<p>Hello, thanks for all who participate in these very helpful forums. I am a parent, my daughter was homeschooled through 10th grade. She is entering her senior year and it is her second year at the community college taking dual credit courses. She currently has a 3.8 gpa at the college, and is taking some honors courses. She will have 52 hours when she graduates high school in May.</p>
<p>She will take the ACT in September. Her practice ACT scores so far have put her around 25/26 composite, but her science has been 30/31. Nothing below a 23/24. She has ten years music/violin, performing with orchestras and with a for hire quartet. Four years of heavy participation musical theater (i.e. at least 20 hrs per week, more during show weeks). </p>
<p>That's it. Music and theater is about all she's done/had time for. She quit that when she started dual credit because of the course load and also she started working. Long story. Her dad left us, I had to go back to work, couldn't home school anymore, financial issues sent her to work. She pretty much had to give up her extracurriculars to focus on school and work. This year she will be in Phi Theta Kappa and involved in their volunteer community service and is planning to take a summer missions trip if we can raise the money.</p>
<p>With all that in mind... we have no idea what her chances are for getting into A&M or any other school for that matter. She doesn't have an impressive list of extracurriculars, just a couple of things she was heavily involved in. Obviously there is no class ranking. How does admissions look at someone like this? Is there anything we can do this late in the game to make her more attractive?</p>
<p>Thanks for any input or advice.</p>
<p>P.S. Edited to add: Major would be biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>One way to secure admission is to score 30 ACT Composite with 27 minimum in math and English:</p>
<p>[Office</a> of Admissions | Texas A&M University - Freshman | How to be Admitted](<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted]Office”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted)</p>
<p>Also have her take the SAT. Sometimes a student will score higher on one than the other. And call admissions. They may have some advice particular to home schoolers. There are some “umbrella” organizations out there, I think that make it so that you CAN have a class rank. It would be good if you could get her legitimately in the top quarter of some class. A lot of the homeschoolers here went to public school their senior year for that reason.</p>
<p>Home schoolers are typically placed under the Academic Admit category, [Office</a> of Admissions | Texas A&M University - Freshman | How to be Admitted](<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted#collapse-collapse2]Office”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/admitted#collapse-collapse2)</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses. She obviously doesn’t qualify for automatic admission (ACT of 30). She is not a good standardized test taker but she always performs well in her classes. I don’t think we can get her ACT that high in the needed timeframe. </p>
<p>If she stays at the community college a little longer, she will qualify for automatic admit for transfer students. We can try that. Or give up and apply elsewhere. It’s discouraging… I wish her community college performance weighed as heavily as an incoming freshman as it would weigh as a transfer student. </p>
<p>Thanks again, everyone!</p>
<p>By no means should she “give up”. She should definitely do her best and apply. What is her intended major?</p>
<p>Her stats and extra-curriculars are not “unimpressive”. She’s a great student who has had a lot of theater and musical experience. That’s really great.</p>
<p>OK, I see the biomedical engineering as the intended major now. I would go ahead and apply. If she really wants to go to TAMU, I think going one more semester if she winds up having to in order to transfer in is not that bad. </p>
<p>Congratulations on doing such a great job in home-schooling and good luck to your D!</p>
<p>We homeschool. Our eldest graduated homeschool and is now a senior at A&M. Homeschoolers are usually placed in top 25%. My son was an auto-admit on his SAT scores.</p>
<p>Not sure what city you are in, but visiting a Prospective Student Center ([Office</a> of Admissions | Texas A&M University - Prospective Student Centers](<a href=“http://admissions.tamu.edu/psc]Office”>http://admissions.tamu.edu/psc)) helped answer a lot of our questions. See if one is near you. They are very kind. They could tell you if it would be better to go the freshman or transfer route.</p>
<p>For extracurricular it is the total hours that really matter. Try to figure out how many hours she did each one for the four years she was in high school and make a list. That will look impressive on her transcript. You need to make your own transcript for her and sign it yourself. Here is a neat little website that generates one for you. It has room at the bottom to list her activities and how many hours she spent on them. Be sure to include her work hours, too.
[How</a> To Home School Today | Transcript Creator](<a href=“Oklahoma Homeschool - how to homeschool, homeschool curriculum, free forms, lesson plans, unit studies, oklahoma history, and The Checklist”>Oklahoma Homeschool - how to homeschool, homeschool curriculum, free forms, lesson plans, unit studies, oklahoma history, and The Checklist)</p>
<p>You might want to make one before you visit the Prospective Student Center so they can easily see all her accomplishments.</p>
<p>Put the courses she took at community college on there with (dual-credit) by them. Of course, you’ll also send an official transcript from the community college.</p>
<p>Good luck. Sounds like your daughter is a neat and interesting person.</p>