These students know about the risks of ETAM from the beginning, so I don’t agree that the process isn’t fair. They are free to choose instead to attend one of the academies if they believe that to be an easier path. (I still have my doubts on that score because I don’t see how this can be quantified). I feel sure that the vast majority of full admits would choose College Station anyway. That’s understandable, but it’s still a choice.
If MEEN instructors at TAMU are finding the sophomore academy admits to be unprepared, I would hope they would behave as professionals and address the issues with the administration rather than complaining to students(!). TAMU wants this pathway to be a success and professors on the front lines are in the best position to suggest improvements to the program.
(One more thing: @trinley’s son’s roommate needed at least a 3.0 in order to qualify for MEEN at TTU - this according to their published requirements. With that GPA, couldn’t he have chosen a different discipline and moved on to TAMU? School over major? Major over school? It’s a trade-off. Learning to make good choices based on values is one of the most important lessons for young people to learn, imo. I don’t think any of this is unfair.)
@WTXMama i think it was a couple of issues combined in his decision to transfer to tech beyond the grades. I am pretty confident that a 3.0 won’t get you MEEN at A&M and I don’t know what his gpa was. Yes, he could have picked another major but MEEN is what he wanted. He is also from a small 1A HS north of big spring so he may have felt like getting closer to home. Brenham can be a pretty isolating experience at times.
Another clarification. Academy students must be admitted by the engineering department once they are initially screened by the junior college. By gaining admission, A&M engineering has determined that the applicant can do the work of the curriculum as prescribed by TAMU. TAMU also has Influence on who teaches in the program at the junior college level, at least at Brenham they did. So Blinn, etc just doesn’t throw some random teacher in engineering calculus. The assumptions made by some that just because it is a junior college it must be easier does not hold up for this program. I am not aware that the laws of calculus, chemistry and physics change at the college border.
Oh and my son would’ve crawled over broken glass to get full offer to A&M. But we are deeply appreciative of the opportunity he was given.
@Colhopeful728 It’s not so much that ETAM is an unfair practice. IMO it’s continually adding more academy students which have the same ETAM opportunity but do not share the requirements that the college station kids have to take all the engineering required courses at TAMU. If they did it the other way and let them take general electives, ISD courses, etc but required math, science, engineering at TAMU that would be an equal playing field.
@trinley I wasn’t talking about Galveston, I specifically said Academy students because that is what the MEEN professors said. (not one professor) I am not going into any further detail on that other than to say that they said it was being addressed as they similarly made changes to ETAM in 2018 to address a very similar issue. It seems from your comment that they already tried to more fairly equate the grading by requiring an extra .5 GPA to qualify for ETAM; that would imply that those getting 3.5 GPA at academy (auto admit threshold) equate with 3.0 GPA at TAMU. That seems to validate the professor’s observations. If you want to see what kids who take these classes think do a search there are hundreds of posts on it, not just the couple I mentioned in the last couple weeks.
Are you taking these engineering classes? Because I do not see how your opinion on them is any different than mine. We both have children in them but I actually am an engineer so perhaps I have a bit more insight there. Physics is not just physics, there is breadth and depth of content. The same can be said of any of the sciences or math. If the next class expects you to have a certain depth of knowledge but the course you took did not teach it, you are at a huge disadvantage in that class. I for one would like to know that, and not set my kid up for failure. Check the credentials of the community college teachers and compare them to the TAMU engineering professors; that is a non-subjective way to compare them.
@pbleigh you most certainly did mention Galveston. so you didn’t type this? “ What I neither understand nor think is fair, is that the kids that are given opportunities to attend Galveston and/or the various academies because there is not enough space on the College Station campus for them all in engineering, but are then given the exact same ETAM entry criteria on to the College Station campus. “ you may want to check that nobody is posting under your handle without your consent. my issue with your post was painting the program and those who go through with it with a broad brush and making assumption based on some internet posts and then extrapolate it that as a large systemic problem that leads to ETAM being “unfair”. the fact that the students must achieve a higher gpa should deal with the fairness issue. Super cool that you are an engineer, however i don’t see how it is relevant in this situation.
@trinley I mentioned Galveston in relation to there not being enough room on the CS campus for all of the kids going through ETAM. The comments about the academy kids dropping out of MEEN referred to the academy kids! The GPA bump is not reflected in auto admit otherwise it would be fair. The kids from academy can achieve auto admit with a lower relative GPA. OMG this is like pulling teeth with you, but you are a lobbyist right? Your problem with my post is that it doesn’t agree with your opinion. You will try to paint any negative light to press your point. I am not going tit for tat with you anymore feel free to impune without response. The professors labeled it a problem and they should know. I posted the information for parents to read and digest and they can make of it what they will. I am not arguing my opinion with you anymore.
