@harleycat - about 2 years ago my husband and I had the same “move high school” discussions. We came to the conclusion that our school/neighborhood had many other thinge to offer and for a that reason we were sticking with it. Luckily for us it worked out and hopefully it will for you too!
My son was accepted to the Blinn Team Engineering program and is ecstatic! He will save money by attending a community college and smaller class size means he’ll get more time with the Aggie professors. He will still be part of the Aggie community. In the end, he will walk away with a degree from a highly ranked Engineering program and the icing on the cake is he will be part of the Aggie family forever. I have a degree from Baylor and UT. My husband is a UT graduate. We are both so impressed with Texas A&M. I really think Hurricane Harvey put a glitch in the admissions process. Also, Texas A&M really looks at the students and to see if they would be a good fit. UT disregards students based on a number. I’m praying A&M acceptances go out very soon. Sending positive vibes to everyone still waiting.
@harleycat My husband and I are both graduates of TAMU. Oldest daughter is a graduate and second daughter is a Senior. My high school senior is PRAYING for BlinnTEAM. TAMU is not the same school we graduated from. It’s MUCH harder to into now. Don’t listen to anyone else’s opinions. It’s a great school and your son was accepted!! He’s extremely lucky and I honestly hope to be in your shoes. However, if we aren’t, my son will start at Blinn. That’s how much he wants to be an Aggie in College Station. He has the grades to get into many others; his heart is just in Aggieland. Congratulations to your son!
I thought I would share my stats too.Hi in advance to all the aggies here!
Application Date: 11/28/2017
GPA and Class Rank:Indian Curriculum :10th CGPA:10/10
11th: 85%(this is considered to be great in 11th)
12th predicted: 96.5%
No class rank but could say top 10% for sure
ACT Composite not given
SAT:1280
College applied for:Engineering
Major in that College:Mechanical
ECs: Vice President Automobile Club in school(only girl among 23 boys in the club!!), Scholar Gold Medalist(for academic excellence for 7 consecutive years), Head Peer Educator(recognised by Government of India) , Trained Bharatnatyam Dancer, Diploma in French Language(DELF DALF A1 and A2), Captain,Debating Society; Running member of School’s Student Council
Did you do all 3 essays:Yes
What is your highlight that you feel will make you stand out in the review process? My GPA and ECs I guess
In state/Out of State:OOS(International)
Current Status on AIS:Admission Accepted
Stupendous LORs from teachers and counsellor as well.
@harleycat, my son did the engineering academy at Blinn, and fully transferred into TAMU after the first semester. I too, was at first disappointed over him not getting full admission into the major of his choice, specially when he was not only considered guaranteed admit at Baylor and TX Tech (both with scholarship offers), ansd my son was upset about it. After speaking with an admissions counselor however, we realized there was no real downside to it. He was still considered an Aggie, in spite of taking a couple classes at Blinn, lived on campus, was part of the Corps of Cadets, and experienced Aggie life to the fullest. It was the best choice for him, and we’re glad he chose A&M. The wait is excruciating for my daughter, and completely agree that TAMU should work on improving and streamlining the admissions process. 4-6 months is way too long to wait on a decision. I hope you guys make the best choice going forward.
@harleycat I 100% understand your frustration, we are still waiting on an answer and for us Blinn Team would be a dream come true.
Although my son has an acceptance from OU (among others) in hand, we are still waiting for that final decision from TAMU. I just always think back to my own experience as a senior; I was dead-set on being an Aggie, but when it came down to it I picked a different school because they courted me more and I felt like they “wanted” me more than TAMU. It was the biggest mistake of my life and one I regret to this day, I let pride and a few insignificant things (such as trouble getting preferred housing on campus) change my mind. I gave up the chance to be an Aggie and went to a school where I did not fit in, hated every single second and eventually transferred to a much lower quality university to complete my degree.
So for that reason we are waiting for a final answer and then will let my son decide where he truly feels he should be, regardless of what it has taken to get to accepted (if he even does, which I’m preparing myself that he will not.)
