@AggieMomhelp Extra curricular include:
Membership of phi theta kappa honor society (national honor society across community colleges), officer position of the psychology club at local community college, skillsUSA membership, and photography.
@jaceyk lol⊠I think they would appear to have the same leverage. Both being advanced courses. @thelma2 I was told the opposite from admissions. They compare rank to establish how they compare internally. If johnny doesnât take a single AP class but has everything else equal (gpa/close rank/test scores) then I donât believe it impacts johnny negatively. Iâm sure there are more interworkings than that though and maybe the person I spoke to didnât want to dive any deeper in our conversation. Iâm sure sheâs tired of me peppering her with general questions, lol.
@collegeanony Well if you donât get in as a freshman, I would take one more class after HS graduation and apply as a transfer. You would get in easily!
@AggieMomhelp What I posted was abridged version of what Jon Cochran, the former AO on TexAgs wrote.
If your school uses Naviance you can go to âSchools Iâm Applying toâ then go to A&M and click on more and look at the scattergram of accepted students and denied students from your high school. It shows their SAT scores and GPAâs.
@WantabeAg , thanks for sharing Naviance here, the scattergrams provide great insights on our high school application profiles on GPA and SAT/ACT stats. Do you know if the students pool is from all years since the inception of Naviance or just this school year? Thank you!
My Daughter said her school stopped using Naviance. Do you have to have a log in to look at historical numbers?
I believe the scattergrams in Naviance go back several years @eTown23 - particularly because there is a notation that the old SAT scores were converted to the 1600 scale . I hope the scattergrams are accurate for my daughterâs school because nobody with her ACT or higher was denied. But that makes me think that the scattergrams are a good representation, but not totally accurate.
My kidâs high school has admissions data for many years uploaded into Naviance. Above the scattergram it has data for the past three years on the number of students who applied, accepted, and chose to attend the college or university.
@AggieDreamin Naviance scattergrams are specific to your childâs school. We are from CA and not too many kids have applied to TAMU but the scattergram is all over the place. One with a 1400 SAT and a 4.49 GPA denied and one with a 1240 and a 3.40 accepted and yet another with a 1240 and a 3.49 denied.
Maybe they are using the dartboard method for admissionsâŠLOL :)) May the odds be ever in your favor!
@eTown23 I think the large scattergram graph is for all the years since the inception of Naviance. But above the large graph is a breakdown of the past 3 years of applicants from your school with the number of people who applied and the number accepted. Unfortunately, that section doesnât show their scores but it gives an idea of how competitive the students from your high school are in the applicant pool.
I know ap capstone is a fairly new ap course so not all schools have it available, but I was wondering if that would sort of stand out when they look at my application?
@AggieJoe The credit wonât apply to a college class for credit, like AP enviro science. It may benefit you as a student in learning/research, etc but taking that course isnât going to make you more competitive as an applicant. Specific AP courses do not carry more weight for one over another. At A&M, the only time a specific AP class matters for admissions is in Engineering and they want to see your physics and calculus readiness. In this case, having AP physics and AP Calculus AB/BC is of value if your school offers it and whether you take it or not, to demonstrate your readiness for that specific major coursework.
It is kind of sad that the schools push the AP agenda as a ârequiredâ to get into a good school but then it doesnât matter. these kids kill themselves to take as many AP classes as possible. Our school used to use it as part of the class rank calculation. It is a lot of extra stress and work for these kids and provides little benefit. The only real benefit I see is to help prepare them a bit better and hopefully get to count it as a college credit when they get there.
My DD nearly had a nervous breakdown over AP Physics (even though she got an A).
What you see in the scattergrams may be dependent upon how your school has set up the defaults. Our high school has scattergrams with only data from our high school. So, every dot on the graph is a student from my childâs high school that indicates their standardized test score and GPA. The shape and color of the marker indicates whether they were accepted, denied, or wait listed and is also coded for whether they applied regular admission, early action, or early decision. The wait list dots also indicate whether or not they were later accepted or denied admission or if this data was not recorded.
We are a small rural district with limited AP classes. Because my son has a GIEP, we were able to arrange for him to take an online AP Calc class. We had to pay for it. If he wanted a less math/science dependent degree than Engineering, I donât know if we wouldâve made that decision.
@AggieDreamin AP classes are necessary for class rank in a state that has a law for admitting for class rank at least the top 10%. Some of those AP classes do take care of a lot of the core curriculum basics. However, taking some of those basics in the college setting can be beneficial for many, in the adjustment to college life. Taking an AP class or even a Dual Credit class at a community college, is vastly different than taking a class at a proportionately more competitive university. Many reasons universities require X number of hours be taken at the 4 year school vs mostly CC/AP/DC hours. As well, A&M also requires and maybe other colleges do, that specific classes be taken on campus and not elsewhere. That is true for Look and Mays for sure.
@Thelma2 It is hard to figure out how to advise kids coming up through High School (we still have 2 more in HS) on how much AP they should push to achieve. It still helps a bit on GPA which will go into rank at some point. But with my DD she as a 4.608 and still ended up in 2Q so not sure how much good it did her anyway.
@AggieDreamin 4.608 and ended up in 2Q? This makes no sense to me how they quantify ranking. My son was never on a path to AP math or sciences. Had a total of 3 honors classes for HS. His unweighted GPA is not much lower than his weighted GPA of 3.8 and they put him in 1Q. We are OOS and non ranking but his school is an IB school as well. I was shocked to see him placed in 1Q by admissions.