<p>What if you are a national merit finalist from OOS? From a high school that doesn’t rank? And a 3.6 GPA?</p>
<p>My understanding is that such a person will be easily admitted, but I have been reading on this board, and I note that geoscience major is more easily accepted than others. What about chemistry major? Is that impossible to get into from a non-ranking HS?</p>
<p>Yes it is possilbe, being a NMF will greatly enhance your chances (colleges love being able to brag about how many NMF’s they have in their class), you will probably also qualify for instate tuition.</p>
<p>Chemistry major is in the College of Natural Sciences which is not that hard to get into. As a NMF, you might apply for the honors program, some of your classes might be smaller.</p>
<p>It is okay that a student’s HS does not rank. If the student is a national merit scholar or from a very competitive high school with grades and coursework show the person is a very good student, say National AP Scholar/AP Scholar with Distinction, I do not think the student will trouble getting in from out of state. I think that about 500 out of state freshmen come to Texas each fall.</p>
<p>My out of state daughter’s out of state roommate is in Dean’s Scholars, which I believe is the honors program for the College of Natural Sciences. We have heard it is hard to get into, but I don’t know any details about it. Definitely apply! Honors programs are a nice way to make a big school like Texas become a lot smaller. Other programs that are nice for this are the FIG Freshman Interest Groups and the TIPS scholars and Texas IP. These help first-year students not have to compete with the masses when registering for your first fall semester of classes, and give first-year students a small academic group to interact with freshman year.</p>