TAMU Blinn-TEAM : Fall 2017 parent perspective

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
1

Hi Y’all:

Good luck to everyone who is still waiting on a decision from TAMU! I hope that you are all offered full admission, but just in case some of you or your Seniors are offered Blinn-TEAM, I thought that you might be interested in the experience that our family has had for the Fall Semester 2017. Pardon the length, I didn’t know what info to leave out!

Last year, we were in your place, still waiting for a decision from TAMU for our youngest daughter. I didn’t know much about TAMU Blinn-TEAM at that time but people on the College Confidential board answered some of my questions and I thought that perhaps I could help people who are in the same place this year. Here is some info on our experience with a daughter who is a Freshman on Blinn-TEAM for the Fall Semester of 2017. Please feel free to ask questions.

Background on my daughter:

Unweighted gpa: 3.5 (I can’t remember her weighted gpa, she had several pre-AP, one AP and one Dual Credit English class). This is a very competitive neighborhood school in a suburb of a major TX city. She did not use the AP class credit but did use the Dual Credit class as that must be accepted.

Class Rank: 53% (This school regularly has 30 to 40+ NMSF each year, at least half or more for the entire school district. This is a neighborhood zoned school in the suburbs of a major TX city, not an application only HS, and is the top HS in this area. Most of the Top 10% go to Ivy league schools. There are usually around 600 students in the Senior class.)

SAT: 1250 (670 E, 580 Math)

ACT: 27

(These scores are right at the average for her HS and for TAMU Freshman. My daughter did not take any test prep classes. She took each test twice, there was very little difference in the scores.)

Extra Curricular activities: 1 year JV and 3 years on a Varsity team, plus a competitive team outside of school in her Senior year, no leadership positions. Almost no volunteering due to her EC schedule, and no other school groups. No volunteering and no mission trips in the Summer due to health issues, surgery, sister’s wedding and the competitive team schedule. She was eligible for NHS but did not join due to concern over fulfilling the mandatory volunteer hours during the school year.

She wrote 3 essays, I didn’t read them but her sister, TAMU Class of '16 did and said that they were well written.

Two Letters of Recommendation, one from her 11th grade AP English III teacher (a Longhorn) and one from her Chemistry teacher, (an Aggie). She excelled in both of those classes and those teachers really liked her.

She also touched briefly on a health issue that affected her during the first 2 years of High School. She suffered a Level 2 concussion during the 8th grade, missed 2 months of school and finished that year with special accommodations. The sleep needs and difficulty focusing affected her grades for at least 9th and 10th grades. She had one C Semester grade in each of those years in a Pre-AP Science or Math class, otherwise, she had As and Bs… I think that the concussion also affected her Math scores on the SAT and ACT. She had been a Duke TIPS student and an above average Math student before the concussion.

After realizing that her class rank would be below 50%, I thought that a full admit spot was probably out of her reach, so I had hoped for a Gateway spot because of her health issues/concussion. We didn’t know much about either the Gateway or Blinn-TEAM option at that time.

She turned in her application on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, 2016 and received her offer of TAMU Blinn-TEAM on February 14, 2017.

Her initial response to the Blinn-TEAM offer was disappointment, mainly because her sister was a full admit after review in Fall of 2012. But her sister didn’t tease her, thank goodness! Her sister was just out of the top 25% and her SAT/ACT scores were either at or closer to the Academic Admit scores for Fall 2012. Plus there were about 10,000 fewer applications for that year.

Then my daughter realized that Blinn-TEAM was a pretty good option as she could be an Aggie in Aggieland! We don’t know anyone from her school who also accepted a Blinn-TEAM offer, it is a big school, there are probably others. Some of her friends received PSA offers, some of those plan to transfer to TAMU eventually.

As a Blinn-TEAM student, my daughter can:

  1. Blinn-TEAM students have a TAMU ID, they can purchase a Sports Pass, live on campus (if they choose), have a meal plan, join fun activity groups, and participate fully in everything except that they just can’t play a sport for TAMU. They take classes on both the TAMU and Blinn campuses. And the hours at Blinn are cheaper!

