<p>I am a currently in my junior year of high school and based on it seems like it will be quite difficult for me to get accepted it TAMU, especially for Petroleum engineering. I am in the 25% of my class, with a 3.75 GPA, and just signed up for the next SAT & ACT. I have very little ec, but am in NHS and STEM. I have also been working for 20 hours a week since freshman year (family owned for 2 of those years). I will try to my best to get a significant amount of community service this summer (150-200 hours). Anyway I am trying to get into the Petroleum engineering program of either school.</p>
<p>Would I be able to go to TAMU Galveston for a year, then transfer to College Station, or just go to Texas. Would transferring into the P. Engineering program work? I understand that all I need is 2.5 GPA at Galveston, and from what I hear it should not be very difficult since I've been taking plenty AP classes (4 so far and 3 more next year).</p>
<p>Or should I go to Texas Tech? Will Tech land be better job opportunities due to being in West Texas and internships? Or will A&M College Station be better because of being "A&M"? </p>
<p>So my two main questions are.... Texas Tech or transfer from TAMU Galveston?
Which will offer better opportunities? I'm fine with living in Texas, but would enjoy the experience of going out to Alaska or Canada to work for a few years. In other words, get out of Texas for a while.</p>
<p>aztecpenguin, have you taken the SAT or ACT before? If you can score high enough, you can be an automatic admit.</p>
<p>I don’t know about transferring into the PETE program. I’m guessing it would be tough. There may be others that can give you a better read on that. I would suggest that specific question with a thread title something like “How difficult is it to transfer into College Station PET-E from TAMU Galveston?”</p>
<p>Ok thanks, really appreciate that advice… I estimate my reading score to about at a 550 and my math score a 600, which means I have a lot of work if I want to be an academic admit at TAMU CS</p>
study for the SAT to take it on June 1st at the latest (the next SAT date is in October which is probably too late to get admitted to Petroleum Engineering) OR for the ACT (remember to go QUICKLY).</p>
<p>I personally spent no time studying for the ACT and easily received at least a 30 (compared to my several weekends studying for the SAT). June 8th is the latest ACT date.</p>
<p>You could even receive some scholarships for your test score.
Remember to only study for the Math and CR/English section only if you’re tight on time.</p>
<p>If necessary, forget about studying for your AP exams (it’s probably better to take math/physics at A&M anyway).</p>
<p>Please remember to submit your application (not when you’re done with your essays) ASAP in August. </p>
<p>Tell me what you think.</p>
<p>Oh yea - you can take the easiest course load and self-study for AP exams your senior year because A&M only wants you to pass your required classes.</p>
<p>@DumbArse, I signed up for the next SAT and ACT… Though I have not taken the AVT, and based on released tests, it seems to be far easier than the SAT. If I do not attain the score necessary to get auto admitted into TAMU, and then I will retake it in June, with 1 entire month of summer to study for it. </p>
<p>Three things: 1. Get your complete app in the very first day that applications can be submitted. Can’t stress that enough. Do not delay! Pester your rec letter writers to finish during the summer. If they ignore you, move on to someone else. A&M will only read TWO letters of rec, so get your two letters done early, but remember that a great rec is no help if it isn’t submitted by your August 1 deadline. 2. Stay on your school’s college counselors until they get your transcript in and anything else that A&M needs from them. Or bypass the school counselors and pay outside experts to guide you through the application process. I’ve seen kids whom I thought would never get into UT, for example, who were admitted, and they all used an outside college counselor. They are costly, but I’ve seen many families find the money for them and the results have been impressive. 3. Study like crazy for the SAT/ACT so that you make the scores you need to be an academic admit. Without the magic numbers, you’ll be dumped into the holistic review bucket with a million life-long Ag wanna-be’s and a second million Johnny-Come-Lately’s who just found a reason to love A&M. My son BARELY missed getting ACT scores that would qualify him for academic admission for Fall 2012. He was admitted into the Gateway program. Gateway is a great way to go, so take it if you get it, but know that you will spend the next two years proving yourself by making good grades (~3.5) that will free you from General Studies and get you into engineering. Every physics exam and every chemistry lab remind my son that he must make a minimum of a B. That is PRESSURE. Every day he stays in General Studies is a day he regrets that he took the ACT/SAT cold. Ignore people who say they easily scored a 30 without studying. It’s not worth the risk or the anxiety. Let your biggest regret be that you over-studied and spent too much money prepping for tests or paying an outside consultant to guide you through the process. Good luck.</p>
<p>“I understand that all I need is 2.5 GPA at Galveston”</p>
<p>Just because TAMUG accepts students with a 2.5 GPA certainly does not mean a PetE program would accept a student with those grades. Just try to make mostly A’s and I see no reason why you couldn’t transfer to College Station.</p>
<p>Here’s a pitch for Texas Tech. You can probably go straight to Tech as a freshman versus going to some alternative program and then transferring to the main campus as you will likely have to do with TAMU. Tech has a strong group of alumni including engineers, especially in the DFW area where I live as well as the other major Texas cities. which is an asset for Tech graduates well when job searching. (Of course, A&M is famous for its strong alumni network.) Find out from the Tech website what the admissions criteria are for engineers in general and petroleum engineering in particular. Petroleum engineering grads from Tech will be sought after by employers almost as much as those from TAMU. Tech has a beautiful campus with a much different vibe than that of TAMU. Remember that Tech started as an engineering college way back when and still has great engineering programs. One example of going far as a Tech grad, the former chairman of AT&T and General Motors, Ed Whitacre, graduated from Tech. Members of my church Sunday School class in Plano are engineering managers at Halliburton, Rockwell Collins, Hewlett Packard, etc. My son graduated from Tech a few years ago as a business major and now works for Baker Hughes, a huge oil field services company based in Houston. Tech grads can go far.</p>
<p>Hey guys I got accepted to Texas A&M Kingsville for Natural Gas Engineering BS … Should I go ahead and pursue that or go to UT and try to internally transfer into their Petroleum Program which I know isn’t easy. Any advice? Thanks</p>
Hey I’m currently interested in the petroleum engineering field and don’t have good SAT scores but would love to go to A&M and Texas tech can you tell me more about if you went to the kingsville campus or what’d you do it would be really helpful!
A&M and Texas are better choices than other schools for petroleum engineering. While Tech along with LSU and Oklahoma offer the programs they are not as strong and not as heavily recruited. There is a reason A&M and UT are always #1 & #2. But A&M and Texas schools are harder to get into and the petroleum engineering program is even harder. Remember A&M engineering majors apply to a major at the end of their freshman year. The PETE program last year at A&M the average freshman GPA was about 3.6. Some with a 4.0 did not get offered a spot. I understand they are limiting their enrollment due to the current state of oil. But as @frank0213 said, energy will come back. The industry is a little more cyclical than other industries so take that into account.
Agree with Kldat1’s comments but wanted to clarify, a student’s first opportunity to apply and be accepted into your specific engineering major is actually after the end of the first semester of your freshman year. So not quite as long.