@AggieMomhelp What is NSC?
@fishfamx4
NSC is the New Student Conference, which students register for upon accepting their admission to A&M. Hereās the website that has more info:
https://newaggie.tamu.edu/
@FISHFAMx4 Yes, what Bargain saidā¦ There will be different NSC depending on your major. Not every college attends every NSC. So based on your major, the ones that are available to you, will populate and you choose from there.
Hey guys, I started a new thread for TAMU 2024 after the acceptance. This will free up this site for the many that still await a decision plus give those accepted a place to go to and ask or answer those questions on the next steps.
NSC is short for New Student Conference 
Iāve had to look up several acronyms from this blog!
Off Topic a bit- is anyone on here considering Park West or one of the other similar private dorm options in lieu of the dorms directly ON campus? I have been to see Park West twice and was really impressed with what all they have to offer at a price that is comparable or less than the dorms. Just looking to what others were thinking.
No, mine wants the college experience of dorm life so weāre compromising on a modular, no hullabaloo.
Older son was in a suite type dorm with individual rooms and it was an isolating situation. Hoping modular dorms will be a good fit for dtr.
Weāre still waiting to here from admissions. My daughter applied on 7/1 for Engineering. Sheās in the top 11%, missed top 10 by 3 people in a class of 600. SAT 1240. Sheās competitively danced 20 hours a week, 48 weeks a year for the past 3 years at a top dance studio. Due to the involvement of competitive dance being a year round sport, this is the only āsportā sheās done in HS. She would have been in the top 10% if not for dance, but I wouldnāt change that for the world. She was top senior National soloist this past July. Her unweighted GPA is 3.6154/Weighted is 4.144. Sheās taken every AP or PAP class offered. Will graduate with 140+ hours of volunteering, held a job every summer, and now during her senior year, attended A&M STEM summer camp, chosen for Junior Leadership program, active member in Life Teen Church Group.
Iām dying to know if sheāll be excepted since she falls into Academic Review. Since sheās top 11% (but poor SAT scores), will she still not hear anything until the end of the year or do they look at the Academic Reviews in order of school rank? And how does the holistic engineering review work to begin around 10/15 if so many applicants still havenāt been reviewed for general admission by that time? Any idea when we may hear something?
Thanks!
Sorry, was typing fast and had a couple typosā¦meant to say āhearā and āacceptedā.
Oops!
@YankeeTexan33 , Iām pretty sure that the vast majority of review admits donāt hear anything until January -March. So, you may have a bit of a wait on your hands.
Your kiddo still has one last shot at the SAT for this admission cycle, to make Academic Admit. I just looked up the registration deadline, and she can still register for the November 2nd test, with the late fee. Iād strongly advise you, if she wants engineering, and even admission to A&M, to take another shot at the SAT. You didnāt mention what her subscores were, but from what weāve seen, by and large, it may be a tough sell to A&M if her math subscore is below their median threshold. If she can get her SAT up to 1360 with the minimum subscores, sheāll have assured admission, and a much better shot at getting engineering as her first choice.
Even if she isnāt a great test-taker, this is worth another shot at the SAT. Buy The Black Book for $28, have her start reading it, and practicing using the free SAT tests, and she can probably reach the academic admit threshold, over the next few weeks.
While your daughter looks like a great applicant from what youāve described, I can tell you that we saw a lot of great looking/sounding applicants at and above your daughterās level of academic achievement get PSA last year. I recall, last cycle, kids that were 10 points off the SAT academic admit threshold, kids that were 10.5%-- just outside of auto admit, kids that had amazing accomplishments, kids that had 400+ hours of community service, etcā¦ who got PSA. The admission margin is tough, so take the shot, while she still has it, to reach Academic Admit. If she doesnāt make it, sheās in no worse shape than she is today. If she makes itā¦ she makes it to A&M for sure.
Does anyone know if A&M accepts documents (like rec letters) through submission portals like Naviance? Thanks in advance.
@YankeeTexan33: Congratulations to your daughter on all she has achieved! I know that takes a LOT of hard work and great time management skills to balance preparing for both academic school work and competitions!
