I'm not exactly sure how I didn't get in.. Confused/Rant

SimpleLife
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 00:24:48 +0000

Viper999, I’m also sorry you didn’t get in. None of can be sure what it is that kept you out. Maybe your SAT scores weren’t good enough (just the CR and M)? Maybe the admissions folks were less than impressed by your essays? Maybe you didn’t complete the application in its entirety? I mean, none of us could possibly know. But something was clearly off for you this time around. I’m sorry.

I do want to set the record straight regarding the top 10% from huge public high schools. You are off-base in your assessment about how hard it is to make the top 10% in a large public school. In fact, it is likely harder to make the top 10% in a large public than in a smaller school.

In my kids’ high school (about 800 students per graduating class), nobody with less than a 4.0 would be graduating in the top 10%. Year after year, everybody who makes the top 10%, has a 4.0 unweighted GPA, and they also all have a whole host of AP classes that have boosted their weighted GPAs to significantly higher than 4.0. In my kids’ high school, a 3.977 GPA would not be rounded up to 4.0, and it would not put a student in the top 11%, much less the top 10%.

It seems to me that you don’t quite understand how class rank works in large public schools. In any large, good school around here (and there are many), I can’t imagine anybody “squeaking into the bottom half of the top 10%” with a 3.1 or 3.3 GPA, as you suggest. Unless the school you’re talking about is known to be incredibly competitive, like incredibly, stupendously competitive, nobody is coming anywhere close to the top 10% with a 3.1 or a 3.3. If the large school you’re talking about is that incredibly competitive, then I can assure you that TAMU (and others) know all about it and that they recognize that a 3.1 or 3.3 from that school is impressive.

Bottom line: If you can graduate in the top 10% of a good 900 member high school, you’re pretty darned accomplished, and you have taken several of the highest level courses that are available to students at that school.

In other words, there’s no reason for you to feel like you got the short end of the stick by attending a smaller school. Huge public high schools are actually quite competitive. They’re likely more competitive than small high schools, not the other way around.

I hope you enjoy Blinn Team and that you earn full admission to TAMU at the earliest possible opportunity! It sounds like you’re going to be a great Aggie someday very soon!