In-state petroleum engineering applicant
Senior
Class rank: 26.4%, 4.08 GPA but my school is very competitive
SAT: 1520 (760 English and 760 Math)
Extracurriculars: Football (Varsity), Basketball (JV), Track (JV), NHS
I have had all A’s throughout high school, but I lived in Canada for 9th grade and 10th grade so I didn’t take many AP/5-point classes. I moved to Texas right before my junior year.
What would y’all say are my chances of getting into A&M? (preferably straight to College Station)
SAT is great. Math score is great. What math are you taking right now?
The college will consider your math and physics readiness. You will get an offer of admisisons but where you start out could be the issue.
Know that applying for petroleum does not get you into petroluem. You will be placed in general engineering with all other freshmen. Then, depending on how well you do in the general engineering curriculum, you will go through an application process called Entry To A Major (ETAM) and depending on your overall GPA and your core engineering GPA, will you be accepted to a major. Many students get their first choice and again, many do not. As of 2016, 55% of those who began the engineering college graduated with an engineering degree. It. is. that. hard.
A&M is a top ranked engineering school and every top 20 engieneering school has either a general engineering freshman year where students must prove their capability for the degrees or those that admit directly to the major are highly selective to get into.
When I said it may depend on where you start out is because you are in the 2nd quartile. While your SAT is great, depending on how the other applicants stack up, even with great scores, sometimes the seats in College Station are filled by great scores/1st quarter students. But not always. There are some 2Q with great scores who get admissions to College Station campus.
Even if you apply by Oct 15, you could be deferred until January-March.
If you are not offered a seat in College Station, I would say you would be offered a seat at the branch campus in Galveston to complete your general engineering curriculum. A&M began the general engineering program there in fall 2016 as overflow when they ran out of seats on campus. The curriculum is the exact same as A&M and you go through the same process. It is much smaller classes too and many find it easier to connect. There are a few great threads about it on College Confidential.
We also saw last year that applicants were sometimes offered more than one option if they did not get full admit to CStat. In addition to Galveston, some got the option of doing Blinn Engineering Academy. This is taking some courses at Blinn Jr College and 1-2 class each semester at A&M and applying ETAM just the same. However, though you have until May 1 to accept a Blinn Engineering Academy offer, the spots are limited and when they fill up, they are gone. So, look up threads on this site about it and read up on it online. You need to know if you would take it or not by the time it is offered. Otherwise, if you wait too long, the spots will fill up.
I’m in AP Calculus BC, hopefully that will help my chances.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question thoroughly, I really appreciate it.
You have a decent chance, but engineering at A&M is ridiculously selective. Don’t put all your eggs in that basket.