Full admissions is still best, “Plan A”, but we view TAMU Blinn-TEAM as Plan A- because those students still get to experience all the best of being an Aggie while living in Aggieland! A minor “downside” is probably earning her class ring as a Senior instead of earlier.

During her New Student Conference, (which has to be a session which includes Blinn-TEAM), she set up a schedule which allowed her to have her 3 Blinn classes (9 hours) on Tuesday and Thursday and her 2 TAMU classes (4 hours) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This was preferable to trying to take classes on both campuses on the same day. She rode the bus from the TAMU campus to and from the Blinn campus, evidently parking is very difficult at Blinn. She uses the time between classes to study. Most of her classes are small, only one of her classes at Blinn was a large lecture class. She earned As and Bs during her first semester so we are very happy with her grades! In her 2 TAMU campus classes, she was the only Freshman in the class, so we are even more proud of those As! One was a writing class and she said that the prof told her that she wrote very well. :slight_smile:

  1. Going Greek: Blinn-TEAM students can go Greek! :slight_smile:
    My daughter was worried that being on Blinn-TEAM would count against her when going through the recruitment process to join a sorority. In 2012, the Blinn-TEAM students could not go through Greek recruitment, (my older daughter’s Blinn-TEAM roommate could not go through recruitment in 2012), but in 2017, they can. :slight_smile: My daughter went through recruitment and was thrilled when she was accepted into her first choice house, as a legacy in the same fantastic sorority house as her older sister! She said that “no one cares” if she was on Blinn-TEAM. many of the girls in her recruitment class were Blinn-TEAM as well as many of the girls already in the sororities. Going Greek also has the benefit of another “gpa requirement”, so that it gives them the incentive to study together and tutor each other.

  2. Housing: Blinn-TEAM students can live on campus if they want to.
    My daughter did not want to live on campus, she is a picky eater and wanted a full kitchen. But anyone who wants to live on campus can do so, just sign up for housing asap!

  3. Meal Plans: Blinn-TEAM students can purchase meal plans.
    If a student lives on campus, I think that they are required to purchase a meal plan. Since my daughter lives off campus, a meal plan is not required, but we purchased a small amount of Dining Dollars for the Fall 2017 Semester just to give her the option of eating on campus. For the Spring Semester, we will purchase a plan with a small amount of meal trades plus dining dollars as she has found that Sbisa has food that she will eat! LOL!

Part 2 posted next, this post is TOO LONG!! LOL!! :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

Having a problem copying and pasting my Part 2 of this post. Will try again tomorrow.

3

Thanks for all this helpful info.! :slight_smile:

4

This will be very helpful @AggieMomAgain I am hoping (and I’ve pm’d them) that folks whose student were Engineering Academy at Blinn and Engineering at Galveston will pop back on and share their experiences, as the decisions come out this month (hopefully). I am going to bookmark this thread for the next cycle (but I hope you will come back).

5

Part 2, Freshman Fall 2017 Blinn-TEAM:
(The problem with the delay in posting this info was that I had included links to the Blinn-TEAM page and a link to the TAMU Counselors update on the breakdown of applications for Fall 2017. I removed the links, if you can’t find that info online, Private Message me and I’ll share those links).

My daughter originally planned to apply to transfer to TAMU full time after only one year on Blinn-TEAM, but now she plans to stay on for the full 2 years while she decides on her major. She really loves writing and any class which involves a lot of writing, and thought that she wanted to be an English major, but she doesn’t want to teach. She is now considering other majors and will probably take an extensive aptitude test this Summer and is looking for companies to either intern with or shadow to acquire more info in areas of interest. She is also thinking of staying to work on a Master’s Degree.

She will probably earn a degree in one of the Majors in the College of Liberal Arts so I do not have any knowledge of the various pathways for Business School the other Colleges. But the Blinn-TEAM page on the TAMU website has those pathways details.

