Hello,
I got program for system admission from A&M recently. I applied early action.
Admittedly, my grades are not the best, but I took IB classes all through high school.
I got a 32 ACT and a 1370 SAT (out of 1600).
Everywhere I looked basically stated a 29 ACT was almost guaranteed admission.
I had good extracurricular and service hours.
Kind’ve dissapionted I practically got denied. I should’ve realized that test scores count so little in the college app.
Which A&M?
College station.
You mean Texas, rather than Alabama or Florida, right?
Like other Texas public universities, class rank is the most important factor in admission. What is your class rank?
Are you instate? What is your major?
I think it is more the congruence of test scores and rank that they look at honestly. Outside the top 10% where test scores don’t matter, except for engineering now, I think a low rank and high test scores don’t really look that good. You are either very smart but don’t apply yourself to school or you studied specifically or payed money to get tutored in how to score well on the college entrance exams. Not saying that is the case here but that may be how they look at it.
A&M does not offer early action for applicants except for College of Engineering. A 32 ACT or 1370 SAT would be academic admit if your subset scores were 620 Math and 660 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW) on the SAT or 27 Math and 27 English and you were in the top 25% of your class. I suspect your sub scores were not at the minimum and your rank was below 25%. Is this correct? Those are some really high scores for below the top quarter in your class, above academic admit levels, but not high enough sub scores.
If your rank was that low, then A&M will look at your rank and test scores, then determine a projected GPA you will likely attain at TAMU. They use algorithms to combine a student’s rank and test scores and it produces 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, so on and so forth. Once they see what a student’s projected A&M GPA is, they begin weighing all the other components.
So, based on the algorithms of your combined test scores and rank and determined GPA as an A&M student, you were not a fit for admissions to College Station and would need to prove yourself at a system school. If you complete the requirements at the system school they have assigned you, they you will be guaranteed admissions the following year.
I am curious as to what sites you were reading that said a 29 ACT was virtually a guarantee for admissions without regard to class rank (which is only 50% of the decision).
I think the test scores DO matter but only if they’re good. As a review admit they do look at holistically so GPA and essays count just as much as well as extracurricular activities.
GPA is not considered in the admissions process, other than to help establish a rank for non ranking schools.
From an Admissions person on TexAgs, from 2015.
There is absolutely no difference in the way the decisions are made for TEAM, Gateway or full admits. We use a holistic process for all of them. We look at class rank, test scores, extracurricular activities, essays, etc. TEAM and Gateway are just different forms of freshman admission.
The rank and test scores are viewed together and they make up around 50% of the decision. The essays, personal achievement, etc. make up the other 50%. For a student that comes from a non-ranking high school, we use their GPA in relation to their school’s grading scale to assign a quartile ranking. Other than that, GPA is not even considered in our process.
I am not really understanding that
If they help to make up part of the 50%, then aren’t they considered?
Rank is considered not GPA, unless the school doesn’t rank. In that case they’d use the GPA (and/or test scores from what I was told as a homeschooler) to assign you into a quartile.
So if I am 20.08% and my GPA is 3.89, would it help or hurt me if they don’t consider GPA?
B/c I feel that my class ranking is pretty low (though I have good test scores).
You’re in the top quarter no matter what your rank is.
I think the college websites need an update : top 25% and 32ACT = PSA… pretty sure the OP is correct, that is NOT the profile for TAMU on college admissions sites that list averages for admission. Keep in mind those are for all admits up to but not including PSA.
if you’re a review admit, it’s not just the test scores and GPA/rank they look at. you miss academic admit cutoff by 1 point, now it become holistic, so someone with 32 ACT in top 11% could potentially NOT get accepted if there were no extracurricular or the courses taken were not rigorous or the student took ACT 10 times or what have you. my silly son NEVER studied for ACT, even though I TOLD HIM TO!!! So even though he got 36 on science and English and 33 on reading, he got 26 on math!!! UGH!!! if he had 27 on math, he would have been an auto admit because his composite was 33. all he needed to do was STUDY just a wee bit and get 1-3 problems correctly and we didn’t have to lose sleep! Rant over. sorry. and we are homeschooled so no class rankings. we got top 25% automatically due to the test scores but that’s as good as they give to homeschoolers.
back to topic, so, @RMNiMiTz, I think it’s a good thing they don’t consider GPA solely. In this competitive field, 3.89 is not gonna be a stand out. you’re a junior, right? so you still have time to take ACT/SAT and score high enough to get auto admit. I’d go for that. Holistic review can be subjective.
Texas schools need to wake up. They are losing lots of great kids to OOS schools because they blindly follow class rank. DD was 26% at very hard HS with 4.7/5.0 GPA and 1520 (780 math) SAT. Good extracurriculars, including leadership with desire to major in Bio (not human). She and multiple other friends in the same boat received Blinn Team vs. full scholarship to several OOS schools. She was courted at those schools like a top athlete and made to feel welcome. Disappointed she won’t be close to home but so happy she’s going where she feels wanted.
Yea, I should know tomorrow. I got a 1460/1520 on the PSAT, so I hope I can get at least a 1420+ on the SAT.
I agree that Texas schools need to wake up. We were lucky, our daughter missed academic admit by 1 point on her ACT, putting her into review. She got Blinn Team and took it because A&M is the school she had wanted for the last four years. Tons of extras and a 4.6 weighted gpa and a 3.89 non. Top 11% of her class. Our son last year was a PSA, and after a lot of thought he decided on Arkansas. He got an out of state waiver for 80% of the out of state tuition and he loves it there. We found out that there is like a Texas colony there now because of the breaks they give to good out of state students. Tech, Houston, and UNT are all losing kids to OSU and Arkansas now and that is a shame.
Got my SAT score back today.
I qualify for Academic Admit (690/690, minimum is 620/660, and my GPA is 20.08%, so top quarter). However, I sadly scored a lot lower than I hoped and my chances appear extremely slim (I want to major in engineering).
I am going to try the ACT and the SAT once more in June.
I believe all engineering majors are review admits now. So, if you’re applying to engineering school, make sure you have good extracurricular, improve GPA, improve ACT/SAT. My son did great on PSAT (can’t remember what it was now but it was close to perfect) but didn’t do so well on SAT (600s. We expected high 700s). So he took ACT and got 36 on Science and English and 33 on Reading. Also apply early and go over your essays to make sure there are NO grammatical errors or awkward sentences. If you can take a part in a special activity over the summer that’ll help. Are you interested in the Corps? Going to Spend the Night/Day worth the Corps helps too if you are interested.