Completely understand your frustration as my dd applied to TAMU in Oct as review admit - her rank hurt but her test scores and GPA are excellent as well as her EC’s and essay. She has been accepted and offered scholarships to every school she applied (Tx Tech, Colorado State, University of Denver, Univ of Mary Hardin Baylor, Western State and CO School of Mines) EXCEPT still waiting for her #1 choice - A&M. I know it’s killing her not to have heard but as her Aggie mom it’s gut wrenching…she is being flown out to Colorado this weekend for a Scholars weekend at one of her schools and they are even taking them skiing for a day as part of their dog n pony show to woo the kids. She realizes that A&M won’t offer any scholarships likely to her but she still (and so do I) wants to go to A&M - sure hope the waiting pays off.
Just so you all can understand our experience with large in-state schools so far: my daughter applied to 6 Cal State schools, mechanical engineering, and she has only heard back from one of the six ( accepted at San Diego State)!
My daughter didn’t apply to any UC’s.
Yet she did hear back from TAMU, accepted 1/11! (First qtr, review)
So I guess what I am saying that we are in the same boat here, not hearing back yet. I don’t think her friends that applied to UC have heard back either.
They told us SLO may not release until March.
So there you have it!
Re my daughter’s stats (they are way back in the thread):
OOS, orig Major Viz, applied 9/4
First Quarter non ranking school
1340 SAT 3.9 UWGPA, lots of honors and AP
Four years of band, leadership last two years of marching and jazz band.
(Pretty much everyone who has applied to TAMU from her high school in previous years has been accepted, interesting fact, not sure why)
Accepted into CStat with the requirement to change major. Viz was completely full.
Wrote essay for engineering. Selected to change to engineering.
Offered Galveston, McAllen, Blinn Engineering Academy or change major again for full
cStat.
Selected TEAB.
I am so grateful that she was admitted into your amazing school (so far she is 7/7 of 15 schools total)… after visiting last summer I was awestruck by your campus’ feel, reputation and school spirit. It helps that I have a lot of family in TX!
She would be our family’s first Aggie and I am praying that she will say YES after her second visit this week!
(Signed proud mom from CA)
@AggieDreamin and @papamoma501 Regarding 1st quarter, 2nd quarter stuff…my son was ranked 2nd quarter by TAMU even though his transcript showed his rank as 112/530ish (21%). They told my son they would not look at the rank on his transcript because his school became a non-ranking school this summer. I can accept that. Then I ask them what they based the ranking on and they tell me it is based on how he compares to the other students in his grade at his school only however the profile sent by his school with his transcript contained information only about the class of 2018. My son’s school then released a “profile” of my son’s class that gives the GPA ranges for each quarter. My son uploaded it to his documents on AIS. It shows right in black and white that my son is easily in the top 25%. TAMU will not change the rank. I (and my son) feel his ranking is killing him and it is clearly wrong. The difference in 1st quarter with a 1330 SAT and 2nd quarter with a 1330 is huge. All of that to say we were told more than once in our numerous calls to TAMU that once they assign you rank (if you are from a non-ranking school), the only thing they see is that rank. So if you are ranked in the 2nd quarter, it doesn’t matter. You could be 26% or 49.9% (or in my son’s case 21%). It doesn’t matter to them. It’s truly frustrating but what do you do? Hopefully, one way or another, all of the stress, worry and waiting will be over soon.
I have seen the right person come into a situation like this and change it. Respectfully speaking, I believe it is past time to select a new director of admissions.
Thank you all for keeping me company in the wait 
I’ve read your comments and have invested in your stories so, I thought I would share: I’m class of '94 and my husband is class of '92. Our son is a 4th generation Aggie (on my husband’s side) he hopes for full admit but will be happy with TEAM He plans to join the Corps to follow in the footsteps of his dad, two great-granddads and a few uncles. Fun fact: His grandmother, class of '67, was able to attend during the male-only years b/c her dad was a professor.
Applied 10/15
2nd Q
3.5 GPA
27 ACT
Major: Sociology
Played 6A football all 4 years, Young Life leadership, VP of Senior Class in Young Men’s Service League, plays lacrosse, 250+ service hours, Leadership Award his Jr. Year for YMSL, Strong Essay, Good LORs, has held different jobs in time-frames his schedule allowed.
