<p>What happens when you get out of TAMS at junior year? How does Plano ISD give credit for TAMS courses? What happens if you stayed in TAMS but got kicked out in the first semester of senior year? How do you graduate?</p>
<p>Got Your acceptance letter too, eh?</p>
<p>You go to TAMS for two school years and get a high school diploma from University of North Texas. You are not in high school when you are in TAMS, although completing the 2 years there will earn you a diploma. When you go to TAMS, you will have withdrawn from high school. If you get kicked out of TAMS (being 45 min late for curfew twice, getting multiple Ds, or 1 F), then you have go to your zoned high school, and the credits from TAMS will count as dual credit in High School, although what for exactly you have to ask your counselor.</p>
<p>If you have any specific questions about the TAMS program or the interview process, email tams.outreach@**** and they can answer all of your questions (that is a gmail email address in case it blocked it out). You can also be connected with a current student to ask them questions about their experience with the interview and with things in general about being a TAMS student. It’s a great resource!</p>
<p>TO TAKE SOMEBODY WHO DID SO WELL IN THE LOCAL ISD AND HAVE THEM FLUNK OUT IN TAMS WAS A BAD IDEA. BETWEEN THE PROFESSORS WHO ARE THERE TO WATCH THE KIDS FAIL JUST BECAUSE THEY MAY WANT TO BE DOCTORS, BETWEEN PROFESSORS WHO ABSOLUTELY DONT CARE ABOUT THESE KIDS, AND THE TAMS ADMINISTRATION THAT CANT OR WONT DO ANYTHING IT IS SUCH A BAD IDEA.</p>
<p>.i got accepted to tams(texas academy of math and science)</p>
<p>i am going to attend this because i think i will do great there and i am willing to push myself.</p>
<p>my main question is, will attending tams help or hurt my chances of being accepted into colleges like cal-tech, mit, or princeton(my dream colleges)</p>
<p>right now, i am one of the top students in my school(fall under top 1%) and i could easily attend ut austin by the percent rule,</p>
<p>i really like tams and its perfect for me, there is just that 1 fear, will it hurt my chances of getting to one of these colleges?</p>
<p>TAMS doesn’t rank their students, and I’ve heard they’ve had a hard time getting into UT because of it. A few were finally accepted as transfer students, but then they couldn’t get any merit aid.<br>
If you want UT, then you need to stay where you are. It’s hard to pass up a sure thing which you’ve got in your back pocket.
As far as CalTech, MIT, or Princeton. These past few years the number of applicants have just exploded. Off the charts. So the acceptance rates are in the toilet. I think the unis like the ones on your list are slammed with apps, so more and more they use gate-keeping numbers - like GPA, Rank - to whittle down the numbers into something reasonable. Things are just getting more and more competitive. But you know this.
Seriously, they’d have to hire thousands of people to go over all the apps and read the essays, and who can afford that.
If you only want the knowledge, then TAMS is the place. But it’s also a GPA risk, since the classes are Uni Honors. If you want a hi GPA and hi Rank so you can get into UT or your dream schools, then you’re better off where you are. Plus, you’d have more time to work on your essays, apps, etc. </p>
<p>There are some good things about TAMS, and if you’re going there, congrats on your acceptance! I’m a current TAMSter, and while I did like the experience, there are some major flaws in the entire TAMS system.</p>
<p>First of all, it’s a bureaucracy. What does that mean? The admin aren’t exactly there to help you, they’re there to maintain TAMS so they can–well, keep their jobs. This means they instill fear in you of having a low GPA. There’s generally an atmosphere of paranoia going around TAMS.</p>
<p>Second of all, TAMS life is nothing like your high school life. Expect to handle a lot of stuff yourself; TAMS basically taboos you if you have roommate problems (they’d rather you not talk about it) and if you seem to be struggling with subjects there’s labels of you being stupid. If you have problems, they generally want you to keep it to yourself, which sucks. TAMS though has great PR, which is why dissent among alumni are silenced.</p>
<p>A lot of people lose their personalities at TAMS–they lose their passions. There is so much more to math and science than maintaining a good grade in those subjects; for example, research and science bowl and math competitions and really loving the subject by diving into it. People forget that in the flurry to maintain their GPA. I had friends who danced amazingly and had won nationals at competitions ditch all of that in order to have a 4.0. I don’t know if it’s worth it, but it certainly made them bored and tired during their TAMS year.</p>
<p>My advice sounds cliche but in the long run, you need to stand out from your peers. You can throw yourself for the 4.0 that a large portion of TAMS students will also fight to get, or you can accept a lower GPA and find the cure to cancer or strept or flu. Up to you, but make your experience at TAMS and your last two years of high school count and make it meaningful.</p>