I want to get into A&M but have a 2.5 GPA mostly from being unprepared and immature in my freshman and sophomore year and from my school in Illinois not having weighted grades for PreAP and AP classes. (I have since moved to Texas for my Junior and Senior year and my school here does have weighted scores for PreAP and AP classes) I have since gotten A’s and B’s and have taken 2 AP classes and am planning on taking at least 3 next year. I have also taken the SAT and ACT and got a 1360 and 30 respectively. For extracurricular activities I have gotten my black belt in TaeKwonDo which I had trained in for 11 years and have spent the past 8 years (9 if you include next year) in choir and have won numerous awards and accomplishments throughout these 8 years. Other activities include wrestling (9, 10, & 11), tennis (11 & 12), and NJHS (8). So with all of this said what are my odds of getting into A&M with a 2.5 GPA?
You meet the most basic requirements for admission, but it’s a big reach. They’ll see your upward trend, but I’m not sure if they’ll want to risk admitting you. You better show a ton of interest. If you haven’t submitted already, maybe explain in the “additional info” section.
What is your class rank? If it is not going to be in the top half - I’m afraid your chances are not high. You do have very solid test scores - so maybe Blinn TEAM might be an offer.
But would be prepared for going the PSA route or looking at other schools.
Your 2.5 gpa includes Illinois but won’t be included in your current high school i wouldn’t think for ranking in new school.
You have great scores! Check out what you missed, review on Khan Academy and take both tests again. The closer you can get to a perfect score, the better.
My other advice would be to show a LOT of interest in TAMU before you submit your application. It sounds like you are a HS Junior now, so you have time to make at least a couple of visits to the campus. I have heard that TAMU tracks the level of interest show by applicants, so the more interest you show, the better.
Schedule an official campus tour, and make sure that it is on a day with regular classes scheduled so you can see what the vibe is of the students on campus. A regular class day is very different from a Football game day or a day over one of the breaks. If you think you want to be in the Corp of Cadets, talk with their office. Take a tour of the dorms if you think you want to live on campus. Also drive around College Station and Bryan to get an idea of where everything is located. There are apartments/dining/shopping/entertainment places all around the campus, but that is mainly a small college town. Drive to the Rellis Facility so that you are familiar with it in case you get offered Blinn-TEAM.
And schedule a one on one meeting with an advisor in your target major. If you aren’t sure, then schedule meetings in every major that you are interested in if possible and also ask for permission to sit in on classes that are in session.
If there are Summer camps in a subject that interests you, sign up for them if they are in your budget.
You will learn a lot about TAMU from the process of visiting, etc. and TAMU will know that you have a high level of interest in the school because you have made the effort to go visit the campus.
Keep a spread sheet of your experiences and write them down immediately so that you don’t forget anything. Also visit any other Universty that you think would be your Plan B. Include your views on the travel time/method that it takes to get to each location. The long drive to one school was a huge negative for it for my daughter, she didn’t want to have long drives to get home for breaks and really didn’t want to fly to any campus. But some people find out that they really like an area after they visit it and a long drive/flight to campus doesn’t deter them.
My daughter visited TAMU on a regular class day in Sept 2016, before she submitted her application. She had an official tour, met with an English Major advisor and sat in on a Freshman Honors English Seminar. We also walked around campus and had lunch on campus. It was during that lunch that she said that she felt like she would fit in at TAMU. We also drove by Blinn-Bryan campus as I suspected that she might receive a Blinn-TEAM offer. By driving over there, we were able to see that it wasn’t very far away, and not a big deal to take classes there. I think that Blinn-TEAM classes are now all held at the Rellis Facility, which is West of the main TAMU campus.
See if there is an admissions or prospective student office in your area, visit it and ask questions. Go to any seminar hosted by TAMU in your area. Sign in and sign up for info by email so that your name is registered. And set up a separate email account that you just use for college applications so that messages won’t get lost in among personal or junk emails.
See if any of your EC advisors or other teachers at your HS are Aggies, or if anyone from your religion or anyone that your parents know or any of your neighbors are Aggies, etc. get to know those people and see if they will write Letters of Recommendation for you. Those letters need to explain how you have grown in responsibility and maturity, recovered from whatever was holding you back early in HS and how you will be an asset to TAMU.
