I am currently a high school freshman that moved to Texas 4 months ago from South Korea. I have literally no idea on what I have to do get into good colleges like UT, UTD or A&M. I looked a lot on this site about chances of getting in, but because the Korean school system and American system is very different, I don’t know what AP/honors classes are, what classes I should take, and how the gpa works. The only thing I know is that my gpa is 4.0 I believe and I have no idea if that is good or not. It looked like there were weighted and unweighted stuff.
So to clear things up
Things I dont know:
what is a gpa how does it work
what is a sat
what are ap classes
what classes i should take to get into UT UTD A&M
how to get full scholarships
What I Know
I have a gpa of 4
I have not done any volunteer work, or any clubs
I have not taken any ap classes
The thing I am worrying about the most is classes. It looks like I should take a lot of AP classes but I already picked my 10th grade classes without knowing anything and didn’t pick any.
Figure out how your high school does class rank, so that you can play the game to get as high a class rank as possible. Obviously, earning the highest possible grades helps, but course selection in terms of courses that your high school gives grade-weighting for may also be necessary, especially in highly competitive high schools.
All Texas public universities except UT Austin admit the top 10% rank students from Texas high schools, although this does not necessarily assure admission to the desired major (which may be additionally competitive based on rank, test scores, essays, etc.). UT Austin sets a threshold to fill about 3/4 of its class through automatic admission, currently top 6% (again does not necessarily assure admission to the desired major).
Full scholarships are usually highly competitive; you may have to check each university’s web site for what scholarships there are and how to apply for them.
GPA - Grade Point Average. that is the average of all the grades your earned in high school so far.
SAT - One of the two standardize tests that is used for evaluating high schools students fro college. It is administered by The College Board (look it up on Google). The other is the ACT, which is administered by the ACT company. Most colleges will accept either scores, while some do not require any score at all.
AP classes - Advanced Placement classes which are supposedly very challenging, more or less at college level. the curriculum is developed by The College Board, which also administers tests to test your knowledge of the subjects. While only the grades your school gives you are considered for your GPA and by colleges, if you get a good score on the AP test, some universities and colleges will consider that course as a college course that you have taken.
AP classes are generally taken in the 11th and 12th grades, so you do not have to worry about that.
Start looking at clubs next year when you start 10th grade - there is plenty of time.
Speak with the guidance counselor at your new school - they will explain everything.
“The AP curriculum, administered by The College Board, consists of standardized high school courses that are roughly equivalent to undergraduate college courses. After completing an AP class, students typically take the AP exam in that subject, which can earn them credits and accelerated placement in college”
The AP courses you can take vary depending on what your school allows. In my son’s Texas high school, 9th graders can take 2 AP courses: AP Biology & AP Human Geography.
A level down from the AP classes, our school district has Pre AP, which are more rigorous than than the regular core subject class, but do not have the AP test or college credit component.
Make an appointment with your school’s guidance counselor and ask them to explain and show you how GPA and class rank are calculated for your school and what combination of courses you’ll need to take to achieve admittance to the colleges you are considering.
As a freshman and sophomore, you should be taking honors courses in English, Math, Social Studies, and Science if possible.
Don’t worry too much about taking AP courses as a sophomore.
Also, talk to the Guidance Counselor at your High School. They should be able to help.
What’s your current rank? To have a shot at top public universities you need to be top 10%, top 6% for UT. Rank is based on a combination of class level (‘regular’, honors/PreAP, AP) and grades received in those. For private universities you’ll need 6-8 APs and about 10 honors, total (if offered).
What classes have you scheduled? Since you have a 4.0 you need to take as many honors classes as possible (not taking honors/AP will impact your rank and, in turn, where you can go to university). Sometimes honors classes are called Pre AP.
As a sophomore, you can take AP world history, AP human geography, AP CS Principles, or Ap stats. 2 of those, max, unless your HS allows you to take 3. Everything else (math, English, foreign language, science) should be honors.
