I just recently received two of my admissions decisions. I was honestly surprised when I found that I was denied from both A&M and UT Austin and was offered the A&M Program for System Admission and UT CAP program. I had applied to Texas Tech because I knew I would receive a Presidential Scholarship based on my stats. A&M was my true safety school, the one I would go to despite the scholarship. I guess environmental geoscience was a more competitive major. That was the one school I didn’t apply as undecided. UT wasn’t my reach school either. My dream schools were NYU and Northeastern University. Although I’m still waiting on NYU and NU admission decisions, I’d like to get some insight. What to you think I would be best off choosing: Texas Tech with a scholarship of $4,000 a year (ranked about 170), UTD with pending automatic acceptance (ranked 150), or UT Austin CAP program at possibly UT San Antonio?
What is your score?
@mdking323 SAT: 1290/1600
GPA: 3.7
Ranking: 95/509 at time of admission (19%) and 75/509 now (14%)
Awards: Rating 4 (out of 4) at region TAEA VASE, red ribbon (2nd place in grade level) at Houston Rodeo art contest, biology academic award, 2 attendance awards, 1 honor roll, 3 academic excellence awards, Microsoft certification award
Volunteering: 98 hours for a local animal rescue and some scattering volunteering
Summer Activities: National Student Leadership Conference Business & Entrepreneurship (rising junior- 11th grade)
Extracurriculars: NArtHS Vice President 12th grade (9, 11, 12), NHS (11, 12), NFrenchHS and French Club Secretary 12th grade & Historian 11th grade (11, 12), Creative Writing Club Founder & Vice President 11th grade (11), NEnglishHS (12), Key Club (10), & Lodestar Magazine Staff Member/Magazine Contributor 10th grade (10)
If you had a 1290 on the SAT, A&M was never a safety school. It is a pretty low score.
GPA is meh and ranking is not so good either.
EC’s are great, but remember, GPA and test scores are still extremely important. EC’s are meant to help boost you above the competition, not hold up sagging results in other areas.
@RMNiMiTz Oh, my application was definitely not even close to outstanding. I would have gotten auto-accepted or academically accepted if it had been. I just meant that, for A&M, according to other people who got in and to websites (I know, I know, everything on the internet isn’t true), my application had a higher chance of getting accepted. Some sites calculated that my scores alone were higher than 70% of the other applicants. I did horrible on the math SAT section, which scored me the average of 620, and decent on the reading section, scoring me 670 (or 690 on another SAT sitting) when the score bracket ended at 610. The average GPA is 3.57, so my GPA was a bit higher as well.
A&M’s middle 50% is 1070 to 1310 but it probably skews high on the Top 10% group.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=759
If you’re willing to work for it and want the best long-term option, I’d recommend CAP. Successfully admitted CAP students do just as well as the other students (transfer or FTIC).