Hey all, I’m a rising senior and curious about whether or not I’m fit for TAMU. I visited the school a couple weeks ago (not an official tour) and thought it to be pretty nice. But my stats are not phenomenal and I’m well aware of this.
Demographics: Texas resident born and raised (DFW area), male, K-12 small IB school whole life
Intended major: Psychology
UW GPA: 3.0-3.1 however weighted is 3.79, rank isn’t disclosed but 3rd quartile. SAT is 1250 (will take august SAT, I think you can submit new scores after I submit application on august 1st so i’ll take advantage of that)
The reason for my terrible HS grades is because I screwed around first two years of high school, sort of locked in for junior year however because it’s an IB school i went into their diploma programme and it’s pretty dang hard to improve GPA due to the rigor and coursework. However there is a slight grade improvement in my transcript despite the hard change in rigor so I’ll probably try to elaborate on that. Don’t know if it’ll be of any help. However I will say this school does a LOT to prepare you for college. Not worried about any shift in coursework.
I also plan on joining Corps of Cadets, some people say it could help but who knows.
ECs:
-Long time guitar player, i’ve participated in recitals for a while and earned lots of recognition from those as well as 2 trophies from “excellence in music”
- 70+ volunteer and service hours at a vareity of places, namely a yearly gala, animal shelters, Feed My Starving Children, as well as another 70-80 hours doing creativity related subjects and physical activity (from IB designated creativity, activity, service program).
- I’ve participated in my school’s art club where I was in some event where you make art for domestic abuse awareness (there was some psychology influence there, from how childhood experience influences it).
-IB Extended Essay was on psychology, particularly on antisemitism and it’s history
-IB Political Engagement Project had me interviewing experts and getting heavily involved in local politics, some psychology (i guess? but mostly sociology to be exact since it’s about Texans and their qualms with eminent domain and land rights)
-High interest in film and I do screenwriting pretty often although I’m yet to go anywhere with it. Plots have influence from, you guessed it, psychology…
-Part time jobs working as a dock hand at a marina and also at Target. I can go on and on about what I learned from this but I will say it was a lot of physical work
I am planning on getting about 2 LORs and my essay topics will probably be about how I spent my life being a quitter and how I changed. It sounds boring but I can make it work.
My guess is probably not full admission but I’m hoping for PSA at least. Do let me know what you guys think.
I don’t believe you’d get into A&M.
How are you calculating the weighted GPA - it’s a big lift from your unweighted.
There are many schools you would get into. Best of luck.
The weighted gpa is what’s written on the transcript so there’s no need to calculate it. But the unweighted is calculated by our college counselor and placed on this site we use called Naviance. It’s a big lift since all of my courses are IB.
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OK - that’s what I was asking - why the big lift. How it’s being calculated.
Maybe you have a chance then.
In the end, you can apply to A&M - but have a back up (Tech, Houston, Oklahoma, etc.) so you have a home no matter what.
Good luck
What extra points does the high school give for honors, IB, etc courses when calculating weighted GPA?
But note that rank is the main factor in Texas public university admission.
I used to teach in private school in Texas but have moved to public. From what I remember, the students (in both private and public schools) accepted to TAMU had much higher GPA and SAT. The one important thing about TAMU is they have a very large applicant pool - almost every Texas senior who wants to go to 4-year college would apply, so they can afford to miss quite some would-be fits and still have plenty of sure fits to choose from.
What does your college counselor say? Look at the historical data from your school, if there have been consistent acceptances of students with similar stats then you can be optimistic.
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I’m not entirely sure how they calculate it but there’s no honors/AP classes, it’s all IB. I also forgot to mention but 3 of the 8 classes i take are “higher level” compared to rest, the IB’s usual “standard level”. So the weighing jump is pretty big for that reason.
My rank is probably my biggest disqualifier, I was hoping the rigor could make up for it, but who knows. It’s really hard to get rank and GPA to budge at my school since everyone is going down the same curve at the same speed if that makes sense.
I don’t know if they’d disclose any data but for the 2025 grads there was someone who was 4th quartile and 1150 SAT and still got the gateway to success summer program. I’ve seen others online with a 970 SAT and a 3.2 GPA get accepted too, although they may have gotten a pathway and didn’t mention it.
Meanwhile there was another kid I knew with a 1540 and tons of awards + ECs i can’t recall now and he got PSAed.
I guess trying to predict TAMU admissions is like trying to catch a gnat with chopsticks. But from what Ive seen i’ll likely get PSA or, TEAM if i’m lucky. I can only hope for a CSTAT admission at this point.
This is it in a nutshell.
No one here is A&M.
Apply, and see.
And have an assured admit, as noted earlier, in your school set as well. Like anyone, you can hope for one but ensure you have another in case.
A&M is not the only school for you, I assure you. There are many.
Stop worrying about others - it’s not healthy and they’re not relevant to you.
Good luck.