Again, I understand your frustration and that kids can be cruel. Honestly when we visited TAMU and they mentioned Blinn Team, I just thought that would be unaccepted. However, the more I learn about it, the more I think it would be a great fit for (not to mention the cheaper tuition would make the OOS cost not hurt quite as much). Hope everything works out for y’all.
Hey do y’all know if an early college hs student can still get Blinn Team? I was just thinking about it for me and it wouldn’t make much sense if I did? Would I essentially have to start over?
@harleycat my son would crawl over broken glass to have your son’s offer. A&M doesn’t love the top 10%. It is state law that they must admit those kids. I take comfort knowing that my school (class of 92) is taking great care on the review admits. A few more weeks for a lifetime experience seems worth it to me.
@harleycat There are many more applicants to A&M than in the past. There were an additional 1000 applicants just this year compared with last year, perhaps due to the longer application window. In addition, the population of Texas and U.S. students continues to increase. TAMU is nationally ranked in many areas, and this attracts ever more applicants from out of state and internationally. This is simply a numbers situation. Your son’s fellow students probably don’t have the perspective to understand this, and it would take an extremely rare young person to be mature enough to help your son feel good about his situation. That’s where adults around provide perspective.
A&M is simply trying to maximize its available resources against historic loss of students during and after freshman year. It makes perfect sense to me that they would hand pick the students that would receive a Blinn offer. They might have innumerable to choose from after the automatic and academic admits. In other words, Blinn TEAM appears to be a strong vote of confidence.
IF and probably only if your son was originally very interested in A&M, then I personally recommend that you consider leading him toward taking this admission. As everyone has said, once you get on campus, there is no issue. If you look at the numbers of freshman in each college at A&M that @Thelma2 recently provided, even the very largest college (engineering) will have only 4000 new freshman on campus, and the others would have 1000-2000 or fewer. 4000 is about twice the size of my son’s high school, in other words, not very many if you ask me. The school pulls from all over. I would look at it from this perspective, register for an NSC, and get ready to go. If anyone asks your son, he should tell them he was accepted by A&M, because he was.
@harleycat Explain to your son that so many spaces are taken up by automatic and academic admits, and these would be of uneven potential at the school due to variations in high school preparation. In other words, he is probably JUST AS QUALIFIED as one of those folks and very likely more so.
no change on our end. Turned down Texas Tech and OU as we have much better options and acceptances in play. Still have cap from UT austin so whats one alternative admission to another. Full admit from UTSA, UArk, Arizona state, Uni of houston too. (some in honors program as well) Waiting on UCs from cali…but holding out hopes for that Aggie call.
We are planning on depositing this week at Uark this weekend, since we took tech, OU and Uni Houston off the table. Keeping Cap at UT Austin and full admit from utsa and arizona but University of Arkansas is our top choice giving what we have in our hand.
aggieland is our first choice but lets see what plans are in store for us.
@harleycat, do yourself and your son a favor by educating yourself about Blinn TEAM before your son rejects this offer outright. Many, many students with just as good and even better stats than your son were offered Blinn TEAM (mine included) and were absolutely thrilled that A&M had the faith and confidence in them that they could succeed at A&M-my son sure was! @Trinley made it clear that her son would give anything to receive the same offer and others have chimed in with similar sentiments. Please have him think long and hard about this and don’t let your negative feelings get in the way. HE got the Blinn TEAM offer and HE should make the decision as to whether or not he accepts it. No one needs to know what type of offer was made to him. Why tell ANYONE it was a Blinn TEAM offer? It’s none of their business. If he really wants to be an Aggie he will take this offer. My son has already accepted his offer with much pride and gratitude and I couldn’t me happier. He was an auto admit to 7 other very good universities and was offered scholarships from almost all of them. In fact, his second choice, LSU just recently offered him A LOT of scholarship money to go there (enough to make the yearly cost of tuition, room and board and books over $10,000.00 LESS than A&M per year) but he refuses to go there. He is, and has always been committed to going to A&M and this offer is giving him that chance and he is determined to make the best of it.
