@AggieDreamin I understand! I’m pretty sure that she will have a lot of Aggie friends soon and, in my sons’ experiences, it is very rare that there is not a way to get to go to the football games on most weekends. Even if she has to buy guest passes with her friends, it probably would be less expensive than a season pass and much more fun to stand with the 12th Man.
@AggieDreamin I’m sorry- I just realized you asked a second question. When they enter the football stadium, they have to go through certain gates and, if they have a student ticket, they have to show an A&M student id. For football games, they just show it with their ticket. (If they have a guest pass, they just use the ticket to go in the student gates). For basketball or baseball games, etc., they don’t have to pull an actual ticket- their A&M id has the sports pass information electronically connected to it and the id is scanned.
@AggieDreamin My daughter is doing the same route as yours. Is your daughter doing the Biology classes needed for the transfer? If so, they may be seeing a lot of each other. My daughter will be living off campus with another friend that will be going to TAMU. I’m so glad to finally have some decisions made and can look forward instead of being in a holding pattern.
@Txblondy I have a feeling there will be a lot of kids doing the same thing given how things went this year for admissions. 
She decided to switch out of BIMS and move toward Psychology BS. Is your daughter planning to apply to med school? We found out that the med schools do not want them to take the science classes at community college so with Psychology BS she take her English, History and Gov classes and wait to do sciences at TAMU. That being said, it also puts them a year behind for those classes and will require them to do a gap year before going to med school. The real bummer is that she has 8 hours of Biology AP credits that she will not be able to use. Also transfer with Psychology BS only requires 24 hours vs 45 for BIMS. She is also going to be living at The Standard just off campus. You can DM me if you want to chat more about what I found out.
My daughter is BIMS at TAMU now. She has been told by the professional advisors that physics is okay to take away from TAMU. That is only science that they have said she can do this with.
@Tuppence22 Agree…was told the same as well. Mostly Biology and Chemistry needs to be at TAMU. I am still trying to figure out if she can use her Calculus AP credit. Taking Physics at Blinn could be a good option
@Tuppence22 , my daughter was told by a computer science advisor that her physics lab at the community college might need repeating at TAMU but the physics class should be okay for receiving credit. I thought that was weird. I like your daughter’s advisor better!
First time post … so I remember reading earlier in thread that the academic sat/act auto admit was going away for next year … is that for sure ? My daughter ( junior) got her sat score today and would be eligible so i am just curious . Thanks !
@kasper0137 it has been widely rumored, but not decided on for sure.
Rumor is that it will come into effect for seniors of 2021. So Hs sophomores at the moment. Hopefully that’s the case and it’s not for next class. Congrats on the awesome scores!!!
Still debating Blinn team vs TCU. Went ahead and did housing app I can always cancel before May 1st. Does A&M blinn teamers go to Fish camp?
@DrMcSwag your daughter has even access to tamu as any full admit student. Include housing, sports pass, fish camp, parking, dining, etc etc.
@DrMcSwag : As a Blinn-TEAM student, your daughter will have all of the same opportunities as a Full Admit Aggie: she will have a TAMU Student ID, she will attend an NSC, she can choose to: go to FISH Camp, go Greek, buy a Sports Pass, buy a Dining Plan, buy a Parking Pass, live in a dorm, join any Aggie campus group.
The ONLY thing she cannot do is play an NCAA sport for TAMU. And she will take some classes from Blinn and some on the TAMU campus.
I highly recommend FISH Camp. My older daughter did not attend FISH Camp as she had a Summer job, but my younger one did. Despite needing a lot of sleep and sometimes not enjoying HS social activities, she thoroughly enjoyed FISH Camp. She met a lot of people, learned the Yells (and lost her voice!) and came back energized to be an AGGIE (and also exhausted!! LOL). Her FISH Camp was not long before move in so she had to hurry up and pack after FISH Camp.
Please check out my CC Thread: :“TAMU Blinn-TEAM : Fall 2017 parent perspective” for more info on the experience of our family.
Blinn-TEAM is a way for TAMU to be able to offer an admissions opportunity for students who are capable of thriving at TAMU, but because of the finite number of seats, they can’t offer full admissions.
I think that someone on the TAMU Admissions review committee REALLY wanted your daughter and fought hard for her to be offered Blinn-TEAM. Her offer came so late in the cycle, it should be a beacon of hope for future applicants. Your daughter has stellar qualifications and it has to be so difficult to know that she was squeezed out of Automatic Admissions by less than one percentage point.
Has your daughter been on both TAMU and TCU campuses while classes are in progress? If y’all haven’t been to the campuses on a regular day, I highly recommend visiting both of them. Schedule an official campus tour, a dorm tour, a meeting with Blinn-TEAM advisers for TAMU and Major advisers for both campuses and if at all possible, see if she can sit in on a class while on campus. Check out the town around each campus, tally up the travel time to and from home. Have her make a spreadsheet of all of the pros and cons of each experience so that she can make the most informed decision about where she feels like she fits in the best and wants to enroll.
