@labegg did you guys happen to look at white creek?
Well that was fun. lol Son was able to get a 4/2 at White Creek with his 3 roomies so that worked out great. But for those still waiting… if you’re wanting modular, you’ll need to be solo. No open rooms at all. Just singles. White creek rooms are pretty open and with the community center it’ll be a great spot to live.
@AggieMomhelp We did not look at Whitecreek. DD matched up with a roomie whoes parents said no to WC. DD was a little disappointed but opted to stick with the roomie rather than go single. Glad it all worked out for your son!
My DS and his 3 roomies had their minds set on a quad/suite on Northside. Of course Hullabaloo was not an option, so they went with Keathley (Balcony). One friend’s mom and I tried and tried to convince them to pick 2 double rooms in the same modular but for some reason they insisted on a suite. We explained about the bigger size, newer rooms, more closet space, and only sharing a bath with one other person. By the time they considered that maybe it was a better choice, there were no more doubles mods left on Northside. The balcony halls remind me of cheap motels. Someone please tell me they are not that bad. The good news is that the boys seem fine with it. I am also trying to understand why a single person would select a quad room in Hullabaloo instead of a double. There were a couple of quads with only 3 beds left. Frustrating.
@labegg Nooooooo… :-t Honors only takes 2 of the 25 dorms (not to mention all of white creek) and honor students are required to live there - it is part of the whole program for the freshman who decide to be part of it. The dorm selection process may be annoying, but the honors program is pretty cool. :)>-
PSA - DS just set up an account on 12th man so he could buy his sports pass on 5/30. Once he set up the account and activated it, he was able to go ahead and purchase it! Done!
Thank you @S18D20mom ! We just ordered ours! My freshman is super excited about it!
@trish02 I simply meant that all that was left were rooms reserved for the Honors program or LLCs. You are right the Honors program is very cool, but not when you are not able to be a part of it! It sort of feels like…Mean Girls?! “You can’t sit here”.
Does anyone have any information on “room swap”? I noted that if you have a roommate (with a room-selection time that is later than yours), and you pulled them into your room, but then if you use room swap, it will move you but not them. Is there a work-around for this (so that you can stay together)?
@labegg - yeah, I know what you mean. The whole housing thing is pretty stressful, especially for those of us whose kids are doing it for the first time. I don’t think the honors housing is meant to be exclusionary, but rather a matter of logistics since the kids have to do different things together. I’m glad your daughter found a great dorm with her roommate!
Has anyone been to new student conference yet? We go Wed.
We’ll be there Weds, too! Check the facebook page “Texas A&M Class of 2022 Parents & Families” - there are a few posts about NSCs with good info.
Does anyone know if an incoming freshman, who is part of the University Honors program, can register for an Honors math class? (MATH 171 Honors)
@trish02 I would think so. My son registered for MATH 171 Honors (he is in departmental honors).
We just got back from our NSC, and it was a whirlwind of activity!
We did the pre-conference day. We arrived on campus around 9:30am and visited Student Health Services to see how it works when a student gets sick. They are located in the A.P. Beutel building. An office visit is $10 regardless if you have insurance or not, and they have a pharmacy in the building for prescriptions (they don’t take insurance, but we were told prescriptions are discounted or they will send it to a local pharmacy for you). They are open Mon-Fri, 8am to 5pm. There is a dial-a-nurse service for after hours, and on their front door is a list of urgent care clinics students can visit after hours.
We also did a 30 minute tour of the Commons and a typical dorm room. If students in the residence halls want to receive mail on campus, they will need to rent a PO Box from Student Mail Services. Here is a link with their info https://reslife.tamu.edu/living/amenities/mail/
We checked out the ATM machine in the Commons, and it doesn’t partner with TransFund, so we will have to figure out another banking solution. We were hoping to keep the account in our home city and just use the ATM card, but we may have to open an account in College Station. If anyone has banking advice, I’d appreciate it.
We found great campus maps at the information desk on the first floor of Rudder Tower. They may offer you the map in their magazine, but ask for just the map. They are compact, fold-out maps which helped us navigate around campus. We walked from the MSC to the dorm, on to the new Zachary engineering building, and a few other buildings we knew we were likely to have classes in. It really made the campus seem smaller and much more manageable by learning our way around a bit.
