If an angry mob was marching towards Sharp's house, I'd join them. That is all.

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1) No, there's 53k enrollment at Texas A&M - College Station
2) The plan calls for a cap of 15k increase by 2025 with the ability to re-evaluate.
3) 25x25 was announced years ago and still doesn't explain the 80k or any recent quotes from Sharp.

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1) All right. If you want to just go with the number on campus in College Station we're looking at closer to 54,000, although Galveston and Qatar are considered College Station students as well, but we can still leave them out if you wish. So 54,000 on campus in CS. Add 15,000 engineers and we're at 69,000, add another 5-6k for continued growth in all other university aspects at our current pace, and accommodating the transfers out of engineering and we're looking at 75,000+. All of the arguments against excessive expansion still hold true at 75,000 just like they do at 80,000.

2) You're simply wrong about this. 25x25 is a a plan to grow enrollment in engineering to 25,000 by 2025.

"The 25 by 25 initiative is a transformational program to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at Texas A&M University to an enrollment of 25,000 engineering students by 2025."
https://engineering.tamu.edu/25by25

3) I don't really care if anybody actually came out and said 80,000 or not. We're not idiots. We're paying attention to what the university is doing, and we can see the end result. And that result based on their current plans is to make A&M absurdly large while our fellow flagship in Austin is working to cap their enrollment at 45,000 to ensure continued academic quality and avoid becoming a diploma mill.

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If an angry mob was marching towards Sharp's house, I'd join them. That is all.

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Diploma mill course seems to be set. So sad. Was this some agreed to order? A&M gets to be the biggest. Very big. In the meantime let that school in Austin strive toward higher standards to be numbered amongst the best in the nation. See, something for everyone. Let others strive for excellence. Just need to have more students.
A&M is a special place. Hoped that those in charge had a grand vision. Guess they do. It is just so different from what I would have thought for a great institution of higher learning.

The idea that there's some cadre of "gubment" workers on this thread makes me laugh.

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1) No, there's 53k enrollment at Texas A&M - College Station
2) The plan calls for a cap of 15k increase by 2025 with the ability to re-evaluate.
3) 25x25 was announced years ago and still doesn't explain the 80k or any recent quotes from Sharp.

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1) All right. If you want to just go with the number on campus in College Station we're looking at closer to 54,000, although Galveston and Qatar are considered College Station students as well, but we can still leave them out if you wish. So 54,000 on campus in CS. Add 15,000 engineers and we're at 69,000, add another 5-6k for continued growth in all other university aspects at our current pace, and accommodating the transfers out of engineering and we're looking at 75,000+. All of the arguments against excessive expansion still hold true at 75,000 just like they do at 80,000.

2) You're simply wrong about this. 25x25 is a a plan to grow enrollment in engineering to 25,000 by 2025.

"The 25 by 25 initiative is a transformational program to increase access for qualified students to pursue engineering education at Texas A&M University to an enrollment of 25,000 engineering students by 2025."
https://engineering.tamu.edu/25by25

3) I don't really care if anybody actually came out and said 80,000 or not. We're not idiots. We're paying attention to what the university is doing, and we can see the end result. And that result based on their current plans is to make A&M absurdly large while our fellow flagship in Austin is working to cap their enrollment at 45,000 to ensure continued academic quality and avoid becoming a diploma mill.

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Dude, you're missing my point or misconstruing it entirely.
1) Isn't the whole freak out of 80k the prospect of having that many students on one campus?!
2) Reading comprehension goes a long way. I said, "AN INCREASE OF 15K"...our current engineering enrollment is about 10k. 15+10=25. Thanks for posting a bunch of words to argue the same point.
3) And the biggest point you're failing to acknowledge is that this 15k increase spread across 3 campuses is gradual. They're not planning on increasing enrollment overnight. It's gonna be 10 YEARS. And you glossed over the fact that they will re-evaluate student enrollment on an active basis.

The rest of your post is based on unfounded conclusions with no base in actual quotes or the plan itself.

Old army's fault.

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3) And the biggest point you're failing to acknowledge is that this 15k increase spread across 3 campuses is gradual. They're not planning on increasing enrollment overnight. It's gonna be 10 YEARS. And you glossed over the fact that they will re-evaluate student enrollment on an active basis.

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I don't think this is about increasing the enrollment to 25k across three campuses. Everything I've heard about it is that it is for the Dwight Look College of Engineering. The College of Engineering website doesn't seem to claim the program at Galveston, for example... are you sure that someone studying engineering somewhere other than College Station is counted in this program?

Also, I laugh at the notion that they will "re-evaluate" if they decide that they can't grow that fast. What I have heard from my relative who works in one of the departments is that Banks doesn't really have any buy in on this initiative from any of the department heads and they have already told her that they can't grow this fast, yet they are pressing on anyway. If she is ignoring their concerns at the beginning, why should we believe that she would postpone the program later? Especially since she has so much invested in it at this point...

