Texas A&M Class of 2029 Official Thread

Engineering honor essay prompt may change wordings over the years but the questions are generally the same - the reason the student is interested in engineering honors, research goals and future career goals. Cover the questions in maximum of two single space pages. The answers need to reflect student’s willingness to take on heavier workload and not afraid of more challenging course work.

As for the admission general engineering prompt, that one is reviewed by admission office and it doesn’t really need to be too technical. Just show why TAMU is a good fit for student, and what student will do with a TAMU degree.
General engineering admission is mainly decided on rank and scores.

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Asking for a clarification on the main essay required by Texas A&M. Should we use the Common App prompt #7 “Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.” to answer “Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?” Thanks

The prompt button selection is for optional “Personal Essay”. TAMU does not require personal essay.
In the main application the required essay and two questions prompts are in the common questions area.

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Thank you!

I know application submissions can be sent beginning 8/1 but when are the applications available on ApplyTexas and CommonApp? I thought they should be available by now but my daughter’s account still shows they are unavailable.

My son can see the Fall 2025 application in Apply Texas and has stared to fill out the different school specific questions.

That is so strange. I wonder why it isn’t showing up for her. She can see Spring and applications for the other campuses but not college station.

In the Common App, we can “see” the Texas A&M app, but it is last years as is all of the colleges. Those will roll over on August 1 and then can be filled out.

If you want to show rigor and mastery with your AP score, but not take the credit, do you still send the score to TAMU? If so, does your Advisor ask later if you want the credit?

Student can send all the AP scores.

Claiming credit is self-serve in Howdy. Be very careful the process is not reversible and no one can override it once claimed. Therefore, student has four years to slowly decide to claim credit or not, there is no hurry doing that.

For instance, if student is in engineering, claiming away ECON 202 with AP Econ score will automatically fill the class requirement for “social science core curriculum”. Later registering an easy social science class such as AGEC 105 (to boost degree plan GPA?) will not be counted towards major. Financial aid will also show the class not qualified as it becomes out of degree plan.

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WAIT for NSC, to discuss AP scores with advisor (this applies to all majors).

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And you suggest not taking the credit for MATH 151, correct?

It depends, if scoring 5 in AP Calc BC with some differential equations or discrete math experience, it will be ok to claim the credits. It is all about how prepared the student is.

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My son doesn’t know the correct transcript code for the courses he will take his senior year, but the SRAR says to list senior year classes as “in progress.” Is there a place to find the correct course codes? Or should he just leave the generic pre-populated description in the field? (Ex: He will take sports analytics through the HS’s MAPS program his senior year. It is a statistics class, but he doesn’t know the exact course code. Ditto for his economics class.)

In SRAR “Add Course” section, the “title” and “name” are free-form text your student can enter.

Yep, thanks, but that text box is the problem. He doesn’t know what to enter into the course name free form text box. For the courses he has taken already, those names appear on his current transcript, and he can transpose the course names exactly. But his HS doesn’t provide those codes anywhere else, and the course names for his senior classes won’t show up on his transcript until after Aug. 1.

Perhaps the better question is - may he update/edit his SRAR after he submits it/applies on August 1? If so, maybe that’s the way to go. Enter what he can now and then supplement/amend when he gets a revised senior year transcript in the fall?

I realize this is an old question and you already got great input, but in case you didn’t get what you were looking for to this particular question, I’ll throw in my 2 cents.

My D26 during her freshman year was in the same situation of running out of classes to take. She was able to get the engineering advisor to force her into a second year Mechanical Engineering class (honors section) for her freshman spring semester even though ETAM hadn’t occurred yet (i.e. not a MEEN student at that point). I think the MEEN department head had to approve it.

Not sure how often that occurs and/or what criteria they look at, but I want you to know that it is possible. (If I recall correctly, she was the only freshman in the class and her prof was a little surprised when he got to know her later.)

Course Title can be the exact description of the course.

If it is not standard course, or the level is non-AP, non DC, and non college level, admission office normally won’t pay too much attention to the course.

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So Honors level courses are not valuable?

Not quite sure how this conclusion come from. Admission office runs through thousands of applications and they do know a lot about classes.

To further elaborate, if the class title is “Cellular Biology” and course level is “Standard”, then it is not seriously considered. But if one select course level as “Dual Credit”, then it will trigger the request of college transcript with a red cross in AIS. If months later closer to deadlines, the student still hasn’t produced the transcript, the review will be delayed. If by then, the student claims he or she made a mistake and the class is just “standard”, then even though admission may manually override and remove the transcript requirement, there may be Aggie Honor Code violation (applicants won’t be informed).

If the class as you referred as “Honor” with a heavier GPA weight, it should be fine, but note that if the class title is too obscure (I have seen “guitar building”), it won’t be looked at much. After all, ranking will take care of all factors related to the course strength.

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