Daughter is super excited about admission to TAMU College Station Engineering.
As parent, my concern is that she is single-mindedly interested in Biomedical Engineering, and it sounds like the first year will be brutal with no guarantee that she ultimately gets into her major.
She has other school options on the table that would assure her of Biomedical Engineering, yet is heavily leaning toward Texas A&M, but she is also asking me for my honest opinions. How have other parents navigated this sort of scenario? My gut says she will do well year 1 due to her high school stats and work ethic, but I really don’t want to just standby and watch knowing there is a decent shot that ‘great’ may no be good enough to get into the program… also don’t want to be a dream killer if that makes sense.
She changed majors, went through the engineering review process, and got in just as the program was filling up. She actually swapped into engineering with a few schools in the last week or so. It’s been interesting here
If she’s good at math, she’ll be fine first year for ETaM. The engineering courses are generalized and touch on all areas of engineering. The 3.75 requirements for guaranteed is to open it up more for holistic reviews to get what you want. She will do great but like life, you have to do your best, whatever that looks like.
I tell parents this… Try not to let your fear of them not succeeding stand in the way of them succeeding.
Doesn’t sound like you’re doing this!! Yay
My advice… you know what needs to be done. Go do it and have fun. When 80% plus get their top choice major, you have to believe you’re more than capable of doing the same.
Also… that first year opens their eyes to all possibilities. Many go into engineering with a set goal, but end up switching to a different Eng focus. To me, Tamu does this right!! It’s like med school. It’s all general. Then you do your internship to see where you fit. It’s not guaranteed.
This is super-helpful! We’ve been traveling one road for a while now, and then about two weeks ago I became dad of an engineering applicant. So I’m playing catch up on thought processes. I’m seeing now that the previous (Statistics) route was all about her playing ‘safe’ (she is a math whiz) but fortunately she came to terms with her true interests (and fears holding her back) before the admit cycles were completely over.
@joelatte big change!! Be sure to join this FB page, it’ll be overwhelming (at times) but a really great resource for all things Aggie Engineering! (Answer all the questions to join).
DS and I were having the same thoughts a few years back. I am a careful person so encouraged him to play it safe, to set himself up for a positive ETAM.
This meant only taking 12-13 credits per semester and not accepting any AP credit (physics). Our HS is not super competitive but he did take AP calc AB, three years of physics, two years of chemistry, four years comp sci. I am telling you his HS classes so you can see his background. Well, it was a fairly easy 4.0 with lots of review. So if your daughter has a strong background in calc, chem, and comp sci, it will be a breeze. As a BMEN, she will take 2 semesters chemistry, whereas my son took 1 semester chem and 1 semester physics.
I dont know how prepared others are. They might come in lacking in one area (especially programming!) and work hard to get that 3.75. Its good for them to realize there is a very big difference between getting an 89 vs a 90 as a final grade. Hope this helped
ETA Sorry, it looks like she will take physics 2nd semester.
Thanks for all this detail. She has quite a few AP credits in the ‘core courses’ (even if she ignores math and science AP credits). I’ll counsel her to go the 12-13 credit route 1st year. Great perspective.
@joelatte make sure she does NOT accept any AP credit until meeting with advisor at NSC. AP can be accepted anytime, and she definitely wants to hold on to them, use as needed when she decides to.
DC applies automatically.
Very informative thread. We are going through a similar discussion at home - son applied Comp Sci as first choice major, offered admission into Galveston campus. We did not realize ETAM process till the admission is offered. He is very excited about A&M but, may be I am a little nervous knowing that he has option at UTD and UH honors - both comp sci. I know that he will be devastated if he does not get into CS major
During holistic review, does it help if you originally had applied to the same major initially? Should he plan a for an internship or extra work to showcase his desire to excel in this field?
I’m not sure what all to say, but I can say we are in the same proverbial boat. Our son is dead set on Computer Engineering and has been guaranteed his major at other universities (dream, target and safety) and honors at one target. Experiencing a rigorous high school curriculum will benefit him in acclimating to A&M.
We think ETAM is going to be stressful, but we hope that touring Zachry impressed him enough to outweigh the uncertainty. We advised him there are a couple other Engineering majors that will get him to where he wants to be, which might be different than your daughter’s situation.
@Lahoreia The new ETAM for Class of ‘26 is 3.75+ to be guaranteed your 1st choice major. CompSci is very popular, competitive and will require the 3.75+ - 4.0,
Every incoming freshman enters as General Engineering. It doesn’t matter what you listed when you applied, a summer internship won’t make a difference. It’s all about the 3.75+ - 4.0.
My Aggie’s best friends from high school chose to attend UT, Tech and Michigan for Engineering (all in honors). They only wanted Petroleum and Chemical, and didn’t want to mess with ETAM.
What kind of math & science background does he have? If very rigorous, high level math classes, and he’s done well, he should be okay.
I would still definitely weigh the options of guaranteed CompSci programs at the other schools, especially honors, if CompSci is the only major he wants.
I don’t know much about ETAM except I know the guarantee, etc. BUT if they go into a holistic process, wouldn’t having that internship weigh in for that review? Or other ECs/jobs as well???
So you’re saying for compsci, only guaranteed admissions get this major?
Also wondering how different compsci is to a BA in computing (which doesn’t go through ETAM). I’m obviously not a techy person, lol, but wondering if it’s a comparable enough degree just in case compsci engineering doesn’t work out.
Just to catch everyone up (as OP), we just got back from visiting and our daughter has committed to TAMU!
Best thing we did was wander around unrushed through the Zachry building and the Commons on our own (she is interested in Engineering LLC). Structured tours are fine, but we’ve found there is no substitute for just blending in and catching the overall feel of student life when visiting a school.
I can’t say for certain, since I’m a Mays Mom, but from everything I’ve read and heard, to get CompSci, Aerospace and at least 1 other (maybe BioMedical?), you’ve got to have the gpa for guaranteed. Will be interesting to see what happens with this incoming class, now that gpa has been raised.
One thing I’ve picked up is that this is the fist year that the ETAM threshold is being raised from 3.50 to 3.75. Specifically because some majors like Comp Sci were shutting out holistic candidates at the lower (3.5) threshold for auto-admit.
So my hunch is that, with that significantly raised threshold for auto-admit, there will be holistic review admits in Comp Sci in future admit cycles. In which case, a compelling internship + making the effort to get to know professors freshman year, could be the difference maker.
We toured Galveston last summer and they told us that there would be a new 4 Year computer science degree there. I didn’t know as much then so I didn’t ask about ETAM But I wonder if computer science in Galveston will be separate from that…