Does your daughter have the time to take the ACT on the TAMU campus? I think it is the Residual ACT test, several people on this board are more familiar than we are, my daughter (HS '17, TAMU '21)didnāt take this test as we didnāt know about it at the time. This test is only used for TAMU, it canāt be sent to other schools, and shows a great interest in attending TAMU. Please have her take this test if at all possible, since she is 11% class rank, this is a great chance for her to jump into the Academic Admit category and then she is assured of Acceptance to TAMU (but still will be reviewed for Engineering). Any improvement in her scores shows that she is highly motivated. Engineering is difficult, they are looking to see if the students are ready for the rigor of the Math/Science classes. But neither of my Aggie daughters were in that department so I canāt speak from experience.
And maybe the ACT format will suit her better than the SAT format. If at all possible, have her take a few practice tests online and go to Khan Academy online to review and improve any weak areas. I realize that her schedule may be crowded, but making time for this test and improving her scores to the Academic Admit range will benefit her much more for college and her future than her current EC will.
Also, if she can make an official campus visit on a day with classes are in session, and schedule a meeting with an advisor in her major as well as arrange to sit in on a class, this effort also really shows great interest in TAMU CStat.
My daughter (Aggie Class of 2021) was on her HS team as well as joining a competition studio team during her Senior HS year, she was 53% in class rank (at an extremely competitive suburban HS), with unweighted gpa 3.5, weighted gpa above 4.5, with ACT 1250/SAT 27 (majoring in English). She was offered Blinn-TEAM for Fall 2017, even with her low class rank. I believe an official TAMU campus tour/advisor meeting/sitting in on a TAMU class were big points in her favor. We had a very difficult time with her HS Director as my daughter missed a HS event (not a competition) on the Friday of the TAMU tour, (the school district had that day off but there was an event scheduled), but eventually had that day/event absence excused. I had to remind them that she was a Senior and would be in college the next year, that HS is just on the path to her future, not the āend all be allā. Sometimes, Directors lose sight of the concept that these students are NOT a permanent part of a company!
Great LORs from people who really know your daughter and can speak to her great time management skills, resiliency in overcoming/rising above any difficulties will also help. My daughter had a Level 2 concussion in 8th grade and missed 2 months of school, plus many more months before being cleared to dance again, plus she was dropped out of Algebra I and consequently a year ābehindā in the math sequence, however, she was planning on majoring in English, not a STEM field. Also, she had great LORs from 2 teachers who really liked her. Also have your daughter list all of her titles and any leadership roles in or out of HS or in the dance company, volunteering or paid work, etc, as all of these are pluses on her application. Make sure that she accounts for all of the time she spends in practice and how she has learned great time management skills. TAMU wants to know that students have experienced some real life issues and havenāt cracked under the pressure. A lot of students who have coasted through HS have poor time management skills and canāt keep up under the rigor and pace of TAMU classes.
Blinn-TEAM worked out really well for my daughter, she had a 3.5 gpa from both Blinn and TAMU classes and is currently in her Junior year full time at TAMU, scheduled to graduate on time and plans to attend grad school. We are very proud of her! 
Good luck and keep us posted!
@YankeeTexan33 : Sorry, there is a correction to above: ACT 27 and SAT 1250! I posted it incorrectly the wrong way around and completely missed it when reviewing before posting!
@AggieMomAgain Thank you for the very detailed response and congrats to your daughter. I will definitely look into the Aggie ACT test. I didnāt know about that. Sheās taken the ACT twice and scored 26 both times. Sheās just not a good SAT/ACT test taker. She does very well in her HS testing and courses, which has 600 students to compare her to. Sheās taken 9 AP classes and 10 PAP classes in HS. Sheās never taken an academic class unless there was no offering of a PAP or AP (ie. art).