My daughter is SO HAPPY TO BE AN AGGIE!! She can’t imagine going anywhere else! :slight_smile: She is loving “living the Aggie life in CStat” and looking forward to earning her degree in 2021. We didn’t want her to “want to be an Aggie just because her sister was an Aggie”, we wanted her to go where she fit in best, and that turned out to be TAMU. We had her take an official visit during a regular class day early in her HS Senior year and that visit was what confirmed for her that she she would fit in at TAMU. Then it was a LONG wait until mid-Feb for her Blinn-TEAM offer!

She also joined a fun group on campus and has made great friends there and within her sorority and in her classes. As well as going through Greek recruitment and participating in Songfest, attending football games and other social activities, the fun campus activity group also required extra participation time each week. I am so proud of how well she managed her time and that she had a great social life and still earned As and Bs. She says that her HS rigor prepared her well for TAMU.

For our daughter, Blinn-TEAM was a great option as it allows her to be an Aggie in Aggieland beginning as a first Semester Freshman rather than going somewhere else and then transferring later. She did not want to go out of state because of the extra time and expense of traveling or go as far away from home as TX Tech in Lubbock or stay “too close to home”. TAMU is the most “school spirited” of the schools on her list and she really enjoys being an Aggie. A TAMU diploma is very valuable in the state of TX and the Aggie Network is powerful.

Of the 42,000 applications for TAMU Freshman Fall 2017, about 27,000 were reviewed. Of those reviewed applications, only 3,800 were offered full admission. And there were only 2,400 reviewed applicants who were offered Blinn-TEAM. As one of the Blinn-TEAM advisors said, they have to accept all of the top 10%, no matter their scores or how well prepared those students are for the rigor of TAMU, but they really WANT the students that are offered Blinn-TEAM as they expect that those students will thrive. It is simply a space issue, there is just not enough room for everyone who wants to be an Aggie.

(Find the full breakdown of this info for Fall 2017 online at the TAMU Counselor Update Spring)

Of the 2,400 spots offered, there were only about 1,050 Blinn-TEAM students who enrolled for Fall 2017. Less than half of the students who were offered Blinn-TEAM accepted that offer and so the others missed out on the chance to be an Aggie in CStat.

Our daughter would have appealed if she had received any offer other than full admission, Gateway or Blinn-TEAM as she really wanted to be an Aggie in Aggieland.

It will be very interesting to see what the numbers are for the Class of 2022. The numbers increase so much each year, I can’t imagine what the process will be for my future grandchildren! Please feel free to ask any questions on this thread or Private Message me.

With the delay because of Harvey, I would expect that Blinn-TEAM offers could start coming out even later than mid-February of this year. I know that the wait is hard, but try not to stress. Try to enjoy the Senior year, go to games and Fine Arts programs, etc. and enjoy all that your HS has to offer.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE! May everyone who wants to be an Aggie, actually get to be an Aggie!

WHOOP! :slight_smile:

6

@AggieMomAgain Hello, Do you know whether they offer the same amount of financial aid whether you receive full admission or Blinn TEAM? I know that Blinn costs less, I just wasn’t sure whether they offered less aid because of this.

7

Sorry, I do not know anything about financial aid for Blinn-TEAM versus full TAMU admission. We paid into the TX Guaranteed Tuition fund for our daughters and did not file financial aid forms for either of our girls. You could check the Blinn-TEAM website and email your questions to them. Good luck!

8

Ok, thank you :slight_smile:

9

@jrs4518 it is my understanding that financial aid is handled by both schools. So you would need to apply at Blinn and A&M. You can find this information on the blinn team web page.

