@joelatte good observation, you could be on to something there.
Thank you @52AG82 and @ChristiR93 for the response.
I’ll discuss with my son as well to see what he feels about the possibility of missing out on his first choice major.
I remember seeing somewhere on a&m website stats on students accepted into first choice major. Unable to find that information any more. If I remember correctly it was like 60% get into their first or second choice major - that seems risky to me 
1 Like
@Lahoreia there won’t be any stats for the incoming class, since gpa has been raised from 3.5 to 3.75. I believe the current % is 81% get their major choices, if not automatic. It’s on the TAMU Engineering website, if you search around enough, click links.
But again, the Class of ‘26 is the first class with the raised 3.75+ ETAM.
1 Like
@Lahoreia this is from 2020
1 Like
Back in post #2841 of the main 2026 thread, @OKCpatho had good input on ETAM.
2 Likes
Spring 2020 ETAM possibly skewed by Pass/Fail option (2020 spring semester) from COVID.
For Spring 2021 ETAM (source unknown but appears accurate):
Total number applied: 2535
Total auto admit (>= 3.5 gpa): 1475
Total entering holistic review: 1060
Holistic review admitted to first choice: 611
58% achieved >= 3.5 gpa (no info on >=3.75)
58% of holistic review achieved first choice
But range of acceptance from different majors for holistic is 100% to 6%
Of the 21 majors, 15 majors accepted greater than 80% of first choice holistic review candidates
1 Like
When we were there for Aggieland Saturday this past weekend, we spoke to a few of the students running the computer science and computer engineering tables. It was interesting that the computer engineering student said that the most competitive major to ETAM into is computer science and that if you don’t have the 3.75 GPA, you can pretty much forget about getting it. This was a student’s take and not faculty or administration but so far, from everything we’ve heard, computer science is consistently coming up as the top major of choice and hardest to get (he told us they raised the ETAM GPA threshold for this reason). I told my DS that he needs to work hard to meet that GPA but to keep his options open in case he doesn’t hit it. Computer engineering was supposed to be a nice mix between computer science and electrical engineering and has many areas of specialization like cybersecurity.
1 Like
For more information on the competitiveness of various majors in ETAM, start at post #172 of this thread: TAMU ETAM statistics - #172 by pbleigh
It looks like students who want computer science or computer engineering really should be aiming for the automatic admission college GPA of 3.75. Remember that 3.75 college GPA is typically more difficult to achieve than 3.75 high school GPA. It is also about the GPA that stressed-out pre-meds have to try for.
@UTmomOfAggies you are absolutely correct about a huge possibility those numbers are skewed by spring 2020 pass/fail…totally forgot about that! I thought that seemed awfully high…
It is certainly true that the pass/fails allowed for some required ETAM courses, skewed grades higher and made for many more auto admits then before. If you just take Computer Science CPSC and look how many they have accepted in recent years it shows the big bump in spring 2020 ETAM: 2018:205 students; 2019:275 students; 2020: 368; 2021: 351. It also shows that the similar Computer Engineering majors took a decrease in admits the 2020 Spring ETAM; which implies that students were selecting those majors if they could not get into CPSC, but that semester more were able to auto in CPSC so less took CEEN and CECN. Similarly BMEN took a big bump in Spring 2020: 2018:142, 2019:141, 2020:158, 2021:141.
2 Likes
@pbleigh great stats!
1 Like
The “numbers eligible “ for AERO, MEEN and CPSC compared to “number selected “ look very low, doesn’t make much sense.
1 Like
If anyone needs help interpreting the data, feel free to PM.
Instead of aiming for a major, a student accepting TAMU ETAM process should change the mindset of “deadset on a X major”. ETAM process is designed to let the student sees his or her own strength and interest on subjects.
@PlanoAggies here are the notes for the ETAM data,
- “Number Eligible” in the table means those selecting that major in ETAM application plus completing the ETAM classes.
- Automatic Entry “Number Selected”, those were the numbers that met the min GPA requirement (e.g. 3.75 in 2022)
- Spring data is always more than Fall data as Spring is major ETAM application (open in March 1st)
- How to tell a major is competitive? Look at the “Holistic Review 1st choice major” columns. If “Number Selected” is very low, that mean no holistic acceptance (must be auto aka min GPA requirement) For example, Spring 2020, BMEN and CECN has 0 selected in holistic, that means 100% selected must be auto. CPSC (computer science) is the next most competitive only 9 out of 121 accepted in holistic review. (highlighted below)
5 Likes
My youngest HS senior will be applying engineering this August. Although he is well within auto admit I think I need to start telling him not to fix on a major. UT is unpredictable as they send many top 1% to Liberal Arts.
Your notes answered all my questions, I guess Spring 22 ETAM data will be brutal on competitive majors.
2 Likes
Spring 2020 and Spring 2021 were still having GPA 3.5 for auto. And with near 0 holistic acceptance on BMEN/AERO/CPSC is the main reason why Spring 2022 (class of 2025) raised to 3.75. That way it will make the “holistic review” column look better with more acceptance on these competitive majors. So number wise it will be less “brutal”.
However, I think the real “brutal” part is what @OKCpatho referred last month, that easy class like CHEM107 saw 109 students Q-dropped last semester. TAMU indeed made the tests tougher (at the expense of taxpayers…) but having that polarized effect (with 700+ really top students still having 4.0) may not solve the issue (demand/supply on few hot majors). Ultimately, expanding AERO/BMEN/CPSC class size is the only solution.
4 Likes
I looked and the same semester in 2019 (pre-Covid) also had exactly 109 Q-drops. So the 2021 number is not all that notable. Also, chem 119 has a higher rate of Q-drops.