@0900098 It is good that you are thinking about this now. Yes, it is early but I have seen a lot of students who don’t think about this early enough and then after Jr year, are in a panic. Even grads from these schools who are now parents and their kids are applying do not realize how different it has become.
If you were to apply today, with your stats, UT will be a reach. For 2016 freshman enrollment, UT had over 8500. For A&M, they had 9797. UT’s numbers were all for full admissions to Austin campus. A&M’s number include full admissons to College Station campus, Galveston campus, Blinn Team, Gateway, and the 3-4 engieneering academies they have around the state (new one just opened in Austin through ACC). so that number is misleading to a lot of people when they see on the varying college prep sites that A&M has a 60% acceptance rate. 81% of A&M’s freshman enrollment for 2017 was auto or academic admit. The remaining 19% were holistic review and some offered full admissions, and the rest the alternate pathways.
College of Natural Science at UT is very competitive. For fall 2018, the auto acceptance is going to top 6%. 75% of their freshman enrollment has to come from top % admits. Then, the holistic, out of state and international applicants vie for the remaining 15% of spots. To obtain one of those spots, you need to be a very competitive applicant.
Neither UT nor A&M look at your GPA and they don’t care how competitive your school is. The only time they use your GPA is if your school doesn’t rank. Then they will assign you a rank based on the school’s grading profile that they send to the Uni when your transcript is sent. That is not to say that holistic admits do not get in. They certainly do and without seeing your whole application file and essays (only admissions officers do), it is impossible to say which holistic applicants will get in, except a best guess based on prior year applicants with similar stats. But that generalizes and there are applicants who are offered admissions who were chanced that it was a reach or even a no go.
The best shot for admissions to A&M is to be either in the top 10% of your class (take as many AP’s as you can and do well in them to boost your rank and find out what else you can do to improve your rank). If you cannot be in top 10%, then be as close to it as possible. Another best shot is to be an academic admit. That is you must be in the top 25% of your class, scoring a 1360 on the SAT with sub score of 660 in EBRW and 620 Math. Study up and study hard. Or the ACT. You need a 30 composite score with minimum scores 27 english and 27 math. Take both. Both schools will use your best score. You don’t HAVE to send all of your test scores but they like for you to. Neither school super scores so your scores must be from a single sitting. Super scoring means they will not take your math score from one sitting and your english score from another sitting and have that be your top overall score.
Take the AP statistics class if you really want to go into stats. Do things related to your intended major but balance it with well rounded interests. UT holistically reviews all applicants for all of their majors (even auto admits) and A&M will auto place you in your first choice major if you are an auto/academic admit. A&M has academic admit because they realize that some schools are very competitive and great applicants are out of the top 10% and if they are a competitive applicant, they will show this through their SAT score as well. EC’s don’t have to be limited to school related. Do you have EC’s outside of school? Don’t forget to list those. Leadership is also looked at. Do you hold an elected office/ appointed/volunteer office in your clubs/activities, etc.
If you become an academic admit to A&M, apply early. This year, applications opened July 1. Stay alert to when they open for your cycle. There have been auto/academic admits who applied as late as mid November who did not get into the more competitive majors because those majors were already full by the time they applied and they had to chose another major. Mostly this involves Mays college of business.
Your chances for other public schools are bright. You will need to google or go onto each school you are interested in to find out for sure. Many have auto acceptance if you are out of top 10% but have certain SAT/ACT scores. Too many varying criteria for each to list so you will have to look that up yourself.
Good luck!!
