<p>I am an academic admit and I applied as a Mechanical Engineering major; I just submitted the entire applytexas applications with the 3 essays yesterday. All of documents have been sent/submitted except my hs transcript. I asked my GC when the earliest I could request a transcript to be sent, and she said early to mid-October because there are too many students too accommodate. I've been told that TAMU won't look at my application until all the documents have been received, so do I really have to wait like I am a September ACT/October SAT test-takers. Won't I be applying too late for such a competitive major?</p>
<p>Do you know who your a&m admissions councilor is??..for your high school? I would talk with him/her about the timeline a&m has given to your GCs. I understand the pressure the GCs are under, especially at the large high schools. They do have liaisons/councilors at the major universities and I feel certain they know how critical this is…</p>
<p>My children went to a very large high school. The updated transcripts at their school will be ready the end of next week. They understand that it is of the utmost importance for the seniors to have these ready to go. </p>
<p>Three years ago, the admission’s councilor at our school said to have everything in by mid October for a&m. But I think it is getting earlier and earlier…esp for engineering.</p>
<p>Sorry that is completely unacceptable for your guidance department to say. Are they going in alphabetical order with the transcripts or something? Why do you have to wait until October? Doesn’t that mean people are getting their stuff sent before you?</p>
<p>Don’t know much about the school you are applying to, but if it has rolling admissions then you should seriously push your guidance department. It does not matter what your major is in, but rolling admissions schools accept people as they receive the applications. So in any event, the later the school gets your transcript, the less chance you have of getting in only because the school has already filled up more of its freshmen class. Good luck with getting them to do what you want. I know it is not an easy thing to do.</p>
<p>I agree with Latin4Life, this is totally unacceptable. Most high schools send these transcripts electronically and it takes about 30 seconds. My son did his this summer and both were sent within an hour. I would visit with your principal if the GC is not going to help.</p>
<p>Have your parents contact the principal & raise high hell. This is seriously unacceptable & incompetent.</p>
<p>Second Franko’s post. Get your parents involved. Also, if you have a good relationship with your math teacher, tell your math teacher of your problem - he/she may be able to offer some support.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I took your advice and went straight to the principal. The principal said that all of the counselors are enrolling transfer students right now, but she will make sure that everyone’s senior transcripts will be ready by late September (not as early as I had hoped, but considering who my counselors are I am not complaining)</p>
<p>Put yourself in A&M’s shoes for a minute. The admission committee must look at thousands of applications, thousands of transcripts, thousands of essays of varying quality, etc. I wouldn’t want that task. (Being on a university committee of any type is thankless work on par with, say, cleaning bathrooms, changing diapers after midnight, etc. – I’ve done all the above and none are fun.) In addition, none of us wants the committee to make even 1 mistake. They must make numerous tough calls every year. </p>
<p>A more diplomatic answer from your GC would been something like, “While automatic admits often hear within 2-3 weeks of all the documents being processed (my older son did in a previous year), small delays can occur for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes, schools process the different majors in a rolling fashion and perhaps yours is toward the end of the list this year. As a result, you might not hear until well into October.” Of course, I wouldn’t want to be a GC either – the job often forces them to spend massive amounts of the time of the screw-up kids and thus little time on the students could make the job a joy.</p>
<p>I believe the AIS website indicates if everything is in and processed. If everything is in & processed, relax and smile. If not, just politely inquire that your school has sent in the transcripts (and any recommendations or supporting materials). If you’re an automatic admit, then, in time, everything will resolve itself and you’ll be admitted to a quality university with a top 20 engineering school. Again, smile. =)</p>
<p>FormerProf,</p>
<p>Not sure I follow your post. OP needed a high school transcript sent to TAMU. His/Her high school guidance counselor advised that could not/would not be accomplished until October. In other words, they would not SEND the transcript until October.</p>
<p>Everything is NOT in and processed. TAMU does not have OP’s high school transcript. Therefore, they don’t know OP’s rank. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the engineering department is filling up with auto-admits and academic admits which account for about 90% of that department. The engineering department is doing rolling admits until they get to a certain point, and then everyone after that is placed in a holistic review.</p>
<p>There IS actually cause for concern. The concern is that while OP is guaranteed a spot in TAMU, He/She is NOT guaranteed a spot in engineering. The delay on the part of the GC is creating a potential problem.</p>
<p>Hopefully late September will be early enough - but it’s incredibly crazy that the GC cannot just send it electronically since there is a serious time-sensitivity issue involved.</p>