So why can't we build up A&M-Commerce's engineering school if the state needs so many more engineers?

It's interesting that 2 of the top 3 engineering schools are land-grant schools - MIT and UC-Berkeley, and UC's tuition is comparable to A&M's...meanwhile A&M isn't in the top 10.

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This thread is sad.

A bunch of elitest douchnozzles freaking out about USNWR rankings. Smells like Austin in here.

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Why does caring about rankings make one elitist? Guess what? Baylor cares. SMU cares. "Working class" schools like NC State and Purdue care. Everyone from Tech to MIT cares, and even though A&M has incredible resources available to be a top tier school for research and education, we are the only ones who don't want to. Sad.

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Elite
[ih-leet, ey-leet]

noun
1.
(often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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lol this is a joke right? Some of you are acting like petulant children.

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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lol this is a joke right? Some of you are acting like petulant children.

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This is hyperbole but it is a fact that A&M is already a backup school for lots of people. We accept 69% of the people who apply, Sam accepts 73%. Your shot at getting into A&M is only slightly worse than getting into Sam.

Has anyone emailed Karan Watson or Michael Young?

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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lol this is a joke right? Some of you are acting like petulant children.

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This is hyperbole but it is a fact that A&M is already a backup school for lots of people. We accept 69% of the people who apply, Sam accepts 73%. Your shot at getting into A&M is only slightly worse than getting into Sam.

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mere acceptance stats don't say anything about the standards used to accept students. I'm confused how people think acceptance rates can be compared

"Standards" are a moving target. You don't just compare them year over year with yourself. You must also compare them each year with your competition. Like it or not in addition to the University of Texas, Baylor and SMU are competing with us.

Secondly what we are using as an "acceptance rate" is more properly an "offer rate", i.e. the percentage of applications that are offered enrollment divided by total applications. What is actually more important is the true "acceptance rate" which is the percentage of our offers which are accepted. When that starts dropping, particularly among the top students, you have a problem.

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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lol this is a joke right? Some of you are acting like petulant children.

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This is hyperbole but it is a fact that A&M is already a backup school for lots of people. We accept 69% of the people who apply, Sam accepts 73%. Your shot at getting into A&M is only slightly worse than getting into Sam.

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mere acceptance stats don't say anything about the standards used to accept students. I'm confused how people think acceptance rates can be compared

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Exactly!

A / B = C

A = students accept - affected by standards and total student capacity
B = students applied - affected by the type of students who apply

Also, the friends I made over the years that were Sam students, young and old, often confessed they could not get into A&M.

As long as I have season tickets I don't really give a crap

Will we get a bigger football stadium to hold 2x the number of student tickets tha we have now?

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I will encourage my kids to try and get into UT if this is the way things go down. I guess they can go to A&M as a fallback school if they get turned down by their first few choices. We should change the name to SHSU- College Station since it will be a fallback school.

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lol this is a joke right? Some of you are acting like petulant children.

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This is hyperbole but it is a fact that A&M is already a backup school for lots of people. We accept 69% of the people who apply, Sam accepts 73%. Your shot at getting into A&M is only slightly worse than getting into Sam.

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mere acceptance stats don't say anything about the standards used to accept students. I'm confused how people think acceptance rates can be compared

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Clearly a lot of people who apply to Sam don't even bother applying to A&M. Not fair to compare A&M to Sam. Comparing our acceptance rate to our actual peers is definitely fair:

A&M - 69%
Texas - 40%

Tech - 66%
Houston - 58%
UNT - 60%
UTD - 52%

Baylor - 58%
TCU - 49%
SMU - 51%

These numbers are tied to our growth. Every other school is saying that they can't simply take on more and more students while A&M's classes keep getting bigger and bigger.

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"Standards" are a moving target. You don't just compare them year over year with yourself. You must also compare them each year with your competition. Like it or not in addition to the University of Texas, Baylor and SMU are competing with us.

Secondly what we are using as an "acceptance rate" is more properly an "offer rate", i.e. the percentage of applications that are offered enrollment divided by total applications. What is actually more important is the true "acceptance rate" which is the percentage of our offers which are accepted. When that starts dropping, particularly among the top students, you have a problem.

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I have a sense that you tried to address my question re the validity of comparing acceptance rates between schools but got distracted before you actually pulled it off...or perhaps you realized the need to agree with me but couldn't quite admit it so you deflected? I don't think you're helping your cause.

What is the SAT score, GPA and class rank of this years enrollees versus enrolles from 5 years ago and 10 years ago? I assume from all of the comments here that the current enrollees are significantly down. But I've yet to see any official data. Does anyone have proof of this or has this rumor taking on a life of its own?

