Texas a&m chances with low class rank

AGmomx2
Thu, 11 May 2017 14:42:37 +0000

You are a good candidate for Gateway - you do not apply directly, the admissions office chooses which pathway is best for each applicant. Gateway is the summer session program which is for students they feel have special circumstances and deserve a chance to prove themselves in the college environment. The ‘stats’ of Gateway students vary greatly but the common thread is a challenge that is addressed in their essay (otherwise they don’t know about it).

You did not mention your year group - are you at the end of sophomore year or junior year? Don’t forget to line up a recommendation to add to your file, given your situation did you confide in the guidance counselor or teacher? That might be a good choice for a recommendation.

As far as spending money on test prep - mostly it is commitment on your part that is the essential ingredient for success. You can do it on your own or sign up for mandatory study session (honestly, that is what they are). Make sure someone proofreads your essays, use powerful words ( a thesaurus function on the keyboard is magical!) and remember that an essay is your only way of communicating to the admissions team. Passion, commitment, hardship and drive are all things that will need to resonate with the reader.

Do not think that the ‘competitive high school’ angle will help you, everyone seems to think that will have some impact but it doesn’t. Competitive high schools also have advantages like better staff & opportunities as well as competition to push students to achieve more. Very few applicants look at it that way, but admissions does. The way you scream ‘competitive high school’ is through extremely high test scores. I would sign up for both the ACT & SAT. My oldest took both, her younger brother only took the ACT. He scored so high on the ACT, we opted to skip the SAT. You can request your test question results to hone in on your strengths & weaknesses for re-testing if needed. What is a good score? You should go for the academic admit scores at a minimum with a 50% ranking. Obviously the higher the better, but when you consider that over 85% of the admits will qualify for admission by academic admit or top 10% admit - you need to be competitive with those students. Give yourself the gift of time by starting your studies early & sign up for testing. At TAMU, only the best one sitting score is counted - the others are discarded if they are submitted to the school so, go ahead and mark the send box each time. Good luck!