US News is not the end all be all it's made out to be

They start with the assumption that Harvard/Yale are the end all be all of American universities and then rank you on how closely you resemble their metrics with a premium being on how many kids you reject each year

We don't reject a ton of people percentage wise compared to a lot of places but I attribute that to A&M not getting a ton of either casual applications like sip does ("I know I don't have the grades to get in but I really want to attend there because I love football so what the hell!") or safety school apps like tard does ("I don't really want to go here but I doubt I'll get into A&M and they're a party school far from mom and dad instead of living at home and commuting to UTArlington")

By and large we get a smaller but far more dedicated pool of applicants where A&M is their #1 choice if they get accepted

Combine that with our very large fish classes (bigger than many entire small private schools) and we just don't reject enough folks to make USNWR happy with us

Personally I don't think that's a bad thing

A&Ms problem is it is easy as hell to transfer into but damn near impossible to get in as a freshman.

Im just going to come out and say it.... The administration tries like hell to get the minority numbers (and first gen kids from tiny high schools) up in their freshman classes. From that point on its sink or swim and the sad thing is many of these aforementioned kids dont stand a chance and fail out after year one.

In their defense if they (administration) did not do this our enrollment would be 95% suburban white kids and Asians. Just being honest.

BoDog said:

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A&Ms problem is it is easy as hell to transfer into but damn near impossible to get in as a freshman.

Im just going to come out and say it.... The administration tries like hell to get the minority numbers (and first gen kids from tiny high schools) up in their freshman classes. From that point on its sink or swim and the sad thing is many of these aforementioned kids dont stand a chance and fail out after year one.

In their defense if they (administration) did not do this our enrollment would be 95% suburban white kids and Asians. Just being honest.

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It may feel impossible to get in anecdotally regarding admission, but it's not true according to A&M's admission numbers. From the prior thread about legacy students and A&M's admission numbers (also available from the prior link):

Quote:

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So here is the breakdown for legacies:
2017 - 29,080 applied, and 22,047 were admitted (75.8% acceptance rate);
2018 - 29,089 applied, and 19,613 were admitted (67.4% acceptance rate);
2019 - 29,729 applied, and 17,521 were admitted (58.9% acceptance rate);
2020 - 34,835 applied, and 22,517 were admitted (64.6% acceptance rate); and
2021 - 35,051 applied, and 22,248 were admitted (63.5% acceptance rate).

For fun here is the breakdown for non-Top 10%:
2017 - 30,076 applied, and 16,167 were admitted (53.8% acceptance rate);
2018 - 29,428 applied, and 15,064 were admitted (51.2% acceptance rate);
2019 - 34,382 applied, and 13,588 were admitted (39.5% acceptance rate);
2020 - 35,255 applied, and 16,856 were admitted (47% acceptance rate); and
2021 - 35,041 applied, and 16,368 were admitted (46.7% acceptance rate).

Non-Top 10% legacies:
2017 - 21,257 applied, and 12,424 were admitted (58.4% acceptance rate);
2018 - 21,428 applied, and 11,952 were admitted (55.8% acceptance rate);
2019 - 21,349 applied, and 8,871 were admitted (41.6% acceptance rate);
2020 - 26,020 applied, and 13,072 were admitted (50.2% acceptance rate); and
2021 - 26,292 applied, and 13,489 were admitted (51.3% acceptance rate).

Non-Top 10% white legacies:
2017 - 12,651 applied, and 7,871 were admitted (62.2% acceptance rate)
2018 - 12,424 applied, and 7,204 were admitted (60% acceptance rate)
2019 - 12,013 applied, and 5,188 were admitted (43.2% acceptance rate)
2020 - 13,903 applied, and 7,587 were admitted (54.6% acceptance rate); and
2021 - 13,963 applied, and 7,462 were admitted (53.4% acceptance rate).