10

@AggieMomAgain So glad it worked out for your daughter. My daughter went thru the process last year as well. She received the Blinn Team offer, but in the end decided to decline it. I think a little bit of it was ego of not getting a full acceptance while she was financially wanted at 2 other universities. She ended up going to Colorado State because she wanted to stay at the school that she saw for a future (for her it was vet school). Since then, she has changed her major and is now looking to transfer to a college that has Integrative Biology (and a little closer to home)…which she would have had to do it anyway if she had gone to Blinn (College Station does not have that subset of biology). She was a little surprised that she had not been admitted (3.94 GPA, 1360 SAT, 29 ACT, with lots of EC and recommendations), but I believe there is a plan for everyone, it just might be hidden for awhile. So glad your daughter has found a home at college and I wish her continued success!

11

@tigger68 : Isn’t it great that there are so many options out there now? I wish only the best for your daughter as she plans her college carreer.

TAMU (or TAMU-Blinn Team might not appeal to everyone, being an Aggie is a different culture!

Good luck to your daughter in Integrated Biology! I had to look up what that entailed and I’m still not sure how it differs from my Biology BS from the mid 80’s :slight_smile: But there are so many facets to the study of Life, I hope that she finds her niche.

Back in the “dark ages” when I was in school (OOS, not in TX and not in my home state either) we could take either a Zoo or Bot version of many upper level classes. I would not have known where my heart lay had I not been required to take both versions of the lower level classes. I didn’t buy the text book for the class, I just borrowed it, but it was a fantastic class, fantastic text book, and a fantastic prof. I found where I could excel almost effortlessly, and wow, was I hooked! May your daughter find her niche.

12

Howdy!

I see that several people have posted the other schools that the or their child has heard from while they are still waiting for TAMU. It is quite common for an applicant to hear back from all other schools well before they hear from TAMU (or UT), so I thought I’d add in the other schools where my (holistic review) daughters applied.

Oldest daughter for Fall 2012: She also applied to TX Tech, SMU and Baylor and TAMU. She heard back from the first 3 shortly after her application was complete in Oct. 2011, and I believe she was offered merit money at all of them. TAMU offer of full admit arrived mid-Feb. 2012.

Of the 20+ teammates of my older daughter, only one other girl was offered full admit to TAMU and one started at Blinn College and transferred to TAMU later, I don’t think anyone else ended up at TAMU. None of her teammates were initially offered UT but some may have transferred in later. I know that several went to TX Tech and UT and at least a couple went OOS.

Youngest daughter for Fall 2017: She also applied to TX Tech, University of North Texas, UT-Dallas, U of Houston, TAMU and UT-Austin. She heard back from the first 4 schools almost immediately after she applied in late Nov. 2016 and was offered merit money from some (if not all) of them, can’t remember which ones. She heard back from TAMU with an offer of Blinn-TEAM on Feb. 14 and in the same week was notified of CAP from UT.

Of the nearly 20 Seniors on the younger daughter’s team, TAMU and UT were the last schools to notify them. Only one girl was offered full admissions at UT, this girl was at least in the Top 10% if not higher. But that girl’s first choice was Brown and she didn’t get in there! All of the other Senior teammates (there were several) who applied to UT, including at least another (with a leadership role) who was in the Top 10%, were offered CAP. I am not sure how many applied to TAMU but only one teammate (with leadership role) was offered full admit to TAMU, but her first choice was UT. Another teammate (with leadership role and Aggie parents plus other Aggie family members) was denied admissions to TAMU. She is attending Blinn College with the plan to transfer in her Junior year. My daughter was the only one offered Blinn-TEAM. Several of her teammates are now at OOS schools because they didn’t get into TAMU or UT. Several are at various TX schools planning to transfer to either UT or TAMU later.

Hang in there! I know that the wait is hard but the opportunity to be an Aggie in Aggieland is worth the wait! And if you don’t get the offer that you want, appeal the decision. It can’t hurt and it might work. Or transfer in later, a lot of people do that. If you want to be an Aggie, make it happen, don’t let anyone keep you from your goal even if you have to carve your own path. :slight_smile:

13

Howdy! Congratulations to everyone who has a Blinn-TEAM offer for Fall 2018! It is great way to be an Aggie in Aggieland!

