Shame on Texas A&M for communicating to prospective applicants, families, and schools that you must apply as soon as possible.

I argue in my book Surviving the College Admissions Madness that elite universities do not care about you, although it’s debatable whether A&M qualifies as elite. Every year for the past decade, their admissions staff at high schools, in official presentations, and to counseling staff, stress that applicants must apply early because “spaces are on a first-come, first-served basis.” A&M is the only university where this is an issue on social media or when families contact me directly. No other university causes a panic like this. A&M staff is the source of this misinformation.

I argue that this “apply ASAP” false sense of urgency is COMPLETE BULLSHIT!

A panic spread through a prominent Texas private school when its counseling staff emailed the senior class to convey what the A&M staff had said. No other university in the top 100 communicates this message to the public, especially ones like A&M that don’t even have early action or priority deadlines (except for Engineering).

At every university that offers formal early deadlines, including UT-Austin, there is intentional ambiguity about what difference, if any, applying early makes. Only after the fact can you examine Early Decision admissions rates. I’m certain there is no difference in applying in, say, September 1 versus October 1, at UT, Harvard, Columbia, A&M, or anywhere.

My theory is that they are attempting to drive up application numbers in general and encourage early enrollment deposits. That will make the job easier for A&M’s “Enrollment Management” office, which predicts how many admitted students will enroll. It may be the case that when applicants gain admission to their very first university, they may be more likely to enroll there. Some parents on Facebook groups report exactly this - a student enrolls at the first school that offers them.

The only plausible reason for submitting your application sooner than later - and not ASAP - is to submit your housing application to reserve your spot in line to get your first or second housing choice. But this has nothing to do with getting into the university and isn’t any different than UT-Austin or many other universities with limited housing.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what rolling admissions entails. Universities that practice rolling admissions do so because they are less competitive rather than more selective compared with others. They can admit students based exclusively on academics, whereas truly holistic review universities must wait for all applications to be received, reviewed, and compared with one another before making decisions. That’s why UT-Austin delivers outcomes much later than less competitive schools like UT-Dallas or Texas A&M. These universities, including A&M, rarely, if ever, offer waitlists since waiting lists are used primarily by highly selective top 50 universities. Waitlists are literally the way universities fill remaining spaces after most or all decisions are released and not on a “first come, first served” basis in the initial application and admissions offer phase.

At no other Texas university is this panic an issue. UT-Austin, UT-Dallas, Texas Tech, SMU, TCU, Rice, Baylor, and others do not have a corresponding false sense of urgency. It’s extremely peculiar that the panic to apply early resides almost entirely within Texas A&M.

Still, after reading this post, some families remain determined to submit their applications in the first few weeks of August. Their behavior is completely irrational, almost always reducing one’s chances of admission because the student submits hastily written, inferior essays. Many families are determined to hold onto false beliefs and make their children's admissions process as stressful as possible.

Some A&M admissions staff, most recently the Houston regional office, are the source of this “apply ASAP” misconception, yet families, social media groups, and school counselors amplify this rumor. A&M’s silence makes them complicit in harming thousands of families.

Consider the three reasons below why I know they are misleading the public and doing a massive disservice in their capacity as taxpayer-subsidized public institutions. My intent with this post is to end the panic or, in any case, give you the information to challenge TAMU admissions staff with pointed questions.

If any A&M staff member wants to join me on an unedited live stream, I welcome the opportunity for you to clarify the most problematic messaging of any university anywhere. If your only response to this post is “I don’t like your tone” and not “your points are misguided,” then maybe their communication and policies are the issue, not how I present my arguments with receipts.

When you apply to Texas A&M isn’t a factor in admission based on the Common Data Set

One very easy way to answer this question is to go directly to the federally mandated Common Data Set report that all universities must file. Here is what matters to A&M. Note that “when you apply” isn’t a factor. I’ve consulted the 2022 data set in this post, and 2023 isn’t any different.

Arguably, “level of applicant interest” could be loosely interpreted as “applying early shows your interest,” but that isn’t the case. A&M is one of the only Texas public universities that explicitly asks on the Common App how you’ve interacted with the university, including visiting campus, attending a regional information session, a summer camp, and so on. Consequently, A&M apparently places a small emphasis on “demonstrated interest.”

Another place in the Common Data Set says that there is an October 15 deadline, but that only applies for engineering. Nowhere on A&M’s admissions pages does it say applying early helps your chances. It’s A&M staff that puts out this information.