So legacies had a better acceptance rate than the general admission rate from 2017-2021. Non-Top 10% legacies had a better acceptance rate than the general non-Top 10% acceptance rate. Non-Top 10% white legacies had a better acceptance rate than non-Top 10% legacies.

In 2017 and 2018 non-Top 10% white legacies had a better acceptance rate than the general admission rate, which includes the Top 10%. . .

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The Top 10% auto acceptances accounted for about 1/3 of those accepted in 2021, and I assume a significant portion of those were from school districts that would be deemed acceptable even without the rule - so the Top 10% isn't all "minorities and first gen kids from tiny high schools".

Moreover A&M's class sizes help offset the automatic admissions. There were over 36,000 accepted in 2021, of which a little over 12k were in-state Top 10% (with just over 5k of the Top 10% applicants reciprocating).

Around 60% of all applicants were accepted.

https://accountability.tamu.edu/All-Metrics/Mixed-Metrics/Applied,-Admitted,-Enrolled

It's not impossible to get in, it's more likely than not amongst applicants. For legacies that's true even if outside the Top 10% (over 51% acceptance rate).

36,000 accepted in 2021.

That is truly mind-blowing for me. When I was a freshman in the Fall of 1985, total enrollment was 34,000, and that felt huge.

Just because you had that many who were accepted doesn't mean that many actually attend

Charpie said:

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Just because you had that many who were accepted doesn't mean that many actually attend

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DONT TELL ME THAT. EVERYONE WANTS TO BE AN AGGIE

Faustus said:

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It's not impossible to get in, it's more likely than not amongst applicants. For legacies that's true even if outside the Top 10% (over 51% acceptance rate).

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I think where that perception comes from is the fact that it IS difficult to get into certain majors if you aren't Top 10.

So legacies Bryden and Caydyn apply to Mays or the engineering school but because they graduated Top 15 percent at Big Suburban High School (Go Fighting Cul-de-Sacs!), they get rejected and wind up accepting a big scholarship to Ole Miss or Arkansas.

Now you have two legacies with very good grades, likely high SAT scores and tons of extra-curriculars who have to tell everyone they know they aren't going to A&M even though it's been a lifelong dream.

These two generic kids you just described will likely be high income earners and guess how much $$$ will be donated to A&M? ABSOLUTELY ZERO!!!!!

Better hope those top 10%ers are the "giving back" type because odds say they are not.

BoDog said:

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These two generic kids you just described will likely be high income earners and guess how much $$$ will be donated to A&M? ABSOLUTELY ZERO!!!!!

Better hope those top 10%ers are the "giving back" type because odds say they are not.

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According to forum, most here aren't either.

I noticed another thread today that some ranking system has the state of Texas amongst the worst to live... same type of BS as the data used here.

BoDog said:

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A&Ms problem is it is easy as hell to transfer into but damn near impossible to get in as a freshman.

Im just going to come out and say it.... The administration tries like hell to get the minority numbers (and first gen kids from tiny high schools) up in their freshman classes. From that point on its sink or swim and the sad thing is many of these aforementioned kids dont stand a chance and fail out after year one.

In their defense if they (administration) did not do this our enrollment would be 95% suburban white kids and Asians. Just being honest.

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There's no evidence of this; there is no evidence A&M is flunking out a bunch of kids. A&M has had freshmen retention rates of around 95%, which is pretty high. 94.39%, specifically, in 2020-2021.

Tom Doniphon said:

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I noticed another thread today that some ranking system has the state of Texas amongst the worst to live... same type of BS as the data used here.

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im for whatever it takes to get recent transplants to leave and stopping them from moving here

redcrayon said:

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SB 43rd STREET OG said:

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No, they are not on our level. Tons of kids there who couldn't get into our school. Also silly that we are ranked #68. The rankings are complete horsesh**.

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Not being able to get into A&M means nothing. Tons of smart, talented kids are not admitted due to admissions policies.

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There is NO WAY I could get into the A&M Electrical Engineering program today with the current standards!