I saw that someone wanted to know if Blinn-TEAMers receive an “I’M GOING TO BE AN AGGIE” banner. YES!! Blinn-TEAMers get the banner! Last year we were so excited to take a photo of my daughter with her banner!! I showed it to everyone! :slight_smile:

And there have been questions about financial aid. PLEASE check the websites and speak with a financial aid counselor if at all possible before you turn down a Blinn-TEAM offer because you are concerned about financial aid.

We have Texas Guaranteed Tution accounts for our daughters so I am not familiar with the financial aid process. But we are paying cash for our current Blinn-TEAM daughter’s classes on the Blinn campus as those hours are much cheaper and she is saving the TGT money for a Masters degree later.

WHOOP! :slight_smile:

14

(This post is copied from the TAMU Holistic Review thread just so I can also keep my info together in one place).

To everyone who is getting a TAMU Blinn-TEAM offer today (Feb 7, 2018): CONGRATULATIONS!!! You will be an Aggie in Aggieland! Whoop! :slight_smile:

And YES, you will receive the “I’M GOING TO BE AN AGGIE” banner in the mail!! We were so excited to take my daughter’s picture with her banner, I showed it to EVERYONE!!

During my current Freshman Blinn-TEAM daughter’s NSC last year, the advisors stressed that the students who were offered BLINN-TEAM were VERY wanted. These students have the scores, rigor of classes and time management skills gained through busy Extra Curricular activities that will give them the skills to THRIVE at TAMU. There just simply is not enough room, there are just not enough seats on the main campus for all of the Freshman applicants

Think about it, there were 42,000 applications for Fall 2017, and probably many thousands more this year. The campus can’t hold that many people! College Station can’t sustain that number of students!! The TAMU student population would be nearly 200,000 or maybe more, if they had let in everyone who applied in the past several years!! Impossible.

It is sad that a state the size of TX has only 2 world class flagship Universities. And a huge proportion of the Freshman seats are reserved for the Top 10% by TX state law, leaving only a very few thousand seats for the review applicants.

If you want to be an Aggie, Blinn-TEAM is a great way to start out. THE ONLY THING THAT YOU CAN NOT DO IS PLAY AN NCAA SPORT FOR TAMU. Otherwise, you are an Aggie!!

Even full TAMU admits take classes at Blinn: some Science majors take languages/history/English and non-science majors take Math/Science. Sometimes this is because of scheduling, sometimes it is for financial reasons as hours at Blinn are cheaper. The buses run between the TAMU campus and Blinn Campus in Bryan several times an hour, the campuses are less than 5 miles apart. And quite often the Blinn campus classes are much smaller than the classes on the TAMU campus. Win win!

The only people who regard Blinn-TEAM as “less than” are people who are not in College Station. In CStat, NO ONE CARES if you are on Blinn TEAM, or just take a few classes at Blinn or just attend classes only at Blinn. Trust me, if you accept the Blinn-TEAM offer, by this time next year, you will look back and wonder why you ever considered not accepting the offer!

CStat is the friendliest place that I have ever visited and I am so happy that one daughter is an Aggie '16 and the other is currently a TAMU Blinn-TEAM Aggie '21. They have or are earning a world class education while making life long friends.

And TAMU is a REALLY BIG place, so you really need to find a small group to belong to. Do this as soon as possible. Go to FISH Camp, you might make good friends there. My daughter is still friends with a girl who was in her FISH camp and became a Sorority sister! Go Greek if that is something that appeals to you, recruitment is the week before school starts. Join a Freshman Focus group or another focus group, or a fun activity, They even have a QUIDDITCH Team!! Just join a group.

There is info on the TAMU Blinn-TEAM website on the pathways for majors from Blinn-TEAM. Fulfill the requirements and you are in your major. And there is always the possibility that the major you chose as a 17 or 18 year old will not be the one that you graduate with, mainly because you will be exposed to other ideas once you are in college and may find something else that clicks with your particular set of interests and skills.