Coming from Korea, you should be in Precalculus for math, unless you were very bad at math - most Korean 9th grade math is Integrated Mathath 3 honors although some students may be in precalculus.
UTD is still a very good school but has more spaces open for students who are not in the top 6/10% of their class. They also offer very good merit aid.
TAMU has an “academic admission” option that requires you be in the top 25% of your class with a goo SAT or ACT score. You can look up the SAT/ACT score requirement. I don’t remember it right now.
i asked my guidance counselor some of these questions today and here is what i got
I didnt know but turns out i was taking 2 preAP classes, pap geometry and pap biology. The rest of my classes are english and physical ed.
Also my next year classes have one AP which is AP world history. And other pap classes like algebra 2 and chemistry. the other regular courses were spanish 1,2 and computer science 1,2
class rank didnt come out yet because i started school here when the spring semester started
and the last thing is i didnt go to 9th grade in korea because korea’s semester ends in the winter and so i just skipped half of 9th grade basically.
I also did a credit by exam for algebra 1 recently.
I am also thinking about changing Pap chem to AP chem. Would that be better?
No, because some AP’s are “level 2 classes” that have pre-requisities.
Those don’t have pre-requisites: any AP History, AP Psych, AP Econ, AP Gov, AP Stats, AP Human Geo, AP Environmental Science, AP Physics 1
With pre-requisites: AP Foreign Language (requires level 4 before you reach it), AP Chem (requires PaP Chem), AP Physics C (Requires calculus AB and PaP Physics), AP Calculus (requires Precalculus Honors), Ap Biology (requires PaP biology and chemistry), AP English Language (requires 2 years of PaP/honors English).
So, your 10th grade schedule would be: Spanish 1-2 (you can also take another language than Spanish if offered), PaP Chemistry (-> you’ll be able to take AP Chem senior year if you wish, or junior year alongside Honors Physics), AP World, PaP Algebra2, CS science elective…
What about English? Are you in ESL, regular English, or are you in PaP English?
Your GPA should remain at 3.75+, the closer to 4.0 the better.
For US colleges, you’ll also need
proof that don’t spend your time sitting at home doing homework: show that you’re a creative thinker ( you created something: a photography exhibit, an app, a baroque or rock band…), or a great athlete, or a great journalist (yearbook/newspaper), or a leader or a great chess player or debater or musician or actor… plus that you volunteer somewhere to meet and help others (translate for immigrants, help at a clinic, etc. Your GC and/or your religious leaders may have ideas). You need 2 activities that you push to the max. Be your best self in something, make someone’s life better.
test scores: during the summer after sophomore year, train for the PSAT , which you’ll take in October junior year. You can also train for the ACT and take that for the NMF competition. A high score on that unlocks lots of good scholarships. Then, practice the SAT and the ACT, decide which one you’re best at, and in the Spring (March-June junior year) take the test, alongside some subject tests (such as English, Math2, and something else)
@N1c35h0t Texas public universities/colleges don’t use your GPA, they use your class ranking, which your high school will give you based on your GPA compared to how you compete against your peers.
Automatic admission to the University of Texas is being in the too 6% of your class by the end of Jr. year. A&M and every other TX university/college, automatic admission is being in the top 10% of the class at end of Jr year. A&M is a bit different, though there is rumor of change. As it stands today, A&M offers Academic Admit, which is automatic admission to A&M by being in the top 25% of your class by end of Jr year and have a minimum SAT score of 1360 and minimum sub scores of 660 EBRW and 620 math or 30 on ACT with minimum sub scores of 27 in math and English.
Right now, A&M offers pathways for admission, in addition to full admission. These are co enrollment programs with A&M and Blinn Community College at the RELLIS campus, Gateway, and 2 engineering academy admission decisions.
If you are not an auto admit or academic admit, full admissions for review applicants (those who don’t qualify for either auto admissions) is around 13-15%.
If you attend a non ranking high school, A&M will use your high school GPA, along with the grading profile submitted by your high school, in combination with your SAT or ACT score, and will assign you a rank.
