txpublic, we are on the road. I was bothered by the fact that my daughter’s high school final transcript was not ready. I thought that was a must in order to register for classes, but apparently not. She has joined the chat! So grateful there is contact. Thanks to jenkins for that. Awesome for the kids. Got things straightened out with Sabina about a pre-orientation meeting at 8:30. It is all falling into place. I am just such a worrier. I worry about what they’ll do with their bedding when they arrive, lol. I don’t like not knowing things. We are in Sugar Land and I swear San Antonio has never felt farther. I wanted to hit some of the Missions today. We got such a late start. Needed to board the dog. Will give a full report when we are done.
Just as promised I will give a little summary of today’s student/parent orientation. So, the Sat. prior my student received an email from Sabina informing her to meet for a pre-orientation meeting for CAP students and their parents. This was a little tricky bc after arriving and parking in lot 2 (w/parking pass displayed on the dash!) we were very tempted to get our daughter in line for check-in. It was about 20 mins prior to the 8:30 CAP meeting, so we headed there first. I would almost recommend sending your student to go ahead and line up for their check in & have the parent attend the CAP meeting. The reason being, that line gets long quickly. It was good meeting Sabina. We knew some of the info, but it was a good meeting. We’d gone off and left our list of CAP approved courses at home, so grabbed another one of those. Although I am not sure why I bother bc my daughter has yet to take a good look at it. Sabina mentioned that we should hang around on the second morning of orientation and she will go over any questions we have after our student signs up for classes. So that little piece of info was important. We’ve had a bit of an issue with receiving almost zero information from the school leading up to orientation and today I found out we were not alone. We knew a lot more than most. Here is my theory: remember how the kids could change their contact email? After talking to several people at our parent orientation, it seems it is possible that some correspondence from the school might possibly still go to the original email provided. Even the very nice gentleman in charge of the book store mentioned this. So that might explain it. My daughter had not received the all important email with info about an advisor name and meeting time. We told Sabina as much and she checked and confirmed it had been sent. I spoke to a guy by the name of Jose David (who was extremely helpful throughout the day) & he checked a roster & my daughter’s name was not on it, despite the fact that we signed on for this back in March. I was told that these emails were being resent in mass & sure enough that afternoon my daughter received it. So a minor glitch/albeit important one. I am a stickler for details. So hopefully this will not be the case w/future emails. Someone named Bob Miller suggested that my daughter speak to a One Stop rep and go over the email thing to make sure things are fully linked? This is something she must do. We were reminded over & over & over again today, the we must step back and that in future we will not have much/if any access to our kids info and they will be in charge. Bye bye helicopter parents. Hello 18 year olds. All in all good presentations in the auditorium for parents. Lots of pics taken with our iphones of very important links. Adding the UTSA app to our phones, although when you go to sign on, there is no parent category? This question was asked, but skimmed over and never answered. So parents, you will sit in a pleasant auditorium. Be prepared the student union building is very cold as is said auditorium. When we arrived Monday and toured the Missions it was a mind blowing 100 degrees, so maybe the school buildings were trying to offset that. Then day one of orientation the weather shifted and it is in the 70s. Flash flood warning made me wonder if I ever left Houston!! Our daughter had fun, but was pretty pooped. Housed in “crusty” (her words, lol) Chisolm hall for the evening. Tomorrow the all important class registration. Wish us luck and hope the weather holds. My daughter refuses to use an umbrella. What’s with kids and umbrellas? Anyway, the highlight for me was knowing she was interacting w/some of the CAP kids. She saw some kids from back home too. We spoke with very nice parents of a girl who was on the CAP chat & I was pleased to learn my daughter had spent most of the day w/theirs. Thinking maybe my daughter should’ve roomed at Alvarez. My daughter noted that she didn’t need to state her major will be International Relations, when at UTSA she is doing exploratory studies. A very full day. Maybe some of the kinks will be worked out in time for later orientations. One of the more valuable things we learned was that when student registers for classes, on the last screen there is supposed to be a button for ordering books. This should all be pre-selected in terms of material required by each class professor. Your student can reserve the books and they will be held for them. Rather than shipping them to your home. Also a good tip is, if any of these materials need to be returned the student can do so up to two weeks after classes start. Happy orientation everyone! I am semi-new to this site, so hope my long windedness is okay. Oh, last thought: a bit of confusion had by all about carrying your bedding around or not as kids walked around to sign in today. Still haven’t figured out the smoothest way to have gone about that. Hope my kid sleeps tonight and makes it on time tomorrow.
@WylieA. That you for the informative post. Sounds like it has been successful so far, if a little confusing. I am sure I will have questions for you since my daughter will be there Monday. Keep us posted again once she has completed registration!
So after some drama with registration, I think my daughter is squared away. I wish she had signed on for Intro Math, which does not seem to be available any longer. She signed on for pre-calc at the advisor’s suggestion. Seems pointless to me, but will fulfill the CAP math. Still seems to me she would need a placement test, but no mention of one. She was signed up for a composition class, but apparently she had already fulfilled that by taken a course during senior year. So she is taking an anthropology course instead. No block classes. I am disappointed in that, bc it was so highly touted in parent orientation. Just hoping the whole CAP at UTSA turns out well for her. She has a friend at A&M, some staying on in Houston (UofH & St. Thomas) and she was accepted at Baylor after being on a wait list. Honestly I feel very conflicted, but do not want to be negative for her sake. Was not impressed with her advisor interaction. Very difficult communication. The reception at the advisor office has a very annoying habit of trying to answer student’s questions, despite not knowing the answers. I encountered that over the phone as well. It would be much more appropriate and simpler in my opinion, to have the student wait and speak directly with the appropriate person/their assigned advisor! Too much back and forth and non answers. Anyone else had issues?
Hi @WylieA , I undersand your frustration. The registration process did seem full of potential pitfalls. I am hoping that so long as they stick to the CAP approved courses and take the required hours, they should be OK. The only possible reason I can think of that they would not require a placement test for Precal is if your daughter took a college level math class for dual credit in high school and they are somehow counting that as a prerequisite. But I really don’t know. Like your daughter, mine won’t need Freshman Composition I or II because she took it as dual credit in high school. And also like your daughter, my daughter chose an anthropology course with a good professor review on Ratemyprofessors.com. BTW, we also had the problem of phone calls where you get a student worker who tries to answer the question, but you are unsure if the information you are getting is correct, and you wish you could speak with a more experienced staff person. Anyway, it has been anxiety provoking for me, but I am waiting to see what happens this fall… It’s a steep learning curve for them for sure and they have just two semesters to get that GPA to the required 3.25 for automatic transfer.
I have a question for all of you who’s kids were accepted into CAP last year. My son did CAP and will be a senior at UT next year. It has been a great experience for him. His younger sister is hoping to do the same thing but she may not be in the top quarter of her very competitive high school at the end of this year (her junior year) when she applies. Is it a requirement to be top quarter to be offered CAP? I just want to be able to steer her toward other opportunities if that’s the case. Thanks
@bengeg My daughter is doing CAP right now at UTSA. She was around top 33%. So unless they change the rules, as it stands now, you have to be top 50% with an 1170 SAT or 24 ACT to be eligible for CAP at UTSA. There is no minimum SAT score or ACT score required if you are top 25%. The other CAP schools generally have somewhat easier requirements than UTSA.
Thank you txpublic