Wow! That’s interesting! May be many already knew but my older one (Freshmen this coming Fall) told me he didn’t see that and likely blew essays B and C in application last year.
Thank you for the detail list of essays! My girl is preparing her essays and SRAR. I have a question. My girl has a lot of ECs, what is the proper way of showing the ECs and how much does ECs affect admission decisions?
Great for your student to start preparing early!
The landscape of ECs changes over time. Many colleges nowadays don’t really care much about special titles such as president/VP of some clubs (may be except the main student body…), and hot ECs in the past (Orchestra/debate/Robotics?) also got somewhat devalued due to many high schools over produce (high school with multiple teams…) Volunteer hours becomes “routines” so it won’t bring much attention during review. Add to the effect of pandemic, college don’t expect students really spending much meaningful time on ECs.
ECs are mainly for showing student’s character (also helpful in scholarship applications). Colleges actually start out looking for a good member and team learner rather than a leader (of course not to say “leader” is unimportant, but leadership is more subtle and is not simply shown by a title of an EC). ECs are mainly used as tie-breakers (after scores and rank). Applicants should find out that Apply Texas/Common App don’t have much room to show ECs. So students should load the optional resume, certifications and awards directly through AIS.
EC is one area that many applicants not being very truthful in their applications. Many admission offices are smart enough to ignore ECs only mentioned in resume but lacking proof.
Here is the list of ECs (in the order most important first)
Jobs with longevity. (upload LOR from supervisors, awards, even tax return…)
ECs with longevity. (upload LOR from supervisors, awards, certificate…)
Outside curriculum certification/awards.
Clubs membership/leader roles that are short span (1-2 years)
Volunteers (if received letter of proof still upload to AIS)
Very interesting and I think makes sense. Is this based on feedback from A&M AOs?
My impression of most large schools like A&M has been that unless they explicitly state admission is holistic, ECs mean basically diddly squat. It is all GPA, rank, rigor and scores. Even LORs are treated lightly.
The paragraph below is from tamu_admissions in the Tex Ags academic forums, fall 2020. It was in a response to the whole test optional thing…
“We evaluate class rank (not specifically GPA), test scores (if submitted) and everything else submitted with your application - outside activities, leadership, employment, the essays, etc. Even in the past, the ACT/SAT score would just be one of the factors listed above for those in review. Applicants can vary widely among the above factors. The strength of the applicant pool is different each year as well. We look for well-rounded students strong in each of the above areas. The middle 50% of SAT scores last fall for incoming freshmen was 1190 to 1370.”
One thing to remember about the application is that it only wants info about jobs/ECs/volunteer/awards that happened while in HS only. So if something significant happened before HS, like starting a company or ??, a resume is a great place to give those details and show commitment and passion.
BTW’ you dont have to be an Aggie to have an account on Tex Ags and see/post in the academic forums. Last year Tamu_admissions was pretty quiet but their statement above the year before last was very helpful
yep they definitely count towards gpa…this is his third summer doing them
@LuviasTexas EC’s may not carry as much weight, as far as Admission, but they can weigh strongly when applying for Honors programs and scholarships. My Aggie’s Business Honors acceptance letter specifically mentioned her strong leadership and volunteerism, on top of her rank/scores/gpa. She also received at least 1 A&M scholarship that required high grades/scores AND leadership roles, campus & community activities.
Good decision!
You make an interesting point. Maybe this is common knowledge to everyone except me but we didn’t upload anything unless it asked for it. She reported her job, ECs, outside awards, but we didn’t upload proof into the AIS. For example, she received a trustee’s merit award from her school district. We reported it in the list of things but didn’t upload the certificate into the AIS. It didn’t even cross our minds to do this. Is this expected? If so I’ll keep this in mind for my younger child when he applies to college.
Agree but then only 30%-40% enrolled are auto-admit (last 5 years from accountability report). That’s about 5000 strong every year and you can see many people in different forums showing how easy to get in with good rank and scores.
The rest (60%-70%) will need anything that makes them stands out. And based on that figure (60%-70%) it was still a massive 10000-12000 non-auto applicants got accepted and enrolled.
