These are TAMU official events. TAMU Math contest is very popular in her high school. Here is the link Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University
EYH is held on campus, EYH | College of Arts & Sciences Outreach
The Texas A&M Spark Conference is an engineering design competition hosted annually by the Texas A&M Student Engineers’ Council for K-12 students.(copied from A&M web site). My girl learned all different fields of engineering from current students in engineering.
@PlanoAggies what amazing events!!
Will definitely consider ACT if her school SAT result (coming out next Thursday?) is not good. Her math score is always good but reading can fluctuate a lot depends on the reading material in the test I guess. She will have 4 AP tests in May so SAT or ACT attempts will have to be in the summer.
Yes my daughter is from Allen high also took school SAT on March 2nd.
Assuming you’re in Plano… she can come down to Aggieland and take residual ACT. It’s a little more expensive and they can’t write on exam but they will get results typically within 24 hours and it only scores for Tamu. It shows commitment.
Just another option.
I checked Residual ACT it says dates “TBD”. Is it offered by appointment or they have fixed dates on residual ACT? It will be great if it is offered during my son’s NSC.
By appt. No scheduled dates.
In your post above you mention “spend time to check the unweighted GPA (reported vs calculated)”. On the SRAR students put the unweighted GPA as reported on their transcript right? Which may be different scale than TAMU’s 90-100=4.0. It asked the unweighted GPA and weighted GPA and we did it exactly as stated on her transcript (the instructions said to enter everything as it is on the transcript) her district puts both unweighted and weighted on the transcript but they use a different scale than TAMU (e.g. TAMU unweighted 95% average=4.0 but district unweighted 95%average=3.5). Then TAMU does their own calculations right? (Trying to learn from experience with child #1 for child #2). You mention to check the unweighted gpa reported vs calculated but I never saw their calculations, just what we reported exactly as everything appeared on her transcript. So we put 3.5 and TAMU would then calculate it as 4.0 right? -from their own calculations of all of the individual courses and grades that we reported on the SRAR?
When my daughter applied her district calculated an unweighted 95% average as only a 3.5 then in January, long after admissions, they changed the unweighted gpa scale so that it is now a 3.8. Another reason people can’t compare stats and think someone else has lower stats than them and got in, without knowing the school’s scale. Everything worked out fine for her but she was auto admit so I wasn’t too worried about it but my son probably won’t be auto admit. I don’t understand why unweighted gpa scales aren’t standardized.
This is very important question for review admit. Standard unweighted GPA or college GPA has no partial (i.e. 3.5 in a grade). Between 90 and 100 for unweighted (or college GPA) it is A (which is 4.0), if you treat 95 as 3.5 then it becomes “partially weighted”. So when calculating unweighted GPA, 90 to 100 is A or 4.0. 80-89 is B or 3.0.
Weighted is heavily used in high school to differentiate rank, TAMU uses rank but TAMU also looks at the unweighted GPA. TAMU (via SRAR) will automatically re-calculate unweighted GPA (SRAR even though allow you to report a grade of “A-”, “A+”, the unweighted remains the same (4.0) for A-, A or A+.
High school transcript may show unweighted GPA as “college GPA”, it is best to still re-calculate on your own. If you can’t figure out why high school’s unweighted GPA is not the same as what you calculated, talk to your high school counselor to get this resolved before using SRAR. High school does not use unweighted GPA so you bet a lot of high schools make mistakes (like in your case using 3.5 for 95 is wrong as it becomes partially weighted).
My son just went through the admissions cycle and I thought I would share my thoughts and insight.
This post is spot on and I would follow everything @FriscoDad is saying. He knows what he is talking about, y’all. Also, @ChristiR93 and @52AG82 are a wealth of info and so generous with their time. My son was admitted to Blinn Team, and the advice from all 3 of these amazingly wonderful people helped in a big way!
Take other’s stats with a grain of salt. All 1360’s on the SAT are not created equal. The AO seems to prefer 680/680 over 800/560. Like FriscoDad said, they want balance. All too often, people do not provide a breakdown. Same with U/W GPA. All 3.8 GPAs are not created equal. Rigor is key, I believe. Also, a 3.8 at one school is vastly different from a 3.8 at another high school. Instead, focus on class rank to compare apples to apples.
Why so many posts for A&M? Confusion over the number of pathways is a big reason, for sure. Also, I saw hundreds and hundreds of questions last cycle about the precursors to an admissions decision. AIS vs. Howdy. The infamous “7 Tabs”. “Where is it?” “How do I find it?” “My major changed. What does that mean?” The answers get buried, then the same questions get asked again. Not blaming the questions. Just explaining why there are so many posts.
