Went to Muster in our small town this week. Several multigenerational Aggie families there. Sickens me to see how the current admissions people literally penalize applicants from situations like these.

BoDog said:

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aggie93 said:

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BoDog said:

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For those that are encountering these admissions road blocks, are you looking at any of the in state privates vs out of state publics?

SMU, Baylor, and TCU are still top 100 schools (TCU may be slightly outside of that) and often give handsome merit scholarships... Personally I would tend to believe that the in state alumni network of these schools, though smaller, is still considerably better than an NC State, Auburn, etc etc-though that is purely conjecture on my part.

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I think a lot of that depends. I can definitely attest to being impressed with the NC State network for my son already at least in Engineering which is their feature. It's got a strong national reputation and my son had 3 internship offers after his first year to choose from and could have gotten more. It's especially strong in North Carolina. One thing about NC State and Auburn as well is they are very different in terms of setup than Alabama and UNC which have both have very small engineering programs. If you are attending a public school in those states (or in Georgia with UGA and GT or Virginia with UVA and VT) and are wanting to be an engineer those are the schools to go to. Obviously you have schools like Duke with Pratt but they are extremely selective and only have a few hundred grads per year.

If you aren't engineering that's a different ballgame. Those schools still have good alumni networks though overall but strongest regionally. As for in state Private schools they have their own networks as well for sure but are going to be strongest regionally as well. None of the Texas private schools outside of Rice (which is more like Duke) and maybe SMU for Business have a strong national reputation. They aren't bad of course but the main value would be living in Texas. If you want to be in Fort Worth then TCU is great. SMU for Dallas. Baylor is more Texas wide. Then you have some interesting ones like Trinity that have their own network as well.

The Non Engineering Publics from OOS (Arkansas, Ole Miss, Bama, etc) all have networks as well but not as strong as A&M's. Those schools also tend to have very big Greek programs.

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Good read. My point is that if I plan to live in Texas post graduation (and not an engineering major) it would seem that the in-state privates would serve you better - assuming there was large merit aid included.

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The Texas post grad and not engineering are definitely different variables. That said if you are looking at say Business and want to live in DFW then going to OU or Arkansas they both have significant networks there. In Houston it's LSU. Also, most of the private companies offer "merit" but it's kind of a mirage because they have such a big sticker price. If you are getting $15k merit but the cost if $60k that's nice but it's also a bit misleading, places like Baylor offer merit to most students of varying levels.

In the end though the most important thing is always going to be what you do when you get there over the school itself. I remember my son had an interview with MIT and one of their alums. Towards the end my son asked him about how the network from MIT had helped him in his career and he couldn't really point to anything. He said he knew a few guys from when he was in school that were friends but mostly had lost touch and had never really heard his MIT degree brought up as a big reason for him getting a job or promotion. Then ironically he said his son was at A&M (he didn't know about my son's A&M preferences btw) and he had seen some networking help for him and a comraderie among their grads. He also had a Stanford interview where the guy was similar, really only a few people he happened to know were helpful but never really went anywhere with it. The key is it's all about what you make of it and not the name brand. I think it's actually a real danger when people assume going to a school will open magical doors for them and they feel disappointed when that doesn't happen. It's going to be up to you and not the school I don't care if you go to Sam Houston, A&M, or Harvard.

The University of Florida just added Early Decision to their admission process. Wow, our admission policies fall further behind the national status of our peers.

https://admissions.ufl.edu/apply/freshman/deadlines?fbclid=IwdGRjcASFuohjbGNrBIW6e2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR5IPgOd69TcefzIAtzCWnmrq4okNZTofGMk8kVDUBT3dI2iBvlDBOqU3nyurg_aem_np_-MFQ-r2dBzB1BcizwLQ

I just saw a video on that this morning. Michigan and FSU also offer Early Decision, which is still rare for public universities.

If A&M had Early Decision, we could cut through some of these applications where kids treat A&M like a backup option and get the ones who really want to be here.

Buck Turgidson said:

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I just saw a video on that this morning. Michigan and FSU also offer Early Decision, which is still rare for public universities.

If A&M had Early Decision, we could cut through some of these applications where kids treat A&M like a backup option and get the ones who really want to be here.

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The fact that we don't have Early Action just boggles my mind. It makes no sense. UT - Austin has Early Action, and the top 5% still receive their automatic admission decisions later in the fall semester, but have to wait a bit to learn about their major. Why can't we do something similar?

But yes, in this climate, where the average student applies to 8-10 colleges, you will see more schools, primarily large public schools, move toward ED because it allows them to manage their enrollment more effectively.

Buck Turgidson said:

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I just saw a video on that this morning. Michigan and FSU also offer Early Decision, which is still rare for public universities.

If A&M had Early Decision, we could cut through some of these applications where kids treat A&M like a backup option and get the ones who really want to be here.

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I'm in favor of Early Action but have mixed feelings on Early Decision, esp at Public schools. It puts kids looking at financial packages at a significant disadvantage to those who don't have to worry about funding (on either end since low income is free tuition). Early Action makes all the sense in the world though.

aggie93 said:

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ArmyAg2002 said:

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PerdidoKey2030 said:

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A few comments on AP classes. For admission, the scores attained on core curriculum AP tests should be a critical component for college admittance to any school, especially in a holistic review approach.

