I am currently a high school senior in a small college preparatory academy in Texas,
My 6-Semester Transcript GPA reads 3.51 with numerous Pre-AP and AP courses.
My new SAT score is 1020. I am retaking this exam on Oct. 1.
My ACT score is 18. I am retaking this exam on Oct 22.
Last Summer Interned at a company called Lockheed Martin (fortune 100 international security and aerospace company) in their IT department. I received my internship offer by earning 3rd in state (4th in national) in Lockheed Martins nationwide annual coding competition, “CodeQuest.” During my internship I had the opportunity to do meaningful work being a Software Engineer developing applications, and I received an invitation to intern again next Summer.
My question is that I don’t know if telling UT about my internship would help or hurt my chances. Many of my teachers believe that it would not affect my chances as they do not read your resume or essays. Many of my teachers say it would harm my chances as the university would assume I was a high school coffee slave and did nothing meaningful because the company is large. Others (including my parents) say it would help me because an internship is opportunity to engage in a “real” work environment. This leaves me very conflicted.
I’m not an expert. I’m just relaying what I’ve read here and stories from kids we have known.
There is a mom that posts here @Thelma2 whose son was in the top 12% of his class at a large public in Texas, had about a 31-32 ACT (I’m not exactly sure!) and he had excellent internship experience at Lockheed Martin.
He was not admitted to UT Austin Engineering.
Your internship sounds like a great experience and it could only help you in your essays.
To even remotely be considered you have got to pull up that ACT. You should be doing 1-2 hours of prep daily. Are you doing this?
Yes, my son had an internship at Lockheed during his Sr year during the school day 2x a week and full time this summer and is asked back for the coming summer. As long as he is in an engineering program, he is eligible for it every summer. He was one of 13 selected out of the top 100 Project Lead the Way candidates invited to apply in our district. He was a national merit commended SAT of 2110 (old SAT). While it did not hurt him, having the internship did not help him to get in to UT. Had be been in the top 8% auto admit, I have no doubt he would have been accepted. He scored very well in Calculus AB/BC and AP Physics and Chemistry, 6A competitive drum line since freshman, state UIL individual and marching band awards and leaderships. Though he was offered wait list, CAP, and PACE. He took none of those options for UT, as he had acceptances elsewhere.
If you are not in the top % for auto admissions, even with very good stats otherwise, engineering is just so competitive at UT that there is very little room for review admits and at that, the competition is fierce.
I will major in Computer Science, is this major as competitive as engineering. Also what alternative schools would you recommmend? UT Arlington, A&M, etc.
I am sorry, I do not know the competitiveness of CS at UT. It is in the College of Natural Sciences, I believe. That college is competitive but I do not know the specifics on the majors. CS and Computer Engineering are in the College of Engineering at TAMU. At UT Arlington, it is in the college of Engineering.
For A&M, if you are not an auto or academic admit, then you will be a review admit for admissions and Engineering. They will look at your classes to see if you are prepared to be in engineering. Your first two semesters are in general engineering and you apply to a major during your second semester. If all of the prereq classes are not complete by end of your second semester, you only get one more opportunity to apply to major, and that is at the end of your third semester. So, there isn’t much leeway in taking remedial courses to get up to speed for Physics 218, math 151 and engineering 111. There are other schools in Tx, if you are wanting to stay in state.
UT Arlington
UT Dallas
University of North Texas
Texas State
UT Tyler
U of Houston
UT San Antonio
UNT, U of H, and Tx State have football and more sports programs if you are interested in having that as part of your college experience.
Then there are the pricey privates, Rice, Trinity,TCU, Baylor and SMU.
@vardaro Looking at the transfer thread going on right now for UT, that might be a viable option for you. Instead of going CAP (if that is offered to you) for UT, which CAP guarantees you admissions after the first year at another UT campus (UTA, UTSA, UTT) if you satisfy the requirements, you only get to choose a COLA major (college of liberal arts). Pace (if it is offered to you) allows you to attend ACC and one class each semester at UT, while having access to the full university resources. Again, you get to choose a liberal arts major. Internal transfers are more difficult (from what our student tour of the engineering and business colleges told us, I would imagine the same is true for CNS.
But…if you attended another 4 year uni, or if you really wanted to be in Austin, you could attend ACC (not on PACE) get your required courses done for transfer to CS and really keep that GPA up and apply to externally transfer.
Same with A&M. Depending on how they rank you (if your school doesn’t rank) you will likely be offered Blinn Team. Getting into CS from Blinn Team may not be viable. But transferring strait from Blinn might be. Those that were offered Blinn Engineering Academy had pretty high stats but not high enough for general engineering or engineering at college station had filled up. Then, there is engineering Galveston (a good friend’s son is there is fish year and loves it so much, he’s thinking of staying and going Ocean Engineering instead of applying to major in College Station next spring). He just made the two step team and is in Aggie heaven. He’s getting the college experience which he was afraid he wouldn’t get in Galveston.
Then, there is always the affiliate A&M Campuses you could get the transfer required courses out of the way and apply to transfer.
UT Austin and A&M are great schools, no doubt. Just know, that there are other great schools out there if those don;t work out in the long run and not getting in to UT or A&M, doesn’t mean you aren’t smart or good enough. You can in a lot of places. The BIG secret to thriving anywhere, my three have found, is choosing to. It doesn’t just happen on its own.
Practice for your SAT and ACT and get those scores up. Good luck to you.
I have a daughter in CNS at UT Austin. The College of Nat Sciences was very competitive last year, and the CS major seemed to fill up quickly. Like the others said, get those scores up and good luck!