Can I just be honest and vent a moment?? (I apologize in advance) I hear everyone stressing so much over their ACT/SAT scores and how it will give you auto admit to A&M if youāre in the top 25%. But has A&M forgotten that not every student tests well in those situations, and isnāt it more important that a student has consistently obtained good grades in challenging courses, over 3 years of HS, then one dayās test score??? A student getting Aās consistently in HS with EC activities should be evaluated at least equally to a student who tested well on their SAT, yet fell in top 25%? Both groups of students are very smart, so why does A&M give priority to the high SAT score with lower GPA? In actuality, the auto admits in the top 25% donāt even have to have the volunteer hours, the EC, the work experience to be admitted, according to the guidelines and because of this may have been the students who you mentioned ācoasted through HS.ā Maybe this policy just effects me more personally because my daughter was so close to top 10%. And let me say, Iām not discounting those that are admitted in the academic admit category. I know they are clearly intelligent students to score high on the SAT/ACT tests. I just believe they should have been evaluated along side those students who fell into the top quarter category as a holistic review. This category of admits is taking up a lot of positions of admission, thatās all. Just my personal opinionā¦(I know A&M is doing away with academic admit, but unfortunately we missed it by one year.)
So, back on trackā¦We have had an official campus visit, the tour and dorm tour, my oldest just graduated from Mays Business School so weāve spent a lot of time on the campus. (Does anyone know if they actually look at your visits?) Weāve also visited the Engineering building twice but it was unofficial and on our own on a late Friday afternoon and before graduation. I will look into having her sit in an actual class though. That sounds exciting. We actually have a friend whoās class of '71 and was #1 in his engineering graduating class at A&M who wrote a recommendation letter on behalf of my daughter since heās known her for about 10 years. He actually called out in the letter that my daughter knows how to manage her time well, which he feels is a big problem with engineering undergrads. Weāve attached a resume to her file stating all of her dance awards, work details, and volunteering as well, and accounted for all of her time spent in competitive dance.
Thank you again for your time and response.
@YankeeTexan33 Girl you are not the only one that feels that way. I do believe at the time they implemented it, it was more of a tool to level the playing field. There are many on here that talk about how competitive the HS is or that some may pad their schedule with easier classes and stay away from AP in order to get higher GPAs. Thereās a lot of strategy that goes into it. Opening up holistic review to ALL 11% or greater, should help more all around students get in on their first attempt.
My daughter is a horrible test taker. I think she got a 20 on the ACT. She got PSA (obviously) back in 2015. She went to OK state and then transferred into TAMU. She graduated a semester early and is now gainfully employed, off my payroll and going to grad school. So yes, I do agree that test scores donāt indicate aptitude. A 26 is not bad and can definitely increase with the Residual ACT at TAMUā¦ and they round up! Just sayin.
You donāt have to wait for a certain test date, you can schedule it yourself. AND they score it in 24 hours. NO waiting! Be aware they are not allowed to write on the test at all! Best of luck to her and please keep us posted!
@SlayyySlayyy Yes, you can submit recommendation letters through Naviance to A&M. Thatās how my 2 kids submitted their letters and transcripts.
@YankeeTexan33 : It is just so hard for admissions to weigh all of the factors to decide on which students to admit. I certainly donāt want their job!
I am eternally grateful to whoever wanted my daughter (with class rank of 53% from a ~600 size class in an extremely competitive suburban school with a huge number of National Merit students) bad enough to offer her Blinn-TEAM admittance for 2017. Only 1% of students who rank below 50% of their HS class are admitted to TAMU. And she has thrived. Several friends who went to smaller schools and had much higher ranks have struggled with the rigor and pace of TAMU.
I think that it is FANTASTIC that your daughter has a LOR from an Aggie who can testify as to her great time managment skills! I do think that TAMU values LORs from Aggies. And her time management skils are a big indicator for thriving at TAMU.
Our daughters LORs were from teachers, a Chemistry teacher who was and Aggie and her AP English teacher from her Jr. year who was a Longhorn. Both of them loved my daughter, and she earned great grades in their classes, even in Chemistry! She doesnāt paticularly like Science (big blow to both Scientist parents, LOL) but as she said, it is all in reading and following the directions! Chemistry is just ācookingā to her!
And although I donāt have proof, I think that taking official tours, having a meeting with a major advisor and sitting in on classes is a factor in showing specific interest in TAMU. If you can schedule an advisor meeting and sitting in on a class, that could help and it certainly wonāt hurt her chances. Do it before the application end date.
