Gap year?

Applying to College
1

Our kid is working on the application and essays, and I have some pretty basic questions. My own background is from another country and school system, so I am of very little help.

How would a gap year impact the admission process? Can you apply a year later without a procedural penalty?

If you take courses at a community college, are you still a freshman applicant or would it be a “transfer”? Is it better to take or not to take community college classes?

One justification for a gap year would be our kid’s current class rank. After the junior year the kid is with a very small margin on the wrong side of the 25% threshold for an academic admit, so it would be a review. I am not sure how many seats there are left for review admits and the essays so far do not look too good. SAT score is good, around 1450. GPA is also decent, although number of AP classes hurts the unweighted GPA a bit. The kid didn’t game the system, and with hindsight, it would have been better to leave some of the harder courses for the senior year, and take the easy ones for a higher GPA and rank. Anyway, there is no special explanation or excuse for the current class rank. It is a pretty good high school and the other kids in the school just have higher GPA. Expectation is that the rank will improve during the senior year and the kid would be in the 1st quartile.

2

Yes, your son/daughter would have to be a transfer admit. TAMU specifically identifies a transfer admit as

I would not recommend your child take CC if they wish to apply as a freshman. If they do, that would mean that they would need all the required transfer credits before attending TAMU.

I honestly don’t really see a reason for gap year at all. 1450 is a decent SAT score for TAMU, even if it is a review admit.

Did your school already release the class rank for the first 6 semesters? For instance, my school releases the first 5 semesters at the end of the school year and only releases the 6th semester by the start of senior year.

3

Regarding academic admits - that only applies for freshman. To maintain freshman status you may NOT take college courses (community colleges count- as does anything that gets you college credit ) after HS graduation. One course will make him a transfer and you go to holistic review with minimum course requirements to complete elsewhere prior to applying. The transfer process is entirely different - no automatic admits, and for business they take a maximum of 100 with a minimum of specific courses taken ( roughly 2 years of credit) prior to being eligible to apply. Transfer students are not allowed to switch into Mays, you must be accepted into your major as a transfer (this was a loophole that was recently closed as it is tough to get into Mays as a transfer).

Delaying application without taking college credit is possible - then the freshman admit criteria still applies with the exception that the end of year rank counts and you must apply within a certain timeframe 5 years I believe. Your application process is exactly the same.

Another option is to apply now, see what happens. If you don’t like the outcome, reapply for the following semester or year. Review admits have about a 12% chance for full admission to CS campus. That being said, your son has a score that would put him in the good chance category & just missing the 25% cutoff is very common for some of the competitive big schools. Every year many of those students do gain admission. Don’t throw in the towel yet. He does have some time to get the essays done – the review admits aren’t in as big of a race as the automatic admits. Mays holds some spots for high scores applicants who are in review – he meets that criteria that was mentioned a few years back ( one of those little secrets!) that are for review admits only until they are completely full. One thing to consider, if he does get admission and Mays is full, you can go AG-business or Economics to start off and switch into Mays internally. Also Mays has courses for non-business majors so you can also go that route with a minor. Those who begin as freshman are eligible to internally transfer to Mays unlike the transfers who are not allowed to do that. If you decide to go down this path, you will see his rank after the 7th semester (whether or not he is in top 25%) and can decide which way to go forward with all options open. Remember, although it is tough to get in as a review - people DO get in. It isn’t just those with an ‘excuse’ for not being top 25% or not meeting the academic admit scores, the key for review is to remember that scores & rank count for half the decision - the rest is everything else that you submit to include recommendations & a resume (if you feel the EC need more explanation). Good luck!

4

@AGmomx2 - Are you sure about being able to transfer into Mays from another major? I thought they changed that recently and the only way to get into Mays is now limited to Freshman admission or 100 students who transfer in? I hope I am wrong. If so, pleeeeease someone correct me!

5

There is an internal transfer ( called change of major - even though you might be changing colleges within TAMU). It is competitive but separate from the external transfer group Here’s the link http://mays.tamu.edu/undergraduate-enrollment-plan-2016-2017/

6

Thank you all for the clarifications. Some basic questions still remain…

If a HS student applies to TAMU, ends up in a review (because not in the top 25%) and gets rejected, can he/she apply again the next year and become an academic admit, if he/she improves his/her rank during the senior year?