And why do people check Howdy obsessively and post about it? Because there is this awful hybrid rolling admissions process at TAMU with zero communication from the AO. I say “hybrid” b/c it is rolling admission for the top 10%, NMSF high scorers, and a very select few others. The rest must wait, even if applied on August 1. There is a lot on literature out there saying TAMU is “rolling admissions” (looking at you, Naviance), but that info is misleading if not wrong. I wish TAMU would change it and instead release decisions all on one specific date like other schools. The current system creates chaos and confusion. As it stands now, it does not seem to help to apply in early August if you are a holistic review applicant. Not saying wait until November, but like others are saying, I would focus on accuracy (especially the SRAR) and fine tune the essay, activities list, etc. if you are holistic review, and not worry about rushing the application to get it filed in early August.
Good luck everyone!
Her district grades courses on a 100% scale and then calculates gpa 100=4.0 and then down from there. So you would have to have a 100% in every single class in high school to get a 4.0. This is their unweighted gpa scale. Are you saying students shouldn’t put this unweighted gpa on the srar and they should use a 90-100 scale to calculate their gpa even if their school doesn’t? The instructions on the SRAR don’t say to calculate your gpa they say to report it as it appears on your transcript. It literally says unweighted gpa=3.5 on her transcript. We read all the instructions for the SRAR as we worked on it and nowhere did it say to recalculate your gpa on a 90-100 scale. Her school uses a weighted scale different than other schools too. They used to weight all AP/dual credit and now they only weight a few. Her weighted gpa was 4.6 initially and when they changed that scale and it changed to 3.9. Only a few select AP courses are given extra weight now (5.0 scale) and a few select dual credit courses are given extra weight (4.5 scale). The rest of the AP/dual credit are 4.0 just like on level courses.Her district doesn’t weight any individual course grades, they just add weight when they calculate weighted gpa. The letter from the district informed students “Some students and families may notice that their standard unweighted GPA is now higher than their weighted GPA. This is due to the limited number of courses used to calculate weighted GPA as well as varying scales.” It’s crazy. Genuinely interested in this topic.
But even if we reported too low it sounds like you are saying they recalculated it automatically anyway. I guess better to report too low than too high!
Yes, if one report high but calculated low that violates code of honor.
I doublechecked the SRAR instructions and it says “please provide all GPA’s calculated by your school weighted and unweighted”. It asks the scale only in the most simplistic way, you can put 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0 and so on but you can’t define the entire scale, just the top end. So you can’t show the entire scale e.g 99=3.9 at one school vs 4.0 at another school. But the school report that TAMU receives directly from the school should define the entire scale and more.
Also there is a box to check by each option (weighted gpa and unweighted gpa) if your school doesn’t report either GPA (rather than calculate yourself). It says “This school does not calculate or report an unweighted (or weighted) GPA.” So we provided each exactly as her school reported it on the transcript at the time of completing the SRAR. I don’t think our district is doing us any favors including an unweighted gpa on the transcript that isn’t based on the college gpa scale-especially when it comes to outside scholarship foundations.
Her school is a competitive 6A school and has changed their unweighted and weighted gpa scales three times in the 4 years she has been there. It’s so frustrating. Her 3.9/4.6 went to a 3.5/3.9 to a 3.8/3.9 all based on scale changes. Grades didn’t change. Rigor didn’t change. They just changed the GPA scale. A good reminder that comparing GPA’s with someone in a different district is comparing apples and oranges.
I’m confused… shouldn’t you report your gpa weighted and unweighted based on how your school calculates gpa not how Tamu does it. That doesn’t make any sense to me. My kiddos didn’t have to do srar so I haven’t gone through it.
For instance in cstat ISD an AP class is based out of 5.0 and on level 4.0. If you get a 95 in AP then it’s worth 4.5 if on level 3.5. Gpa determines rank based on your school. They can’t standardize it on srar and make it equal.
Someone educate me!!
This shows you follow your school only. Nothing to do with recalculating gpa. And if school doesn’t provide then you put that. You select the scale your school uses not a college scale.
It’s my understanding that admissions is aware of the particular GPA calculations (weighted and unweighted) for each particular high School. So you want to put exactly what is on the transcript because admissions already knows the basis for the gpas.
SRAR really allows admissions to calculate all types of things, like stem gpa, or core classes GPA, etc.
Thank you! Exactly what I thought! The other just didn’t make any sense.
For me I was told by A&M to do it exactly how my school does it and what my transcript shows instead of calculating by myself. For example, my school only does unweighted GPA so I put that, however, my friends school only does weighted so she put that on the SRAR instead.
Many ISDs are not catering their ways for SRAR and a lot of ISDs changes GPA structure all the time to try to help students in college application.
While GPA used for admission is unweighted, it doesn’t mean “weighted” is not used. Weighted is used for ranking.
TAMU compiled a long list of video on the freshmen application unfortunately not many read through it.
Why would schools cater to srar? It’s just a reporting tool. If you have your gpa you Input it with your schools grading scale. Weighted and unweighted. Whatever you have.