Thank you everyone for your support and comments.
I have showed my son many threads on here regarding Blinn Team as well as on other threads we follow.
He did decide to accept the Blinn Team offer and even signed up for registration today.
My HEART feels for all of you guys who are still waiting. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone again.
My first graders will be happy tomorrow when they find our my son, their Adopt an Athlete this past fall, will be an Aggie.
I have taught for 25 years. I have had some of my students come back and tell me I am the reason why they decided to apply and go to A&M. I will try my very best to keep my comments quiet about the new process to myself. I am very proud of my son and all that are on this thread.
He is my only child and I am very NEW to all of this. When I was there 25 years ago, there was no Blinn Team, so you have to be empathetic and understand where some of these parents are coming from.
Again, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings at all. This is totally ew to this old Aggie.
Best of luck to everyone. YOU are your child’s BEST advocate! 
YAY! That is great news! Your son is going to be an Aggie and walk those same paths you and his father did years ago. And girl, if you are an old Aggie, I am a prehistoric one. Class of '85 here! I can empathize completely about this process though, our son is our oldest (yes I had my kids MUCH later in life lol) and trust me, this college application process has been one heck of a roller coaster ride. It makes it even harder when the university they have their heart set on is the last one to make a decision on their application. Now that your son has decided to be an Aggie, get on that computer and get his housing application in! Congratulations!
@harleycat : Thanks for letting us know that your son chose to accept the Blinn-TEAM offer. It is a great way to start college as an Aggie in Aggieland! CONGRATULATIONS!
In a few years, a lot of those people in your area who were dismissing Blinn-TEAM might be calling your son BOSS!
Hopefully, the “less than” label will fade away as more people realize that Blinn-TEAM students are hand selected. TAMU is required by TX law to accept all top 10 percent even if their gpa, scores, ECs, time management skills, etc. are not sufficiently high enough to predict success in the very rigorous TAMU classes. The students selected for Blinn-TEAM are very well prepared. It is just a space issue.
Next year, when others from his school are facing the same situation, the experience of your family will be helpful. Share your experiences as a TAMU Blinn-TEAM family and help spread the word that it is a great option.
We specifically bought our house in the zone for the best public school in this area, one of the top handful in TX so that our daughters would be well prepared for college. Our oldest was top 27% and after review was a full admit to TAMU. Our youngest daughter was in the 53% of her HS class but is well prepared for TAMU as she is making A’s and B’ s and also has great social life. I wouldn’t change that for a top 10% at any other High School.
@harleycat CONGRATULATIONS! I think there are a lot of parents out there thinking what you were brave enough to say. If my son were to receive a Blinn TEAM offer, I think he would have the same thoughts as your son. I would definitely have to spend some time with him looking at the information as he made his decision. After reading posts on this thread, I realize it is a great program.
Also, @harleycat, there is a group on Facebook for Parents of Aggie students that you can now join. I did and it is a very helpful group. All you have to do is search for it on FB and answer 5 questions so that the moderator can confirm that you are an Aggie parent so she can add you to the group.
Just checking in. I posted my daughters stats a few weeks ago. Still waiting to hear a decision. BS Psych is first major choice. Having to sign up for backup school’s orientation due to the wait. Not looking good in my opinion.
We are anxiously awaiting our answer as well. Our DD applied in September for the Education Department. She is in the top 16% of her class with a 1210 on her SAT. She has had the elusive 6 tabs literally since she put all of her items in the system. She did all 3 essays and has oodles of volunteer hours as well as plenty of extra curricular.
What on earth can be taking so long??? She is auto at the 3 other schools she applied to and has known for months and we are at the point she needs to make some decisions due to housing requirements at other campuses.
Just so frustrated! Does anyone know how much longer this is going to be drawn out?
Thanks again for all your help and support.