Reddit postings from actual students are probably more helpful for ETAM than optimistic or irate parents. The parents whose kids drop/weed out won’t be on here trumpeting it (other than the irate one). The biggest thing we are seeing this year at TAMU is that nothing is like it used to be. Parents who were at this school back in the day do not have a clue as to the here and now.
I think, I agree with some points with pbleigh and others who don’t like ETAM. Kids going thru so much stress in their senior HS year and once they get accepted, they have another very stressful year getting into ETAM. The more I think about it the more I’m against it. Engineering is stressful on its own. Very demanding study. Why they have to stress even more? You want more competitive kids? Change and make it harder/ more holistic/ whateverworks/ admittance. Why some of the hardest to get into colleges like MIT ( just example) has freshman year pass/fail grades? Maybe because they want that their students enjoy the process of “my world is changing, I’m adult and I have to learn responsibilities and learn how to study really hard” and not go crazy and stressed into oblivion. Personally, I’m thinking about my son, who decided for and was admitted to engineering. He was ill last year, he can manage to study even study hard, no problem, but I see the problem of him being anxious and stressed etc. That doesn’t help anybody. And I don’t like it. He decided for engineering, he wasn’t sure if to go engineering or Physics route, at the end he chose engineering and I 'm not crazy about his decision, but it’s his life and his decision. I don’t like that our kids have to stress even more than senior HS year. I believe that people who are against ETAM have some valid points.
I appreciate this conversation and the points raised by pbleigh. I think it’s great to give students an overview of all the engineering fields and an opportunity to consider them all. However, sticking them with a degree in a career they never wanted is a whole other thing. It is weighing heavily on me as we look at offers from OOS schools now that we weren’t before. Schools where they would let him go directly into his major. TAMU was always a dream for my son and to be accepted is a dream. But he is already stressed and now we are strategizing about how to use dual enrollement classes and what classes would make the easiest freshman year. And I know we would not have to be putting this level of planning into going to a different college where it’s straight into major. I just have to ask myself if it’s worth it? I have read things the last few weeks about how awful the engr advisors are, how many of the students have difficulty understanding professors because of thick accents, how you are just a number, etc.
And Physics is not just physics everywhere. I specifically had a TAMU senior tell my son to take physics 1 and 2 at the CC if he could because it is notoriously difficult at TAMU-CS. They added that though they love TAMU, UT has a great Eng program too. This does not instill confidence in me.
@MomOfTeens77 The original idea of ETAM I agreed with; that the first year of engineering should be a time to figure out what type of engineering you wanted to do, after experiencing a bit of each. It was modeled on the Purdue program but that one doesn’t have a 25x25 initiative to get more engineers on campus. In TAMU’s case it seems that first year is one of playing the GPA game all over again, so that you can get the magical 3.5 GPA. Kids don’t take the classes they want or accept their hard earned AP credit, scared they won’t get that 3.5 GPA. Advisors, students and teachers are all advising them to take classes over to get A’s. There are so many more kids going through ETAM, unless you get that 3.5, you stress over whether you will get the major of your choice. At UT you apply to your major and it is very difficult to switch majors after you are in. My son was deciding between MEEN and BMEN and liked the idea of deciding later. At that time the process was very open; they posted each major’s holistic review statistics: low, high, and average GPAs that got admitted during the holistic ETAM. Unfortunately that was also the year they greatly expanded the academy programs and some of the most popular majors became totally full with auto admits for the first time ever. They seem to make a few tweaks each year to the process but it is nothing like the idea it started with. It is a giant weed-out process now that stopped being an open one. They only release the total amount of kids that got first choice, or first or second choice; and that includes all of them going through ETAM including the auto admits which greatly skews the statistic for people wondering how hard the holistic process will be for them. It also does not factor in any of the kids that couldn’t ETAM at their first opportunity. They will not tell you anything about major specific statistics and I am sure that is because the statistics show that some majors are extremely difficult to get into and those are the ones most of the kids want. I am not worried for my older son because he is a senior now, all of this is behind him; but after seeing the incredible stress and work loads he has had, I worry for my younger son who wants to follow in his footsteps.