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Everything I have seen is that the AP test score has no bearing on holistic review, it's taking the AP classes and the grades that are considered. Anyone have further insight?

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They don't but they should. How many AP's you have taken and which ones do matter though because that shows rigor. They look at rigor in context of your school though. Take the most rigorous classes available. Still they don't put much weight on the AP scores even though they give you credit. Makes no sense and it's not an A&M thing, other schools are the same.

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As a teacher of an AP course (Statistics), I've wondered about how colleges view taking a lot of AP courses but not taking the exams for those courses. I know I have had students not take the AP exam for my course and cite that they would not get any usable credit for it based on what their projected major is or that the university would not accept credit for it. Some of them also flat-out admit that they're taking the class for the GPA bump and never intended to sit for the exam.

Our district does not subsidize AP exams at all while others either partially or fully pay for exams, so it becomes an expense issue for some students. I do try to impress upon them the potential cost/benefit of getting a qualifying score (spend $99 now to save potentially thousands later), but I don't know how much it registers.

It seems like a transcript with a lot of AP courses and few to no AP scores reported would be viewed with a bit of skepticism because the course itself is subject to the teacher's approach to grading, while the AP exam is something of a normalizer due to how it is scored (not quite as objective as the ACT/SAT in part because of the free-response questions being scored, but those questions are scored very carefully and subject to review). Making a 95 in an AP course and a 1 or 2 on the exam doesn't line up, but that score almost certainly wouldn't be self-reported, either.

Another issue that could arise for colleges is the pre-requisites College Board requires for a course and whether or not those line up with what they are prepared to accept for college credit.

College Board has recently removed the second-year algebra requirement for AP Statistics, so a student could take my course after having had only Algebra 1. An AP course having a seemingly very low bar for entry could be viewed as problematic for universities, basically a "what is up with a math-adjacent exam that only requires Algebra 1 and why should we accept it?" sort of thing. I think those concerns are largely unfounded, but it's out there.

Seems like colleges should view multiple 4s and 5s on AP exams as a noticeable positive in addition to their other criteria, but it doesn't seem like that is the case. To be part of the application process, those scores would have to be baked in by the end of their junior year due to exam scores not being reported until July...exams taken by seniors would strictly be for credit application.

My understanding is all of it varies by many of the factors you are pointing out but also what school. Some don't care at all about AP, some do. Selectivity matters. Also, all AP's aren't equal. A lot of AP's are easy classes and exams. The ones that carry the most weight (esp for Engineering/STEM) are Calc BC and Physics C Mech and E&M. Taking those classes and getting 4's and 5's shows you are ready for just about any school. AP Psych? It's nice for a credit at most schools but doesn't impress anyone. It's also a flag if you see someone with a bunch of APs and they scored 2's and 3's on all of them but got an A in the class. It means the school and teachers aren't where they should be. If you can get an A in the class you should be getting a 4 if not 5. If you have more than a few exceptions it's notable.

Selectivity really matters here too. T20 Private schools expect you to have a ton of APs but will usually limit how many of them you can use for credit, for instance I think at Stanford it's no more than 2 classes and that's similar to most of the elites. Most public schools encourage the credits and some are very generous with them, I know my son got as many as 8 hours for some of his 4's and 5's. Makes a big difference.

Both of my kids who are Aggies took a lot of AP classes but didn't take all of the AP tests. My oldest just graduated with a mechanical engineering degree and my youngest just finished freshman year and is aerospace engineering. They took all of the AP tests of the classes they took sophomore and junior year of high school but only took 2 tests (AP English & government) their senior year. We already knew that A&M engineering wouldn't accept the other ones toward their needed classes. We didn't see the point in paying an additional $400 in exam fees if it wouldn't replace a class that they needed at A&M for their actual degree. And they were really certain on majoring in engineering. The AP classes they took but didn't take the exams were classes like Physics 2 , Chemistry, and Statistics. They took the classes to learn the material to give them a great foundation for their college classes. They did take Calc BC as juniors and did take that AP test to show they were "calculus ready". They both scored a 5 on that one but didn't use the credit and instead took calc 1 & 2 first year at A&M.

What was most important to me was that they took the AP course in high school to learn the material not to take the exam.

To be fair, once the junior year is over, the academic record used for admittance is locked. So skipping senior year exams is moot.

There is also a disparity between schools an their AP programs. The school my children attend is considered rural. There are no more than one section of any AP class. If the two you want to take conflict, you pick one. My kids have had to choose between classes each semester. Classes run like college; you take four classses for one semester. If your AP class is in then hopefully the teacher does a review in the spring before the AP test.

Due to the small amount of teachers my kids took AP Bio from a teacher that had not completed her AP qualification. Their excellent pre-AP biology teacher left over the summer and there was no replacement.

In both AP Human Geography and AP Physics my kids essentially taught themselves. In both cases the teacher went out on maternity leave about a week into the semester. The kids got a revolving door of substitute teachers.

We'll see how physics goes. The scores arent back yet. They're biology and human Geography scores weren't great. They were fortunate to have some really great AP teachers their sophomore and junior year that taught then how to take AP tests.

They'll be seniors next year and are effectively done with high school. They started at the local junior college this summer and will only be at the high school one period a day for extra curriculars and athletics.