Is the case somehow different, if he/she is offered Blinn TEAM, or some other non-traditional option, and he/she rejects it? Can he/she still apply again a year later?

Quote from above:
“Yes, your son/daughter would have to be a transfer admit. TAMU specifically identifies a transfer admit as …are a student who earned college credit after high school graduation (during fall/spring semester)”

Does note about fall/spring semester mean that you could take summer courses (for example after the senior year and after a gap year) and still be eligible for academic admit?

I know that admissions office would be the right place to ask questions, but I think they are just now busy with a lot of other work, so I don’t want to disturb them too much.

7

That’s exactly what I did. I applied for fall 2017 and I was offered PSA since I was not in the top 10% before the application deadline. I improved my rank and made it to the top 10% but it was too late so I decided to take a year off. I applied for fall 2018 in October and I just got accepted today!

8

@MadMoose:
Your son has an impressive SAT score, it is far above what the “Academic Admit” top 25% are required. You don’t mention his desired Major. Personally, I would think that the least he would be offered would be one of the Blinn-TEAM options. I can’t imagine that they would reject him with that SAT and just being a tiny bit outside of 25%.

You seem to be worried about his essays. Have you thought about getting him some help? There are companies or possibly their English teacher who can give great feedback on essays. I’m not talking about having someone else do them, just help with clarifying what it is that he wants to say in his own voice. Neither of my Aggie daughters would let me read their essays but they did get feedback from peers and at least one essay was written in an English class so there was feedback from that English teacher. I realize that there isn’t a lot of time left, but it could be worth the effort.

If your son gets an offer of less than he wants from TAMU (PSA, etc) then first of all, APPEAL THE DECISION. I hadn’t heard of anyone doing that until last year, but now have heard of someone being admitted into Mays Business after appealing what I think was a PSA offer. (Her experience is on last years College Confidential). Appealing the decision cannot hurt and it might work. He can bring up anything that wasn’t covered in the original application, such as illnesses or other issues that affected his grades, etc. But if there are illnesses etc that you can mention in the initial application, do so now as those things obviously affect their class rank. ( My daughter had a concussion in 8th grade that affected her health and grades in 9th and 10th grades and ultimately her class rank (53%). She only mentioned the concussion, she did not go into detail. She was offered Blinn-TEAM but I wonder if she would have been offered Gateway if she had given more details. But she is happy with her current Blinn-TEAM experience).

If you live close enough, schedule an official visit before the application due date, preferably on a day with regular classes. Also schedule an appointment with an adviser in his major and ask for him to be able to sit in on a class. We did this for my youngest daughter and perhaps it was a factor in her getting offered Blinn-TEAM instead of PSA/rejected since her class rank was below 50% and her SAT below the academic admit level. At least it shows a high level of interest in TAMU.

If your son doesn’t get admitted to TAMU, have him talk with a TAMU admissions counselor asap. Get info on the appeal process. See if y’all can find out why he wasn’t admitted. Address those issues and bring up anything that can help his case. Ask them about the school’s opinion of a gap year. If he has a high number of AP classes which limits what he could take at Blinn, then don’t accept the AP credit. The students only have to accept their Dual Credit classes, not their AP classes., I found that out at my daughter’s New Student Conference in June.

If your son gets offered one of the Blinn-TEAM paths or Blinn-Engineering, then that is a great way to start an Aggie life! Living in CStat and going to the games and taking part in everything on campus and making Aggie friends is awesome.

I would be more worried about a child who takes a gap year and then gets comfortable with NOT being in college. I have had friends whose children started a job during or right out of HS, liked making (and spending!) their own money and never became a full time college student. Some have tried taking classes part-time, but that just takes so very long to get a degree.

If my daughter had been offered PSA or rejected, she probably would have enrolled in Blinn College and lived in a CStat apartment (the same place as she does now) so that she could make Aggie friends and enjoy as much of the Aggie experience as soon as possible.

I realize that a gap year is more popular in Europe and that students have a planned volunteer opportunity in a different country, etc. and then they start college the next year. Or they backpack/travel for a year. I would just be worried that they would continue to put college aside. Just my 2 cents.