TXPremiumBoy said:

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Our daughter FINALLY found out yesterday that she is in Engineering. Yayyyyyy. She had been accepted into A&M way back in September and had been stressing about this. Had been accepted to Mines & Tech Engineering several months ago.

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Congratulations that she was accepted!!

Glad to see Mines show up here. We eventually found our way to Mines and my son was personally invited to apply there. Had 2 zoom interviews. Waiting on word from them, A&M and sip for Engineering. Accepted at a few other lower tier, Big 12 schools. His heart is at A&M but I don't think they will come through for him.

In the same boat. I hope to be pleasantly surprised but I just hate that it takes so long for a decision. Over 3 months now since the apps were due.

Same here .. our son was accepted to A&M Engineering but wanted to play football. Jimbo graciously offered walk on status but son REALLY wanted to play and Mines is an EXTREMELY well thought of Engineering School. Also happens to have a great D2 Athletic Program and football team. Did I mention it's a beautiful campus. But yes, my wife and I had to come to grips with the fact that it is HIS LIFE and we 200% support him. Has been incredible for him so far.

Thanks Old RV. Our oldest got PSA 2 years ago and elected to head to the Southeast instead. Today, we and, more importantly, he could not possibly be happier with the decision. It never occurred to us what was out there but his experience was eye opening.

Now we just want them to be happy and have success.

That's not to say that it's easy for us to be totally consultative instead of persuasive! I'm a first generation Aggie but through my wife he would be a 5th generation Aggie. His great great grandfather was class of 1908 and was a team captain on the football team. According to The Longhorn account of the game, he played the second half of the LSU game with a broken leg. They were built different back then. I'd hate to see that line broken but we keep telling ourselves it's about his happiness and not the memory of a long gone great great grandfather

The world doesn't end at the Texas border. Lots of good, smaller engineering schools outside of Texas. Colorado School of Mines, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ... Do some online research.

Buck Turgidson said:

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The world doesn't end at the Texas border. Lots of good, smaller engineering schools outside of Texas. Colorado School of Mines, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ... Do some online research.

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I just realized this that the world didn't end at the Texas border. Cost will be a definite factor since both parents

are teachers. He wants to go to Rice, but scholarships will play a role to go out of state or not or try a private

university.

SwissAgg said:

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Buck Turgidson said:

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The world doesn't end at the Texas border. Lots of good, smaller engineering schools outside of Texas. Colorado School of Mines, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ... Do some online research.

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I just realized this that the world didn't end at the Texas border. Cost will be a definite factor since both parents

are teachers. He wants to go to Rice, but scholarships will play a role to go out of state or not or try a private

university.

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If he can truly get into Rice, then he will get a full ride if his parents make less than $130k. Or half of tuition if they make under $200k.

Heisenberg01 said:

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SwissAgg said:

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Buck Turgidson said:

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The world doesn't end at the Texas border. Lots of good, smaller engineering schools outside of Texas. Colorado School of Mines, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ... Do some online research.

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I just realized this that the world didn't end at the Texas border. Cost will be a definite factor since both parents

are teachers. He wants to go to Rice, but scholarships will play a role to go out of state or not or try a private

university.

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If he can truly get into Rice, then he will get a full ride if his parents make less than $130k. Or half of tuition if they make under $200k.

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He's a good student, but Rice is really hard to get into. Good tips on the tuition.

AggieAdvisor16 said:

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I'm involved in the recruiting efforts for the department I'm in and always have current students participate when prospective students visit. My students always tell them that A&M is as big or as small as you want it to be. There are tons of organizations to get involved in to get valuable leadership experience. And all of the engineering classes are capped at 100 student capacity, so you aren't going to have 300 students in a classroom like you would in a US History class.

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Is A&M doing in-person visits now for the engineering department?

Daughter got accepted to A&M and UT engineering as well as Colorado School of Mines. Mines gave her enough in scholarship money to make the out of state tuition equal to that of in state tuition at A&M. A&M wouldn't give a dime.

As a proud Former Student all I can say is Go Orediggers!

A_Gang_Ag_06 said:

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Daughter got accepted to A&M and UT engineering as well as Colorado School of Mines. Mines gave her enough in scholarship money to make the out of state tuition equal to that of in state tuition at A&M. A&M wouldn't give a dime.

As a proud Former Student all I can say is Go Orediggers!

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I am trying to get my sister and her son to visit A&M and Mines. She can at least get a basis for comparison.