Side note: Our daughter graduated in December. She was offered PSA in 2014 and declined. (She applied right before the deadline, had no LOR, took the SAT once and didn’t worry that it wasn’t her best.) She decided to stay home, go to Jr. College for a year and apply as a transfer. The two 16 week semesters her freshman year flew by and then she transferred in. She had and incredible 3.5 years on campus and hardly remembers that first year was at home.
She majored in Sociology. The Sociology Dept. is small and she had great advisors who knew her name, spent lots of time with her and she knew they would be an advocate if needed. Of note: One of her Sociology classes had a terrible prof. The students took the time to email their concerns to the head of the Dept. Mid-semester she showed up for class and the head of the dept. as well as dean of liberal arts were there in place of the prof. They let the students know they had read the emails and wanted to come to class to hear their concerns in person. They stayed the duration of the class and said they would take action. The next class, a new prof was in place! Additionally, they added an extra test to allow the students to raise their grades. I tell this story to give encouragement; yes, the campus has grown for sure! But, they do care for our students! (PS.she minored in Financial Planning,sits for the CFP exam in June and has many firms pursing her to be an associate planner) God Bless and Gig 'Em! May we wake up to 6 tabs in the morning
@Thelma2 Amazing last 2 posts. Thank you and learned a lot.
I feel the same way so many of you do. My son has been accepted to Ole Miss, Auburn, Baylor and Arkansas(all honors college acceptances as well).He is still waiting to hear from A&M. My son applied July 7th which seems like forever ago! I cannot believe they take this long. He missed the cutoff for auto admit by 1 point on his ACT (29) but he had 30 or better in all the areas they had a minimum. He is top 25% and has tons of volunteer hours and played high school sports. The wait has been horrible for him. Yesterday I asked him where he would go if he got accepted to A&M and his response was " Mom, I’m not really sure because I don’t feel like they want me and I’d rather go somewhere I feel wanted." Ole Miss has been amazing at staying in touch with him and contacting him weekly. He has gotten hand written letters from students almost weekly as well. The Dallas area admissions lady for Ole Miss (Mercer Ann Moon) has been wonderful!
So, we wait and see what happens. I think his main draw to A&M is that a lot of his friends have already gotten in and it’s closer to home. Ole Miss is 8 hours away and I’m not sure he’s crazy about that.
Well, I wish you all luck while we wait!!
My daughter, and her best friend who applied are starting to really lose hope. We live an hour from CSTAT and about 45 minutes from Austin, so as you can imagine, A&M is the biggest here, as we are rural rich in agriculture here, so lots and lots of Alumni, and of course some sprinkles of burnt orange in there. When I was more naive to the process I foolishly thought 66% acceptance rate made it easy to get in, considering the volume of kids here that I’ve seen wind up at A&M over the years, and DEFINITELY not all were top of the class, some, not even close to top 25% so that gave us some false hopes. Anyways, now I’ve learned that I misunderstood all of the acceptance rate stuff, but I keep reminding her that at least half of her class of 139 are also on pins and needles. Three have found out, and many applied ?
Still 3 tabs this morning…
@highhopes25 I’m sorry and completely empathize with your frustration level. The most interesting part is my son’s school no longer provides a school profile to TAMU. I’m guessing they take so many of the kids from his HS it may not even be needed ? who knows. Your situation makes no sense to me since you have the documentation to support his rank. Ultimately, all of our kids will land where they will flourish and that’s all we can hope for at this point. I hope you are pleasantly surprised very soon!
If you are driving in from a long distance and can possibly arrive at least a day (or more) before the scheduled move in date, please do so. If you are picking up pre-ordered items from Target or BBB, perhaps you can pick them up early and store them in your hotel rooms and therefore miss the long lines when everyone else is picking up their items. Just picking up “a few food items” from HEB sounds easy until you realize that everyone else is trying to do the same thing.
You will have less stress and more energy if you can get a at least one good night’s sleep before tackling the move in process instead of driving for hours and then trying to unpack and deal with the long lines for everything. It will take you a lot longer than you think to get anything done, simply because of all of the people who are also trying to do the same thing at the same time in the same place.
