double b said:

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Howdy Ags! Some may recognize my handle, and I often chime in when I can to offer strong, accurate advice. I'd like to start something new here that I hope will be helpful to future Aggie families.

With that said, another Texas A&M admissions cycle has wrapped up, and while many families are celebrating, several others are left scratching their heads as the holistic review process can feel like a black box.

I want to help future families avoid the "I wish I had known" moment by providing concrete, anonymized case studies of where applicants came up short. Sometimes it's a major selection error; other times, it's a "resume-style" essay that failed to connect with the admission counselor.

To do this effectively, I'm looking for a few families willing to share their students' data for a "blind" review:

• PDF of the submitted TAMU Application (to see how activities were described)
• High School Transcript (to look at course rigor/SRAR vs. rank)
• Submitted Test Scores
• Choice of Major(s)
• Admission Decision (Admitted - different Major, Blinn-Team or Gateway, PSA)

My goal is to highlight the specifics in a student's application where they came up short in representing themselves and use this information to show other families how things are perceived from an admissions counselor's perspective and why they may arrived at their decision. Furthermore, I will provide concrete advice on how parts of their application could have been improved to better represent themselves in the process.

Privacy is paramount. Everything shared will be kept strictly confidential and anonymized before I share any general takeaways with the board.

If you're open to helping the next generation of Ags by sharing your student's journey, please PM me or comment below. Also, if you can benefit from this, please feel free to share your questions and concerns with me, and I will see how best to address them in my review process.

Gig 'em!

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warrington74 said:

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My daughter was top six percent with a 32 on act. >120 hours of service

I believe what are the main contributors are service hours, as well as applying the first day. that gives you the best chance to get admitted. Along with the strong gpa and testing. I think extra activities that take up time during the school year they look at as well. because this could affect your GPA.

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combat wombat said:

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Our school's guidance councilor stated otherwise in a discussion just this week. As a matter of fact, he stated that there's evidence out there to indicate that if you apply within the first two hours that the portal is open, you have a better chance of getting in.

I have no idea where he's getting his information. However, our plan has been for a very long time to have our boys have their applications ready to go so that they can get them in on day one.

One of my boys may end up being too 10% by the end of this school year; he is extremely close to top 10%, is taking the maximum load of AP classes, and is killing it with high A's in everything. He scored a 1470 on his SAT. We're waiting on his in school SAT, which was taken a couple of weeks ago; hoping he can push past a 1500. He plans to apply the school of engineering and we're hoping he can get into the honors program. We're not real clear on requirements for that.

The other is not top 10% but had a 4.1 GPA as of December and scored a 1290 on his SAT. Also waiting on his March in-school SAT score. We're a little bit more worried about him getting in. However, his fit to major (construction science) is very strong as he has already done one internship it's a construction company and is doing another this summer. He's applied to Camp Arch for this summer and we are hoping he can add that to his resume, too.

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double b said:

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combat wombat said:

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Our school's guidance councilor stated otherwise in a discussion just this week. As a matter of fact, he stated that there's evidence out there to indicate that if you apply within the first two hours that the portal is open, you have a better chance of getting in.

I have no idea where he's getting his information. However, our plan has been for a very long time to have our boys have their applications ready to go so that they can get them in on day one.

One of my boys may end up being too 10% by the end of this school year; he is extremely close to top 10%, is taking the maximum load of AP classes, and is killing it with high A's in everything. He scored a 1470 on his SAT. We're waiting on his in school SAT, which was taken a couple of weeks ago; hoping he can push past a 1500. He plans to apply the school of engineering and we're hoping he can get into the honors program. We're not real clear on requirements for that.

The other is not top 10% but had a 4.1 GPA as of December and scored a 1290 on his SAT. Also waiting on his March in-school SAT score. We're a little bit more worried about him getting in. However, his fit to major (construction science) is very strong as he has already done one internship it's a construction company and is doing another this summer. He's applied to Camp Arch for this summer and we are hoping he can add that to his resume, too.

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That counselor has no clue to how the admissions process works.

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