Explain in your essay or the 'extra question" how you have grown since your first 2 years of school and what you have learned (better time managment skills/better study habits/getting away from a difficult situation/etc) and how you plan to continue to grow and be an asset for TAMU.
Starting writing your resume so that you can make sure to have ALL of the info on your ECs including all awards and honors. List how many hours a week you have spent/are spending on these ECs. Show that you have good time management skills and also list any leadership roles in your ECs.
College Admissions officers don’t expect students to be perfect. In fact, what I think that they like to see is that someone has grown from a difficult start and have gained maturity and are ready for the rigor and pace of TAMU classes. Someone who has always coasted by and earned good grades without having to make much of an effort may not be ready for the rigor and pace of TAMU. It is NOT EASY to major in ANYTHING at TAMU, the pace and rigor are far harder than any HS or Communitiy College and also many other Universities in TX. That is why an Aggie degree and Aggie gold ring are so valued.
The recommendations for my daughter came from 2 teachers, one of which was an Aggie, the other a Longhorn (LOL). My daughter had excelled in their classes (Chemistry and English) and they both liked her. My daughter was in 53% of her class with a 1250 SAT/27 ACT and received an offer for Blinn-TEAM for Fall 2017. She is now a Junior at TAMU and earned a 4.0 in 16 hours of upper level classes last semester. 
Familiarize yourself with the info on Blinn-TEAM, the various Engineering accademies (if you want an Engineering Major) and the campuses which offer PSA in case you receive anything other than a Full Admit offer. Even check out the PTA program as some majors can participate in PTA at Blinn in Bryan and then they are part of the Aggieland experience even as Freshman. Don’t wait until the offer comes, be prepared so that you can make a choice, all of the alternate admissions offers can be a first come/first served and you don’t want to be too slow. Knowing all of the options ahead of time will be helpful.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Thanks for all the info
IMO you primarily need to clarify your rank. You will need to provide your transcript from both HS’s so your Illinois GPA will be visible in your college applications. . Make an appointment with your GC ASAP. Big publics are stats driven. The extras are gravy. Work on raising your test score, if you have started with a 30, I suspect with work you can push that up.
We moved to Texas just before my son’s junior year - similar to you. Check with your school to see when the class rankings come out. In my son’s Texas district, Juniors will get a ranking in a week or two - That will give you an idea of which quartile you might place in. Your Advance courses will help boost or maintain your ranking depending on how competitive your school is. We didn’t know until the rankings came out that our district takes letter grades from out of district/out of state transfer grades and assigns a set value. For example - any A (A-, A or A+) is assigned a value of 95 which is great if you actually had an A- but not so great if your grade was closer to 100. And for weighted classes there is a multiplier. Of course, your previous school may have used number grades, and those might transfer “as is” with weighting for AP, etc. but this also depends on the district policy.
My understanding is that this is the first year TAMU has used the SRAR - if they continue to use this tool for next year - read the instructions carefully. per the current instructions both schools are listed, but assuming your current school puts 9th and 10th grade classes on the transcript, you will report all grades on the current high school in the SRAR. Unless things change with TAMU, transcripts from all schools attended are not sent until you are accepted (as is customary once you accept admission).
Is this your GPA as calculated by your current school? I understand that each school district may do things differently. We moved to Texas from OOS just before my son’s junior year - had no idea how complicated things could be. First of all, contact Guidance. Our school will be coming out with official Junior standings in the next week or two based on the first 5 semesters of high school. I’m not sure if each district does things differently, but in our school district, transfer grades (from out of state/district) are also reported on the cumulative transcript. The district will have a policy in place for how those transfer grades are treated as well. In our situation, we had letter grades from previous high school so each “A,A-, A+” was reported as a 95. This works out if you had a A- but not so much if you had an A+. If your district does something similar, then you might find that your GPA is actually better than you think, especially with weighted classes.
TAMU did something new this year (I think it’s the first year) - its the SRAR - you self report grades from your transcript after junior year. If they continue using SRAR read directions on the website very carefully. Since my son had his previous school grades on the transcript, both schools were listed on the SRAR, but 9th, 10th and 11th were all reported under the current school. Transcripts are not sent in until you are offered admission and accept admission.