Major Was Changed in the AIS

kjb
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:25:13 +0000

My oldest son is a sophomore aerospace major at A&M. There is in fact a minimum SAT/ACT math score required for admission to the engineering school. I can’t remember what it was when my son was applying (and can’t find anything in his admissions papers now), but he had a 27 on the math section, 30 overall. All engineering students have to take an online math placement exam before their freshman year (unless exempted due to high AP exams, etc). The score of that, along with your SAT/ACT score, will determine where you will be placed in your first math class. My son ended up having to take Math 150 first (instead of jumping directly into Math 151). He was right on the border, and we were originally tempted to appeal that he be placed directly into Math 151, so he wouldn’t be “behind”. As it ends up, he was MUCH BETTER OFF taking Math 150 first. He is doing well in his classes as a sophomore. As he said, “I now have a better foundation in Maroon Math” (whatever that is!!)

The math placement website has practice tests, etc. Start practicing now, DariusBieber. My son did NO advance preparation. Maybe you can ask them if you can take their placement exam now, and if you do well enough, it will show you are ready for engineering. Good Luck! (BTW, do not be too discouraged not hearing from them too promptly. It seems to be much slower this year (I have another son who’s a senior with a 2200 SAT, and things are moving VERY SLOWLY for him with A&M and UT as well!)

Math placement exam info from A&M website:
[ESSAP - Math Placement Exam Explanation](http://essap.tamu.edu/math-placement.htm)
[Math Placement Exam Requirements and Exemptions for 2012 | New Aggie](http://newaggie.tamu.edu/nsc/testing/math)
https://mathplacement.tamu.edu/precal-cas/

One more thing - my son recently explored the idea of switching to another engineering major and most, if not all of them, have a waiting list. So choose carefully. Aero and Nuclear are considered among A&M students to be the most difficult engineering majors.