Someone asked for the number of Blinn-TEAM offers for previous years:

For Fall 2017, there were 42,000 plus applications and there were 27,000 holistically reviewed applications. There were 3,800 students who were offered full admission after holistic review. There were 2,400 students who were offered Blinn-TEAM after holistic review. Of those who were offered Blinn-TEAM, only about 1,050 students accepted the offer and are now enjoying being Aggies in Aggieland! We were given that info during our daughter’s NSC in June

There were 530 students who were offered Gateway in 2017, no info how many fulfilled the requirements and became full admits in the Fall 2017.

The entire breakdown for the 42,000 applications can be found on the TAMU website under 2017 Counselor Connection Update Spring.

And I finally came across my daughter’s transcript on my (overflowing) desk! Her weighted gpa was 4.7308. I did not include that gpa in the info at the beginning of this thread as I couldn’t find it at that time. Her unweighted gpa was 3.5.

And if anyone on this thread gets denied, don’t let it stop you from being an Aggie if that is where your heart is set. Appeal the decision. Or start out a Blinn College or somewhere else and transfer in as soon as you can. Follow all of the guidelines for transferring. Carve your own path, don’t let anyone keep you from your goal.

15

Congratulations to everyone who has received a Blinn TEAM offer! You are an AGGIE!! Please read all of this thread as I have detailed lot of the experience of our family. WHOOP!

People have asked if you have to stay on Blinn TEAM for 2 years. No you do not. My daughter has chosen to stay on for 2 years but many switch to full TAMU after one year. Check out the info on the Blinn TEAM website. Contact the advisors for more info.

I know someone who had a lot of AP and Dual Credit classes who was on Blinn Team for one year and then graduated from TAMU just 2 years later, for a degree in only 3 years in college! She also took online and Summer courses.

16

@AggieMomAgain Thank you so much for all of this information, it has been very helpful. My Howdy updated to TEAM, BAC-TEAM last night and I got 6 tabs this morning on Howdy.

As a Blinn-teamer is it appropriate to announce that you were accepted to Texas A&M University? I want to tell everyone about the admissions decision, but I do not quite know how to word it. I have been told that I will be an AGGIE. Would love to know how y’all handled this unique situation. :slight_smile:

17

@Lydia2022: YES YES YES! You are an AGGIE!! Tell everyone that you are an Aggie and be proud that you were wanted, SELECTED for Blinn TEAM. :slight_smile: Only people who are not in CStat think that Blinn TEAM is somehow "less-than " .

Last year, my daughter told her teammates that she was Blinn-TEAM and also listed it in her “brags” for their final event celebration. Other than telling teammates, I think that otherwise, she just said she was going to A&M. She took the photo with the Aggie banner and wore Aggie shirts, etc.

I told everyone that she was going to A&M as a Blinn-TEAMer. Her HS is crazy competative. And then other parents would tell me that their child was going to Blinn Engineering, TAMU GV Engineering, or going PSA to Corpus and planning to transfer. And they were impressed with her getting offered Blinn-TEAM. :slight_smile:

Really, no one in CStat looks down on anyone taking classes at Blinn. And eventually everyone else in TX will hopefully come to the same conclusion. There just isn’t enough room for everyone who wants to be and is qualified to be an AGGIE. I wouldn’t be surprised if Blinn-TEAM gets a lot bigger each year.

YOU ARE AN AGGIE IN AGGIELAND!! WHOOP! :slight_smile:

18

How much less expensive is TEAM than full admit (approximately per semester?)

19

My daughter was Blinn Team 2015-2016 and then applied to transfer to A&M for her sophomore year. Her Freshman total (A&M and Blinn) tuition, fees, sports pass (not books, housing, parking) for 28 hours was $7,500. Her Sophomore year as transfer into A&M those same expenses were 11,000. So doing Blinn Team saved about $3,600 for her first year. If I could do it again I would have her stay her second year in Blinn team for the cost savings alone!

20

@PleaseGod2022 Thank you!!