I went to a small college and tried to convince my daughter a smaller school was better. She has proved me wrong - the resources and options at a school like A&M are hard to beat. A wise friend of mine said it doesn't matter how big the school is because of the Dunbar number - I didn't know what that meant - looked it up and basically research shows you can only know 150 people really well so it doesn't matter if it's 150 out of 5000 or 150 out of 50000 it's still 150. As a recruiter i would STRONGLY recommend A&M or tu or a name brand school - there are a lot of school snobs out there in hiring positions- the school is only as good as the work effort but it can be an edge even 20 years into your career . My nephew is an engineering major at A&M and I am blown away by the many outside clubs and events he gets the chance to participate in- hope you can convince them .

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships

SwissAgg said:

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AggieAdvisor16 said:

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I'm involved in the recruiting efforts for the department I'm in and always have current students participate when prospective students visit. My students always tell them that A&M is as big or as small as you want it to be. There are tons of organizations to get involved in to get valuable leadership experience. And all of the engineering classes are capped at 100 student capacity, so you aren't going to have 300 students in a classroom like you would in a US History class.

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Is A&M doing in-person visits now for the engineering department?

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My understanding is that the College of Engineering is now hosting in-person visits. I'm not sure if any individual departments are. My department isn't planning to until late May, when we're back on campus ourselves.

The only kid I know that got into MIT had perfect SAT, ACT, GPA, but being a 6' 4" LHP was what got him in. Kid's parents hired an academic consultant in middle school, they had a plan.

If it matters - Here's our update.

Choosing between Mines, VTech and A&M. Nice scholarship offer at Mines, Tiny one from A&M and nothing from VT. My oldest goes out of state and my second has seen and heard about the great experience. At some level he was definitely interested in that adventure.

We toured A&M and informally visited the other 2. Mines was first and pretty impressive (to an engineer). Did spend an hour with a Calc 1 prof who agreed to meet us and describe what life looks like there. Started out as the leader and was firmly there after the visit.

Then visited A&M. Zachary is a showcase and impressed him quite a bit. He was reminded how friendly the campus is and the fact that many kids walked around without masks. One thing he noticed was that at Mines there were no kids working together studying, zooming in class, sitting in large groups. All individuals. Iin the MSC and Zachary most kids were with someone else doing those things. When we walked past Kyle he looked up and said quietly "I know what happens in there" He should - he's been going to games since he was one.

Last was VT. Beautiful campus, buildings and location. The engineering school is nice but not Zachary nice. They do have a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 jet engine hanging in the building. My son - "One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen". Mask nazis everywhere. Fines in town for not wearing masks outdoors. On campus kids were allowed to play basketball without masks but had to wear them for volleyball. He met an RA that told him that classes should be back in person in the fall but not Gen Ed or large classes because you can't distance 100 people in an auditorium.

In the end, we have an Aggie!

Why? According to him "I decided I don't want to miss out on big time sports." "Zachary blows you away." "At Mines I'd never get to hang with people that WEREN'T engineers". "Loved most things about VT and they have the athletics but there's no way I'm risking taking online classes. Plus the mask rules are out of control and we all know that's not going away anytime soon." "Also didn't like how everyone they talked to (students) defend the masking."

His mom and I are proud ecstatic and he was grateful to us for taking the time and money to let him visit these schools. In the beginning it was Mines, VT, A&M. In the end, the order flipped completely and the distance between A&M and VT was huge to him.

My son loves it at Mines ... our daughter is going to A&M next year and is in the Engineering school, so we will get to experience both Engineering schools first hand.

So I got the nephew and mom to take a campus visit, besides the engineering building, what should

mother/son see while visiting the campus? Oh yes, we are planning to go for the Auburn game so the football

game will be a highlight. The Quad? MSC, of course. George Bush library?

Macarthur said:

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SwissAgg said:

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Macarthur said:

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Duncan Idaho said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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Doesn't UT Dallas have a good engineering program?

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If I had a college aged kid this is where I would push them, if they didn't get into a flagship or a top 10 school.

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This. My son is Freshman Eng at A&M and UT Dallas was a strong contender. I would def pick UT Dallas before Tech.

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What is your son majoring at UT Dallas? That is one university in the consideration.

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My son is at A&M. Freshman Engineering. What I was saying was that UT Dallas WAS a strong consideration. He was actually National Merit so UT Dallas gave a much more attractive financial package than A&M did, but he wants Aerospace Engineering so A&M was the clear choice even though it cost us more money. Ouch.

As a side note, it's pretty crazy how competitive these schools are. My son was like top 15% because he didn't have excellent grades early in HS, but was National Merit Scholar, AP Scholar and got a 35 on his ACT. He got CAPPED at UT and didn't get a sniff at Rice.

There are lots of folks that complain about A&M being too big, but the reality is that, without A&M, my son would have pretty much been shut out of a top Engineering School. I think most folks making this argument don't realize just how big the state of Texas has gotten and how many high quality students the state is pumping out each year.

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ou loves national merit scholars. Are they not good enough?