to where else you can go, you mention only your GPA, which is good, and which if coupled with decent ACT or SAT scores is likely to make you a good candidate for about 80% of the colleges in the nation.
Thanks for replying! I’m certainly sure that I’m a Texas resident and would qualify for the automatic admissions. However, my high school has around 1100-1200 juniors. It offers most of the AP classes and it also has an IB school separately. Plus, they use a weighted GPA so to be in the top 10% is quite a difficult task. I could possibly be accepted into A&M ( I hope so) but other than that I really can’t find any university that is moderately competitive and in which I could get accepted into. I’d really appreciate if you could recommend some universities. I currently took the PSAT and I’ll get the result in December so I can’t really predict how I’d do on the SAT. Again, thanks!