Essays and ECs are the keys for these majority to tip the scale.
Actually, A&M accepts more like 50% of applicants and their yield is ~15% or even less. I would like to believe what you are saying but I do not think ECs and such make a huge difference. Maybe for targeted populations like URMs but I seriously doubt otherwise.
Another clue to this is procedure for non-automatic scholarships. If the college makes you apply separately for these then it is because they do not pay particular attention to general pool’s talent/ECs during evaluation of applications. This is even more true of schools that have auto merit based on GPA and test scores.
I am not sure how they evaluate OOS applicants but they say it is holistic. So, you may have a point there.
From my experience with my two students, if they are top 25%, a good test score (>1350 or >30) then they’ve got a shot.
My guess is extracurriculars and LOR don’t carry much weight. Also, fill out the SRAR meticulously. Both of mine were top quarter and met these metrics and no rec letters sent. They were in activities but so are pretty much all applicants. They don’t verify activities so people can pad that and they only ask for rec letters from people who will write a glowing report.
Their test scores did the work, I am guessing. Both applied to college of engineering. This is all speculative on my part. One is ‘24 and the other incoming fresh ‘26. They did both grad from gigantic 6A which they say doesn’t matter, but maybe it does a tad. Not sure
But unless you are top 10% you need to look at TAMU as a reach and have backup plans in place.
https://dars.tamu.edu/Student/files/2019-2020-Common-Dataset.aspx
Go down to C1. About 50% acceptance rate in the last “normal” cycle. COVID cycles are odd. Yield was closer to 40-50%, which is much better than what happened the last two years.
SAT range was 1180-1390 for the mid-50 and ACT was 26-31. GPA was not reported.
The CDS say ECs are important but I cannot imagine how they can objectively evaluate 50K students on that basis! It is not humanly possible given the number of AOs they have.
Technically, you can’t use general “acceptance” and yield for Texas public university. Texas has auto-admit law, many top students routinely apply to both UT and TAMU as safety.
You will need to take out auto-admit and look at the non-auto. As mentioned before, the ECs and essays are critical for non-auto.
If you look at overall undergraduate, acceptance is 60%
if you look at non-auto, admittance rate is 45% among non-auto, 32% overall.
And of course, one should not generalize and claim AO review ECs and Essays for all 41K applicants, only these 29K non-auto applicants.
Also many students misread SAT range. Many auto-admit students don’t take SAT seriously, or not submitting SAT/ACT at all during optional years.
Yep, my son can attest that, many of his top 10% classmates just took the free SAT school-day test without preparation and got crappy scores. My son just outside top 10% with 1380, 14 APs with APs scholar distinction barely got in late January. And he was not even applying hot majors like Engineering and Mays.
Also, just came off NSC, the presenter (Dr Quakenbush) jokingly wanted us parents to clarify that TAMU has “only” around 40K undergrad applicants, not 50K. And the number topped off during covid years at 42K.
The other 6-7K transfers are reviewed by departments, not admission office, so as the Master and PhD (or actually anything requiring statement of purpose).
Very true! And the 11449 students at College Station (2021) includes TEAB and Blinn Team, which means full time full admit enrolled at main campus can be only around 10K to 10.5K.
Again because of auto-admit law, the yield is always lower for Texas public universities should not be viewed or compared with private universities.
Y’all are making my head hurt lol.
Bottom line… put forth best effort if holistic. Over provide but keep it real. Visit the school. Have back up schools that you can see yourself at. Look at alternative pathways.
Take and retake tests. Look at Residual ACT at Tamu. Get your scores up!!! We saw many with 1400s get PSA last cycle.
Good luck and keep up with this thread. Come Mid august… People will be all over it.
Its probably done just like SAT essays are graded. Actually, many parts of the application (LORs, essays, work, ECs, volunteer work, awards, etc) need to be evaluated consistently.
Talent/Ability is listed as Very Important in admission factors.
I just now noticed the alumni line above… I thought having Ags in the family worked against you in the same way that being first generation worked for you. Am I wrong?