<p>At our HS we request transcripts be sent via Naviance. They are normally sent the next day. I don’t know why it would take so long to send. It is something the GC does many times every year. It should be automated.</p>
<p>Call a school board representative, you should not have to wait one day for a transcript! Go in, request it (request 3 or 4 seal official transcripts), tell them you will wait, ask them to seal it and sign back of envelope, You will have extra ones for back up…make sure they give you one unsealed and check for mistakes. Take it to the closest FEDEX box and track your transcript. Once this is done, write a thank you note. They probably will regret treating you with such disregard. Remember it is YOUR future, do not let anyone else interfere with your dreams.</p>
<p>We did the same. Sent sealed transcripts and didn’t wait on the school GC. She sent them later - but we didn’t wait.</p>
<p>Just make sure it has your rank and any test scores on it.</p>
<p>Current rank is determined only after fall enrollment is complete and many students are still registering even a week or two after classes begin. That’s why it takes so long. Until the school or district compiles current rank for all seniors, even the parent won’t be able to obtain a transcript showing accurate rank.</p>
<p>It’s important to assert yourself to your counselor so he/she knows WHY yours should be towards the top of the stack for quick processing once rank is calculated.</p>
<p>The rank can be from the end of the junior year. There are a lot of kids also applying to service academies, ROTC, and other things that require transcripts with class rank over the summer months. At the end of his junior year my older son requested 8-10 sealed transcripts so that he would have them for applications over the summer. My younger son will do the same. There is no legitimate reason that I can think of that a transcript can not be supplied within a day or two.</p>
<p>Right. My daughter got transcripts during the summer after her junior year. She went to the administration building and requested them.</p>
<p>It seems like they should be able to print one with the rank at the end of junior year.</p>
<p>Cromette – Thanks for the clarification. I slightly misread the original post and was not aware that A&M would stuff the engineering department 90% full (on an expected basis) so early in the process and then resort to ‘holistic’ review. If this is the case, the OP has a serious gripe. All schools offer admission to many more students than they have room for and rely on historical enrollment percentages so as to not massively oversell a major. If A&M is indeed favoring early applicants in the normal admission cycle as you suggest, then it is highly improper on their part. They should not favor early applications outside of an explicitly stated, publicly announced early admission process.</p>
<p>If A&M is doing as you suggest, the OP will still get in as an auto admit, but perhaps not to the major of choice and that IS an issue. (Physics is an alternative to engineering. Majoring in physics can be better in many ways even though the physics program at A&M is not ranked as high as engineering. So, the OP’s particular situation is not dire.)</p>
<p>Our local schools use Naviance. My kid’s transcripts were sent within hours, if not minutes, of us paying the token $1 per transcript fee our school requires. There is no excuse in 2013 for any school to have material delays in sending out transcripts.</p>
<p>Physics can be an option. I know a young man that did not get into engineering last year due to being late in applying. He enrolled in physics and took most/all of his required freshman engineering classes and transfered to engineering this year.</p>
<p>From the website: [Office</a> of Admissions | Texas A&M University - Freshman | How to Apply](<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/apply]Office”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/apply), it shows they only accept transcripts sent electronically through TREx only.
“An official high school transcript with a numerical class rank and graduation plan. If your school does not rank, a school profile from the high school must be provided as part of the application file. Students who are still in high school (including home-schooled students) must submit a complete, official transcript through their junior year. Students who have graduated from high school (including home-schooled students) must submit an official transcript that also includes senior courses, a graduation plan and the date of graduation. To be considered official, a transcript must have an original signature of a school official or an original school seal. Faxed, scanned or e-mailed copies will not be accepted. Texas A&M will accept transcripts sent electronically through TREx only. Transcripts from any other vendor will not be accepted. To be eligible for automatic top 10% admission, a numerical class rank must be provided. Updated class ranks will not be considered after the December 1 deadline.”</p>
<p>Yea formerprof, TAMU, in general, does rolling admissions…so, that’s just sort of the way it winds up working out. Since they have so many applicants to engineering, it fills up REALLY quickly…and it makes sense that the auto-admits just get processed more rapidly. When you do campus visits or call engineering or admissions, they warn about this…especially in engineering. D3 was auto admit, and they STILL warned her to get her app in as early as possible. They encouraged us to print out the ApplyTexas App from the previous year, fill it in so the information would be handy, write all the essays in advance, so basically, when the app became available it would be a cut and paste. This was especially true in mechanical at the time. Now it’s all general until after the first year.</p>