Texas A&M admits the majority of their applicant pool based on their class rank and no other factor

Approximately 60% of admitted Texas A&M students rank in the top 10% of their class. See below from the 2022 Common Data Set report.

Some of those top 10% of students are out-of-state residents, but more than 90% of incoming TAMU students must come from the state of Texas per state law. Approximately 27,000 students gained admission to TAMU in 2022, and if 60% ranked in the top 10% and qualified for automatic admission, that means TAMU admitted around 15,500 top 10% of Texas residents.

This is crucial since TAMU, although more competitive in recent years for non-top 10% applicants, still isn’t anywhere near as selective as UT-Austin or other top 50 universities. Consider that around 75% of Texas resident spaces are reserved for the top 6% of applicants to UT-Austin, whereas A&M only fills 60% of spaces with the top 10% admission.

Texas A&M guarantees the top 10% of Texas residents their choice of major. That means if you rank in the top 9% of your class with an SAT score of 1100, you are guaranteed business, engineering, or whichever major. On the other hand, UT-Austin only guarantees non-STEM majors for its top 6% of applicants.

You can consult this link from Texas A&M’s Office of Academic and Business Performance Analytics, visualizing applied, admitted, and enrolled statistics based on major.

Filter their most competitive program, Engineering, by top 10% only, and it reveals that for the past five years, every top 10% applicant gained admission. Consequently, no factor for the top 10% of applicants matters. Not your SAT, your resume, your essays, and certainly not when you apply. If it were the case that when you apply were a significant factor, at least some top 10% of students would get denied for a “lack of spaces” and missing the “first come, first served” window.

EVERY SINGLE TOP 10% APPLICANT GAINED ADMISSION. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY APPLIED ON AUGUST 1 OR NOVEMBER 30.

QED.

Texas A&M and most universities won’t begin reviewing applications until September

In case A&M literally reporting that when you apply doesn’t matter and that literally every top 10% applicant gains admission isn’t compelling enough, what about non-top 10% and out-of-state applicants subject to holistic review?

One reason the panic around applying ASAP is ridiculous is the distinction between submitting and completing your application.

Submitting an application means inputting your information on the Common App, like your biographical section, resume boxes, and essays. You pay the application fee, and then a day or two later, at UT, TAMU, and almost every other university, you will have access to a university-specific portal. TAMU calls this HOWDY and UT-Austin My Status.

Completing your application requires sending in other necessary documents like the SAT/ACT or your transcript. TAMU gets around the transcript by requiring everyone to input their academic information tediously, which costs you time and energy in their SRAR form. TAMU remains one of the only universities that still requires this onerous application item. Downsizing their processing staff offloads their budget trimming onto the public.

Nevertheless, since most schools do not begin until mid-August, and most counseling staff and teachers aren’t prepared for logistics until a few weeks into the school year, it often isn’t possible to complete your application in the first weeks of August, even if you submit it. Often, the official class rank or class size isn’t settled until sometime in September. Consequently, Texas A&M’s communication policy overburdens already underpaid high school staff who must respond to anxious parents demanding that they help their student complete their TAMU application as soon as possible.

Finally, I’m certain TAMU won’t begin reviewing applications until early September, perhaps late August. Most universities will have “admissions-wide” retreat weeks sometime in August, where the regional staff, upper management, and other bureaucrats meet to discuss updates and “calibrate” the holistic review essay and resume reading process. Only after that week might they begin reading applications. When I worked at UT-Austin, we met in mid-August and began reviewing in mid-September.

A&M Engineering admits around half of their non-top-10% applicants, so it still isn’t especially competitive. Not all of the 5,000 or so non-automatically-admitted engineering admits applied before October 15, given that approximately half of all applicants to a given university apply for Regular Decision within the last two weeks of the final deadline.

So, even if you could somehow complete your TAMU application in the first week of August, it’s highly improbable it’ll be reviewed within a few weeks. The best practice is to submit your application when you are ready. Rushing an application and sending in sloppy essays when you rank outside the top 10% or are an out-of-state applicant is a surefire way to damage your admissions changes. Submit your application and essays after you’ve worked through a few versions, and feel confident you’re submitting your best and not your most rushed effort.

Applying early might mean you hear back early based on their “rolling admission” decision release. But I’m certain it doesn’t improve your admissions chances meaningfully.

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