UT and A&M are not generous with merit aid if you are not in the National Merit Semi Finalist range. Commended are a dime a dozen. Unless you are tippy top, don’t expect merit aid. Need based aid is a lot more generous, but it may not be full ride. There are a lot of other schools public and private that can and do offer a lot more to really good students who wouldn’t qualify for Merit at A&M or UT.
Your GPA is weighted because you took PreAP classes. Your weighted GPA will likely get to 5-5.3 with this system, once you start taking APs. That number will determine rank.
Note that rank only matters to Texas public universities.
Many public universities out of Texas give admission and scholarships based on weighted GPA and sat/act scores, for instance UAlabama, UKentucky, Temple, UMN…
Private universities (like Rice, Northeastern, Tulane…) and LACs (like Williams, Skidmore, Grinnell…) will look at unweighted GPA (3.75-4.0?) As well as course rigor (you’ll need 6-8 APs, well-chosen throughout HS, often 3-4 each Jr and Sr year).
Look for the net price calculator and run the NPC on UT, Rice, Skidmore, and Grinnell with your parents. (all 4 are highly selective universities, 2 in Texas, 2in other regions of the country.)
Pretty much the only thing that matters to UT Austin is class rank. If you are in the top 6% of your high school class AND your high school is not considered too small, then you are guaranteed admission. If you are not in the top 6% then all bets are off.
My son (Asian), unfortunately, learned this the hard way this year. He got capped (same as denied) with GPA=3.85, 12 AP classes (mostly scores of 5), SAT=1560, ACT=35, All-State Jazz musician with a class rank of ~11%.
So, do whatever it takes to be in the top 6% to be guaranteed admission to UT …
As already mentioned Texas A&M has academic admission for top 25% with a decent SAT score. A&M admission process is far far better and more straight forward compared to UT’s garbage process.
UT Dallas offers full tuition plus merit money to those with high(ish) SAT scores. Their process is super clear. Black and white. You have X GPA and Y SAT score, you get free tuition and $ZZ per semester. They make admission decisions super fast.
UT Austin restricts automatic admission to the top 6% because that will fill up about 3/4 of its class. Presumably, Texas A&M can offer automatic admission to the top 10% and the top 25% with high enough test scores because it has the capacity relative to student demand to do that.
However, automatic admission at either school does not assure admission to one’s desired major, since some majors fill up before the rest of the class.
Op: this is a contentious issue in Texas. The reality is that several families move so their kid goes to a less competitive school. It’s a choice. At some schools, it’s near impossible to have a life and be Top 6%: you can feel free to remove yourself from the competition since other universities offer alternatives (as described above in my previous post). You don’t “have to” be top 6%. In addition, side you’re looking for financial aid, some universities such as Rice, which do not use the 6% rule may well be much less expensive than UT. (run the NPC as indicated previously) .
The “top percentage” process was voted on by the people of Texas as an exchange to not increase taxes that would help rural or lower performing schools - they are poorly funded but things are rebalanced during college admissions. The goal of a state university is to admit the best students from across the entire state, not from a handful of schools and you can’t have your cake and eat it too, something has to be rebalanced or the rural counties lose out too much.
So, the rule is top 6% are direct admits to UT (but not their major) then about 20-25% seats are left for OOS legacies, academic or athletic superstars, internationals… Instate regular-excellent/not superstars who want a sought after major have other options at TAMU for instance.
So, it is not a garbage process. It’s a consciously thought out policy.
If you’re not Top 6% but close, you have a very good shot at TAMU (or an excellent, if different, university or honors college) as well as good merit at UTD, TTU… Plus all the excellent universities out there, from Rice in Texas to nearby Tulane to Sewanee, Davidson, etc.
Yep, UTD offers a lot of money to those with high test scores. Possibly a full-ride or close to it. Also, some of their honors programs offer amazing perks. Paid-for trips abroad, exclusive social events, speaker series, special classes (like “reading courses” that are seminars inspired by the Oxford tutorial model), etc.
You don’t really have to play the EC game to get in to TX publics but may for elsewhere.