It was a tour of TAMU on a regular Friday in September 2016 that solidified the feeling for my daughter that she “fit in” at TAMU. Our older daughter was TAMU class of 2016, and even though our younger daughter had visited campus and attended football games and sorority events with her sister, I knew that being an Aggie doesn’t necessarily suit everyone. I wanted our younger daughter to go to the U which suited her the most. That campus tour allowed her to realize that she fit in on the TAMU campus. The advisor whom she spoke with in the English Dept was very encouraging and she LOVED the English class that she sat in on. We didn’t tour the dorms as she knew she didn’t want to live in a dorm.
Even though my daughter hadn’t even submitted her application yet, I realized that her class rank was going to be low and thought that Blinn-TEAM might be a possibility, so we also drove over to the Blinn-Bryan campus just to see how long it took to get there. It wasn’t long at all. I think that knowing that bit of info was helpful when she was offered Blinn-TEAM in Feb. 2017 as she realized it wasn’t a big deal to go to that campus on some days of the week. I think current Blinn-TEAM students take all of their Blinn classes at the RELLIS facility so please check out that location.
Our Sophomore Blinn-TEAMer is loving living the Aggie life in Aggieland. She has made wonderful friends in and out of her sorority and is making great grades while balancing studying with all of the social opportunities. Being on Blinn-TEAM has not been a hindrance at all, it has been an opportunity to be an Aggie.
@AggieMomhelp I really hope that it doesn’t affect students already in the pipeline of high school, so to speak, but maybe starting with the entering freshman for fall 2021 or even fall 2020 for that matter.
Current sophomore students only have 1 year left to change things and it can be almost impossible to move rankings in some schools. But, that is just my wish, and A&M isn’t calling for a consult, so, it will be what it will be.
While auto Academic Admission will eventually be repealed (according to rumor), those same type kids still still be applying, and with past year’s offers being around 4400ish =/-, truly impossible to say how big/small of a change we will see.
I have heard from more than one place that the Jimbo Fisher hiring had an influence on applications and a lot more highly qualified students applied to A&M. A winning SEC team is a big draw. That element might stick around, if he does.
@Thelma2 I wish they would keep academic admit for the Texas kids at least and perhaps lower the auto admit percentage from 10 as UT did. It seems it will only make more work for them to review so many more holistically.
I also heard something about UT’s decision waves coming early enough for people who did not get into UT to still be able to apply to TAMU and many did.
@pbleigh I’m probably in the minority, but I think TAMU should lower class rank to 7 or 8%, and have the same admissions timeline as UT. UT was harsh this year-Admission, CAP or denial-but it was all done at once. None of this dragging it out, like A&M did. Everyone at our high school knew the decision was coming out.
Personally, I dislike the mentality of ppl that think just because they didn’t get into UT, A&M is a sure/safe ‘fall back’.
After this year, clearly changes need to be made. And waiting until mid March for many, is super late. That being said, I’m always in total shock at students who only apply to 1 school, when they aren’t Top 6/10%.
@AggieMomAgain so it’s not one year at blinn it is two? I thought I read somewhere one year but the stuff they sent her said 2 years? Then I read 1 year if a >3.5 gpa? Guess I will try to call tomorrow. She text me at work saying blinn campus 45 min away but that didn’t sound right. I’m at work seeing patients and haven’t got to look at the packet.
@DrMcSwag The Blinn campus in Brenham is 45 mins away. Blinn Team is based in Bryan-College Station. That’s a very short drive from one part of “town” to another. Maybe 15-20 minutes?
@Thelma2 I completely agree. My Aggie hopeful son is a current high school sophomore on the cusp of 1Q (25.4%!!) and he kicked it into overdrive this semester to make sure he gets firmly into 1Q territory. He’s taking an extra AP class during the summer and all AP Junior Year. We’ve already lined up intensive SAT tutoring for the summer to get him to where scores need to be for academic admit. It would really suck if they do away with the academic admit category the year he applies. It makes more sense to implement it starting for incoming freshman who will graduate high school 2023…don’t mess up the kids who can in no way change their class rank now!
My daughter chose to stay on Blinn-TEAM for 2 years because she wasn’t sure of her major. She applied with an English Major. But she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with an English major. And once she got to CStat, she realized that it wasn’t a big deal to take some classes at Blinn.
Blinn-TEAM are “General Studies” so she decided to stay on the program for the full 2 years. The program is 2 years BUT they can apply to TAMU after only one year. There are several programs which have specific class lists, English is not one of them. Please consult a Blinn-TEAM advisor with questions about what program is best for your daughter.
Please read my Blinn-TEAM thread, I have a lot of info on there.
I hope that y’all can make a trip to both TAMU (and the RELLIS facility) and TCU before she makes her decision. As an Aggie mom, I am firmly in the TAMU corner. I know that being an Aggie isn’t for everyone, but I would hate for her to make such a momentous decision without all of the info, without knowing how each campus feels to her.