By chance did your sons friends submit “good” SAT/ACT scores? Submitting a “good” score can potentially set a review applicant apart. Hard to say what “good” is, might be 1300 or 1350+.
So sorry for your frustration. I was clueless about tamu and learned alot on here a few years ago.
@Eggscapgoats and @52AG82 it is possible that his friends had good SAT or ACT scores, but my son is test optional - asking them NOT to consider his test scores. He didn’t feel they were good enough even after taking it four times. He’s not a great ‘timed test’ taker. And he (and we, in our inexperience) took the “test optional” thing LITERALLY. Meaning we literally believed all the text that A&M included in applications saying that the test was optional, that they would not count it against him, that the test would only “help” and not “hurt.” So - if they are just quickly admitting people with high SAT scores and then the spots get full, and by the time they get to the ‘test optional’ kids there isn’t more space… Then I would say that the idea we have been sold of ‘test optional’ was false advertising. If anyone else here did ‘test optional’ I wonder if you agree. It’s all well and good if you have a kid who rocked the SAT or ACT, but the ‘test optional’ thing was supposed to be for kids like mine.
You are absolutely right, the test optional thing is extremely confusing. After 2 years we are still trying to figure out how it works. Last year someone had a detailed conversation with admissions and was told that all applications were considered two ways - with and without test scores, and the one that made the application look the best was used. Most of us interpret this to mean that while a bad score can’t hurt an applicant, a good score can truly help an applicant. But the big question is, what is a good score?
As admissions always says - they look at the whole application
It would be nice to know What fraction of the holistic acceptances last year were test optional
The same thing happened to my son. An award that has been there for months and we had accepted is no longer showing… I really hope that at the very least it appears again, but if it gets replaced by a better one, we won’t be mad!
Thank you!!
@misterhemmings i would feel the same ‘test optional’ frustration, as well. While applying ‘test optional’ won’t count against a student, it CAN be beneficial, especially if they’re any form of National Merit.
A lot depends on the ranking TAMU gives students, also, if coming from a non-ranking school.
Did your son attend Aggieland Saturday, take an official A&M tour? Admissions does keep track of that, it shows the student interest. Have your son been in touch with your local A&M recruiter?
So many components go into the decision.
Trust me, Eagle Scout carries weight!
Don’t give up!
@52AG82 this is an extremely clear and helpful breakdown that I’d not ever heard anywhere else. Would you mind explaining what the difference is between ‘Gateway’ and "PSA’ is? I think I understand that Blinn TEAM means that he goes exclusively to Blinn for 2 years and keeps his GPA up then transfers into A&M? And I think Gateway is having to take summer school classes at A&M over the summer before the fall to make sure he can complete those A&M classes well? I am unclear because I thought there was also going to be some option to do a combo of classes at A&M and classes at Blinn simultaneously, but you didn’t mention that one. Again - I apologize for all these questions it’s just that I find A&M’s website confusing and am really unsure about the differences.
Blinn team is the dual enrollment.
Ah, okay. Is PSA attending an A&M school at a different campus like in Galveston or Corpus or Kingsville for 1 year then getting guaranteed admission to College Station?
https://admissions.tamu.edu/apply/freshman/alternative-admission-pathways
check out the info above
Yes except Galveston is not psa. If you were to do galveston(separate application) you could apply to change major and move to main campus after meeting the new majors requirements.
Not directly look at a particular persons transcript subjects, but via SRAR indexes and the reported level of High School Diploma and different universities can have their own way of fine tuning the data. AO will tally the data so officers do not need to look at a particular person’s subjects and grades. For instance some Texas ISDs made Physics optional. That’s how TAMU hasn’t allowed anyone without Physics in HS admitted to Physics or Physics related majors. But yes, if you ask admission officers they will tell you they don’t spend time looking at applicants’ subjects as those were calculated and the indexes are just one part of holistic review.
yes I’d been reading over that page- and it confused me even more because I don’t see Biology on there at all.
@misterhemmings it gets confusing, and the acronyms at A&M DRIVE ME CRAZY!!
Blinn TEAM & Gateway can only be offered, students can’t apply for either. Blinn TEAM is considered a full admission, in that students can rush sorority & fraternities, have sports pass, live on campus…basically only thing they can’t do is be a Div 1 athlete. Blinn TEAM students take half classes at A&M, half at Blinn community college. They have a very specific plan/path, things they must fulfill in order to transfer into A&M fulltime.
Gateway is also a full admission. Gateway students enter in the summer, taking very specific classes, if they are successful, they’re in full time staring in August.
PSA is another pathway, some consider it a ‘soft rejection’, some consider it a blessing. PSA students have a limited number of major options, and they attend TAMU system schools (A&M Corpus Christi, Tarleton State, A&M Commerce, West Texas A&M and I think one other-the ones I listed are the most popular). PSA students must make a specific gpa, take a certain number of hours & classes. If they complete what’s asked, successfully, they move to College Station the next year as a full time student.
A&M will offer your son one of the options I mentioned in the comment above.
I can’t thank you enough- I finally think myself (and now my family) will understand it whenever he does get the letter back. To me there isn’t any way he’d get totally rejected - he’s got 3.75 UW GPA and all advanced science classes, some AP, and some AP tests, eagle scout, etc. etc. So I think any of these options would be decent. He has been accepted to other colleges too so he would just have to decide how much he wants to be an Aggie. Thanks again
thank you @FriscoDad
You are welcome! I don’t see a full rejection, at all!
The options I listed are what will be offered. Sounds like he does have great choices!
Personally, if he’s been offered scholarship $$ at other schools, it would be hard to turn that down.
Hopefully by the end of the month/early February, a huge wave of decisions will come out. 
He hates UT Austin so much and really A&M is the only Texas public state school for him. If he goes elsewhere it’ll be way more expensive (private school in Texas or out of state) even with scholarships.
FYI. I think almost everyone gets at least a PSA offer with a path to main campus. I know someone who was ranked 1090 out of 1100 and this person was offered PSA. I am unsure what their SAT/ACT score was but the rank I am sure about….their parent told me. They ended up going to another school as they did not want to go the PSA route. I think very few people get outright denials….most of the time it is because the application was incomplete at the time of the deadline. So the good news is that most of the time TAMU tries to give you a route to main campus.
Interestingly he got an unsolicited offer of full year free at A&M Kingsville earlier this week. We were wondering if that’s because they know already that he’ll get PSA