@Lalibela I totally understand your stress. My son didn’t realize what he was getting into when he started and took all of his AP credit and ignored everyone that told him he should make an easy schedule for himself freshman year. He definitely has taken the hard route. In the process he started in Calc3 and DiffEq his freshman year and that was a tough haul and not one I would recommend for anyone. If you need some advice on the schedule, I’d be happy to provide my two cents.
Yes some advisors are bad but some are great and you don’t have to go to the one you are assigned freshman year after school has started. Yes, many teachers have horrible accents but that is an engineering thing unfortunately. I had that same experience more years ago then I want to admit. Yes, they have issues its a huge public school getting even bigger. However, my son is getting an excellent education. He has had amazing opportunities in research that I never had going through engineering school. I’ve asked my son if he had it to do all over would he still go to TAMU over UT and he said he would. UT has its own issues he says and he is right about that, no school is perfect.
Oh, and you are so correct about Physics 1 and 2. Absolutely every kid you talk to will take 2 seconds to say take your AP credit and do not take them at TAMU unless you have to. My son did this and went straight into MEEN on AP physics C credit. I won’t lie to you; it was definitely a struggle for him and a ton of work, but doable. He is a senior now and is still in engineering honors so it can be done.
I would love to hear any advice on making a freshman schedule. He is taking Physics 1, Chem 2 and Calc 2 dual enrollment currently. So far he is having the easiest time with Physics and he is debating dropping either Chem 2 or Calc 2 but he is unsure about that. Personally, I think he’s got a lot on his plate right now, but he is trying to make it easier for ETAM. He really wants to try to do Calc 3 and Diff Eq freshman year but he is trying to minimize the amount of science classes so he isn’t stressed trying to do well with Diff Eq his second semester for ETAM. We are even checking the CC schedule to possibly get Physics 2 done with over the summer. But I don’t know what that means for ETAM if you’ve taken all the science classes already… I think ideally his schedule would go something like 1st semester - Engr, Calc 3, Physics 2 (or nothing?) and maybe a Core then 2nd semester - Engr 2, Diff Eq, a Core and anything else? Am I looking at that right? I tried talking to an advisor, but I have not been able to (they say until May 1 because of FERPA). Even when he talks to an advisor, I like to do my own research because I am a born skeptic. I would love to hear any thoughts from a BTDT parent/student.
Lalibela My son is now a jr bmen. He took his ap credit for calc 1 and 2 and did calc 3 and diff eq his freshman year. We were nervous about this as it was so discouraged at the nsc but it worked very well for him. He did have to work pretty hard in calc 3, I’m not sure if that was because he didn’t have A&M’s 1&2, or that it had been over a year since he had calc or if it was that he had a brand new prof for the class, but he managed to get an A in the class. He found diff eq fairly easy. He was very glad he took this route rather than starting in the recommended calc 2. He opted to remake the chem classes since he took ap chem sophomore year of hs so it had been a while. He found them very easy and a good refresher before he went into organic chem. He also used his physics 1 credit but took physics 2 at west Texas college online (wouldn’t recommend that class).
@Lalibela What major does your son want to go into? Be careful taking classes over the summer, I had read somewhere along the way that you can be considered not a freshman if you take them after graduating high school but before starting at TAMU. Check with an engineering advisor on that one before doing it?
He wants computer engineering. Which seems to be the most popular now. We will definitely be asking about that. I have heard of a few people that took it over the summer at CC, but I don’t know the details of how they did it.
@Lalibela Does he want the computer engineering from the computer science department CECN or the computer engineering from the electrical engineering department ECEN?
University of Houston
Lamar University
Prairie View A&M University
Tarleton State University
Texas A&M University - Kingsville
University of Texas at Arlington
University of Texas at El Paso
University of Texas at San Antonio
University of Texas at Tyler
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Texas Tech University
West Texas A&M University
Students at Texas A&M - College Station or any of the engineering feeder colleges who are not on track to earn a 3.5 college GPA to choose their engineering majors should prepare transfer applications to less selective Texas public universities with their majors, in case they are weeded out of their majors at Texas A&M - College Station.
The thing is, few of those schools would admit many of the non CSTAT pre eng admits. They are already more selective at admission. Look at the average ACT or SAT of the colleges of engineering at these schools. Uminn in 2015 was 31 ACT to CSE. What is the average ACT of eng admits at Cstat Vs Blinn/team Vs Galveston etc? Is that broken down anywhere?
Once you’re admitted as a freshman, you can take classes that summer to get them out of the way. What you can’t do is take summer classes then apply for spring as a freshman. But once you’re in, you’re in.
I wouldn’t think engineering would be any different. At least it wouldn’t make sense lol but double check and let us know please.