We are only about 2 hours away from CStat, and moved our oldest daughter into a private dorm on the scheduled move in date (Freshman) in Fall 2012. Long lines for dropping off, long lines for luggage carts (bring a collapsible one if possible and pack as much as possible into wheeled luggage that you will take back home), long waits for elevators, etc. Long lines at HEB when picking up food items. But everyone was polite and friendly, our daughter was the grumpiest person we encountered!
We learned our lesson and paid extra (it think it was only $50 and well worth it) for our youngest daughter to start to move into her private single apartment on the Thursday before the scheduled move in date (Freshman) in Fall 2017.
We drove up Thursday morning with one car load of stuff, picked up her BBB order with no wait, and began the move in process. Much less stress even though we finished the move in on Saturday when her dad was available to help assemble stuff/put up curtains, etc. and we brought more stuff too. Lots more room in a single apartment but it was still a game of Tetris trying to get everything she needed into the closet and kitchen/bath cabinets.
We always packed the cars on the night before we drove up so that we could save that time and energy. Hanging items were transported already on the hanger and covered with plastic trash bags so they could be quickly hung in the closet. Folded clothing can be pre-folded and already stored in plastic storage drawers or easily transferred to the dresser from luggage. Anything that you can do ahead of time will save time in the actual move in process. But it will still take a lot more time than you expect unless your child is a minimalist.
I’m not sure if on campus dorms have a process where you can move in early or not. And I realize at this time you don’t even know which dorm they will be assigned. And reserving hotel rooms creates another layer of stress. But if you can arrive early, you might have less stress.
Just my 2 cents from our experience.
@aggiemomagain, Great advice! As the mom of a junior Aggie, I wholeheartedly agree with your move in tips. However, what is BBB?
@AggieMomAgain can you give us some must haves and any tips on what to bring/buy and what not to bring? Thank you for all the helpful advice. The first time parents appreciate it greatly.
BBB is Bed Bath and Beyond
is move-in day specified anywhere? NM - I’ll go look. Tee hee.
@Puffy71 Thank you for the NSC story in post #2892… such a great one! So many good takeaways for both parents and students. Thank you so much for sharing this with us 
@AggieMomAgain Thank you for the move in tips- so many great things I hadn’t thought of! I second the request for recommend things to bring/buy for dorms. @Thelma2 or @AggieMomhelp- have either of you discussed this in past threads that you could direct us to?
@daughterengineer While most dorms supply ‘free’ cable. They’ll need their own router and ethernet cable so they can secure their wifi! Also, if you get an opportunity at NSC or move in, take the time to walk with your student to where each of his classes will be. This really helps them understand how long it will take between classes, where the food courts are, and the time management skills they’ll need to thrive. Not a bad idea to take a shuttle ride as well, if that’s how they’ll maneuver around campus.
@aggiemomagain is correct. great tips! Some things have progressed since 2012 and we do have several HEBs now, and they shouldn’t feel any busier than the holidays. Preordering BBB and Target or Walmart is great because popular things do sell out but it gets restocked pretty quickly.
The main thing is not to stress about what to bring or not bring. There is absolutely nothing detrimental that will affect your child starting school on time, lol. Just take a beat, breathe and conquer. It all works out.
Do make sure you look at the dorm checklist. They do a great job of outlining everything. If in a dorm without a fridge, BUY a dorm fridge. It’s a must. Foam topper for the mattress also a must.
There is a process to move in early. It costs money of course, but if you’re on time constraints could be worth it. We moved in on move in day for white creek. They gave our son a time to check in and it couldn’t have been any smoother. They even provided dollys for us to load our stuff. This is such a fun time for parents even though your kiddos will be stressed. For first time parents, it’s very surreal. For those about to be empty nesters, it’s also surreal!
Another option is to buy the things you know you need and then pick up small stuff like rugs, lamp, bath stuff when you get there. We have 2 Targets, 3 Walmarts, 1 BBB, 1 World Market, Kohls, Pier 1, 4 or 5 HEBs plus other grocery stores like Kroger, tons of boutiques, a mall, At home store… etc. You name it and I’m sure we have it. And remember, only 10k students are freshman, some of those are in the Corps and some are off campus. So not every student is moving in that day or shopping that week. A lot of upperclassman either never leave or come last minute.
@Thelma2 Do you know where we can find those helpful tips that assisted your student in building their schedule?