We visited the bookstore, but they had the textbook section closed so we couldn’t check out the books. From there we went to Kyle Field for the pre-conference check-in at 3:30pm. People started lining up about an hour early, and the first 8-10 people were in the shade but the rest of the line was in the sun, and it was hot! Once inside, you go up the escalator, and the students go to one side of the room while the parents go to the other side to check in. It was well organized, smooth, and fast. Then you go back to Rudder to get your student ID. If you ordered a sports pass, take your ID and go back to Kyle Field (entry 6, I think) to pick up your sports pass. There was no line for it while we were there.
By this time, it was around 5pm, and we were tired from walking around campus for 7 or so hours, so we skipped the evening social and went to eat and then back to our hotel. Since we were checked in, we didn’t have to report the first official day until 9:40am. I was worried we may have trouble parking since those who didn’t attend the pre-conference day had to arrive at 8am, but we had no trouble finding a spot in the Cain parking garage. The barcode on our parking pass wouldn’t scan, so we just typed in the last 6 digits followed by the pound sign each time, and that worked perfectly.
We did all the day 1 mandatory events, then left at 5:15pm. Engineering students had to report the next morning at 7:30am to the Rudder water fountain to be taken to the Math Placement Exam location, so we again skipped the optional evening activities. We had dinner and tried to get to bed somewhat early. They had not opened up new seats or class sections before we went to bed.
Day 2 was the engineering math placement exam, then a group advising slideshow presentation. Although the schedule said class registration started at 2:30pm, they had all the students report to their assigned registration room at 1:30pm. You will want to refer to your campus map to find the registration rooms. The kids are given the building and room number (and maybe a small map) but many of the buildings are far from Rudder and over by the new Zachary building. We didn’t have as much time as we thought we would have for lunch which meant little time to go over possible schedules again (new seats were opened in existing sections that morning).
I posted this on another thread, but it is worth repeating: if you’ve been admitted to an honors program, check your Howdy portal under “My Record” then in the center look for “Student Information” and click on it. There is a line for “Honors Cohort” that should indicate your honors program. If it says NA, you need to contact your honors program asap. There were a few honors kids at our NSC that didn’t have the honors designation in the system, and they couldn’t register until it was added. By the time it was added, some of the classes were already full, and they had to redo their entire planned schedule.
Make sure you have your CRNs written down and ready to go. Have a few backup CRNs in case your first choice is full. The kids who were prepared got out pretty quickly, but many students hadn’t looked up classes until they got there, and they were having a difficult time trying to figure it all out. My heart went out to them - it was hard on them and their parents who were waiting down the hall.
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who posted all the helpful tips and information - we felt as prepared as we could be. It was a long 3 days, but we feel part of the TAMU family now and can’t wait for this fall!
We opened an account at the Wells Fargo Bank in College Station and you can get cash from the ATM machines with the debit card. It worked out great last year. We could just go to the Wells Fargo in our town and put money in for our daughter.
Thank you for the response, @lalalouie . Unfortunately, we happen to live in one of the handful of states that doesn’t have a Wells Fargo bank, so I’m still debating what to do. I’d like to be able to add money to the account from home, as you suggested, and avoid ATM withdrawal fees. Our credit union does partner with Greater Texas FCU, and there is one near campus, so that may be an option.
I am not real familiar with everything yet as my son is an incoming freshman, but what about Chase Bank?
https://msc.ucenter.tamu.edu/general-information/chase-bank/
@chercheur If it helps, we went a different route to fund my son at A&M. Instead of a bank account he kept his savings account at our local bank; but we opened a secured credit card at that bank. The secured card credit limit is secured by the same amount of money in his savings account so he cannot withdraw that portion of his funds. This way he could have his own credit card, build credit, and not have a job yet. He put my name on as someone who could manage his account at the bank and I pay his bill every month.
Disregard my previous post about Chase bank, sounds like the one on campus is closed although there are branches not far from campus.