There are more people on here which can give more info on the Residual ACT test which is taken at TAMU. And there should be more info available online. We just didnāt know about it when my daughter was applying. My oldest daughter was ranked 27% with SAT/ACT scores above the Academic Admit threshold for her HS year of 2012 and received Full admittance in Feb. of 2012. so it was still a LONG wait.
Listing all of her accomplishments on her resume is vital. I think all of that info is in her favor.
Good luck to your daughter! Keep us posted!
First time posting, but Iāve been reading through this thread (and others), and have to say thereās a lot of impressive young people mentioned throughout (Iām floored by some of the test scores).
As parents we all feel like our kids are the most deserving, but the fact of the matter is, thereās many deserving kids that it just doesnāt work out for. Whether they slip through the cracks in the admissions process or didnāt test well, or something else, itās just life.
My son is applying to A&M engineering which has been a long time goal for him, but at this point itās out of his hands, heās done all he can do. Weāre not going to stress out by testing over and over.
Heās already made the decision to refuse any offer other than full admission at CS, because he feels like heās worked to hard to settle for that (Iām not sure if I agree or disagree with him).
At the end of the day, I know wherever he ends up, heās going to have great success, and in my opinion TAMU would be lucky to have him (Iām sure you all feel the same about yours).
While weāre anxiously awaiting his āengineering reviewā decision, we also know thereās lots of great schools that will be thrilled to have him, and in the end, heāll be exactly where heās suppose to be.
Best of luck to all of you!
@YankeeTexan33, between you and me, Iād love to see high-stakes tests removed, entirely, but certainly ādowngradedā in importance to ALL college admission reviews. SATs and ACTs donāt measure intelligence, or āsmartnessā, nor academic ability, and certainly not academic performance. They only measure how well some kid(s) did on that one insulated test, on that one random day. Period. And, theyāre biased towards certain types of reasoning processors.
Unfortunately, nobody listens to me. I applaud the universities that have gone test optional, and would love for the Texas flagships to as well. But, I fear that Texas is so entrenched into the testing industriesā clutches that itās a lost cause.
Still, I love to remind everyone that the best indicator of college success is the tried and true performance over time in high school. Kids who take the most challenging courses, who learn critical thinking skills, learn to manage their time, who are able to build on concepts and apply themā¦ theyāre going to succeed. I think that Texas, by and large, is a little late on the uptake. So, standardized tests tend to have grossly exaggerated importance.
I would not want to be on the TAMU admissions review committee, or for that matter, on the review committe for any University.
It must be so difficult to compare students from various schools, with varying standardized test scores, gpa, ECs, leadership, volunteering, opportunities, etc.
Even in our ISD, a large suburban school district where most of the parents have at least one college degree and many have multiple degrees, not all of the schools in the same ISD are āequalā.
One of my older daughterās AP classes was told that the quizzes and tests would be made harder as they wanted a bell curve for the grades and too many people made As on the first quiz!! The students were a bunch of high performing children of high performing parents, there isnāt a bell curve of abilities, they are more similar than a standard sample! An A in an AP class in other schools in the same district isnāt as hard to obtain as it is in this school. That doesnāt seem fair. If they can all do the work, why canāt they all earn an A? Why keep making it harder to obtain a bell curve of grades?
My younger daughter had a friend at the ānext highestā HS in this district and saw the material covered and quizes/test for one of the Science classes and was disgusted to see that the course was so much less rigorus than her class. This wasnāt an AP class, but still it shows that an A at one school isnāt equal to an A at another school even in the same school district.
There are a huge number of National Merit students at this school, many more than the total of all of the other HS combined in the district. So obviously, not all of these schools are āequalā even within the same ISD.
I do think that standardized testing has a place in college admissions as does gpa, both weighted and unweighted and class rank. I also realize that some students test well, some donāt. And some students are wired to perform better in or at least enjoy English classes more than STEM, and there are students who are the opposite.
I would be a wreck trying to determine which student receives admission based on any list of criteria. It is such a big decision with such an impact on their future. And agonizing to everyone waiting. Good luck to everyone.