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What is the SAT score, GPA and class rank of this years enrollees versus enrolles from 5 years ago and 10 years ago?

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Presumably the current applicants are significantly better. I don't know this for certain, but I would assume this is true.

Let's say that 10 years ago the average was 1100, 5 years ago it was 1150, and this year it's 1200. One might look at that and say that it's really good and we are improving. However, would that statistic still be an awesome indicator of how much better we're getting if the same numbers for Texas were 1125, 1210, and 1300? Or if Baylor was 1050, 1140, 1220?

I haven't done tons of extensive research into the matter, but the numbers I have seen indicate that this isn't too far off from what is happening.

Sid, why the snark? Maybe it's generational, but I doubt you'd speak to me (or any other Aggie) like that face to face. That goes for a bunch of your posts in this thread. It's quite unpleasant, and certainly doesn't help your cause.

As for me, I don't have a "cause". And yes, you CAN compare offer rates as they are related to the "standards" used to generate offers, albeit loosely. But even more important, there is the widely accepted perception that a high offer rate is indicative of lower standards. And indeed, there is some truth to that. Look at the inverse. suppose we generate 10,000 offers, but then choose to only offer 7,500 - would we have to raise or lower our "standards" to decrease the number of offers. Obviously we'd have to raise standards to cut the number of offers. That is the sense that is meant.

And, as you've yet to discuss, our offer rate is only one piece. The acceptance rate of our offers is perhaps more indicative of the regard (or lack thereof) of our offers among those receiving them.

It's a complex calculus. Because both numbers can be manipulated. For example, when a Johns Hopkins gets an app from a kid that's clearly Princeton material they are likely to waitlist that app. Why? So that they don't generate an offer that's not accepted.

Lastly, the mere existence of this thread is evidence that there's an issue that needs to be addressed. If this number of good Ags has the perception of the trajectory of A&M as we do, it's a certainty that that perception is even more prevalent among those who aren't Ags. In other words, just the fact that so many Ags perceive a downward trend in our academics warrant attention.

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Lastly, the mere existence of this thread is evidence that there's an issue that needs to be addressed. If this number of good Ags has the perception of the trajectory of A&M as we do, it's a certainty that that perception is even more prevalent among those who aren't Ags. In other words, just the fact that so many Ags perceive a downward trend in our academics warrant attention.

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Right, there appears to be some issue that people are pissed at but there appears to be a ton of misinformation and confusion about the source of the concerns. I think we should nail both down first, before we leap to doomsday scenarios and labeling Texas A&M as "SHSU - College Station."

Agree, but it's more than that.

The perception of our downward trend is already out there. The anecdotes on this thread and USNWR rankings can be denigrated as much as we want, but the perceptions they indicate cannot be denied.

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And, as you've yet to discuss, our offer rate is only one piece. The acceptance rate of our offers is perhaps more indicative of the regard (or lack thereof) of our offers among those receiving them.

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Ding ding ding!

To appropriately grade the acceptance and offers you would need to get into the heads of kids who apply to a variety of schools, determine which one #1, #2, etc. on their list, whether they were accepted, etc. That data isn't available or would only be available by polling the students. And, unless you surveyed those students immediately after deciding on a school, you couldn't get an unbiased answer.

There is another factor that goes into the overall equation as an example. When I applied to colleges, I was a first generation college prospect. I applied to both schools. I, obviously, ultimately chose A&M. A factor that plaid into my decision was financial aid. At the time, and I believe the same is still true, A&M was known for getting more financial aid (grants, loans, etc.) for its students. That said, if someone will need more aid to go to college, where would you apply? And, if you were accepted to both universities, where would you ultimately go if you had no bias?

So, to further evaluate acceptance rates, you have to understand why certain students applied. If tuition is lower and I'm more likely to get financial aid, I'm going that route.

You have to keep in mind that some posters attended A&M when it was a 4 year community college (early 70's and prior), and their comments reflect that.

I haven't seen where the BOR or Chancellor of the Texas A&M System has indicated
what steps are underway for the other universities in the system to
be able to provide a top notch option for students.
I have heard comments that indicate that it is the
right thing to do to take on more in College Station. Can't be snooty.
If that is the way it is processed, then it probably is hopeless.

It is a valid point to see how the criteria to get accepted has changed over the years.
Based on looking at information a few years back, it seemed to be the case that incoming classes on average scored higher than their predecessors. However, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. If other universities are seeing higher standardized test scores for their incoming classes, then maybe it is almost like you are standing still. You can keep telling yourself that you are getting better, but others are as well.
Dare to be great! Nah, why bother. Leave that for someone else. Besides having the title of the biggest is pretty neat, I guess.