A&M Prereq Questions...

[Kipani]

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Hi all,

Longtime stalker, first time poster... Reading this forum has been so helpful, inspiring and encouraging! That must sound weird from someone who hasn't posted before. Regardless, you guys are great.

Soo in my long and slow poking of A&M to determine a few answers questions about their prereq requirements and how they translate to my undergrad work, I've come up with a few more questions that are driving me crazy. Hopefully someone here can help! For reference, I'm a CSU undergrad who is a resident of Texas.

Does A&M have a GPA cut offs for their prereqs? Let's just say that Ochem was not kind to me and my stats prof believed in being a minus giving, scholarship-costing jerk to everyone he could on his way out. All in all, I have a fair few outstanding prereqs for A&M (physics I + II, Speech, Gen Animal Science, 1 credit of Biochem)... and consequently, prereqGPA is not the rainbows and sunshine I wish it was.

Also, does A&M replace courses you repeat or average the grades? I'm retaking Genetics this summer because for some circumstances beyond my control and partially on the fault of my timidness with asking the professor directly (instead of the english as a second language GTA) for help, I ended up with a C. So I'm repeating it for myself mainly, but I'm also trying to figure out how all of the places I plan to apply will look at it.

Sorry for being long winded. Like I mentioned, replies are coming slowly from them right now and I have a tendency to worry myself to pieces over things. Thanks for anything you can do to put my mind at ease! 🙂

 

[Vet Engineer]

As long as you have a C in a class, they will accept it. When A&M calculates your GPA, they don't use + or - (made me very happy because I had LOTS of A-). So I don't think it would matter if you had a C or C-.

As far as retaking classes, this is just a guess after filling out their app, but they require you to put the grade for any class you have EVER taken at the college level. (They wanted grades for college courses I took in high school, even though I had AP credit for them too) So, my guess would be that they average, not replace grades. Don't hold me to that. You can always contact their admissions office, but I have heard mixed reviews as far as helpfulness. Although, they have always been very helpful with me. I would recommend contacting them in the next few months. I would guess their work load is slightly less insane now, so they might be a little more helpful.

 

[crittergal]

I'll second what vetengineer said. They average course retakes rather that taking the highest attempt. Many schools do this and it killed my cGPA.

I have very negative comments about their admissions dept. Never once did I receive replies to my emails, when I called I was told to email again to no avail, and they were only marginally helpful on the phone. Many of those communication attempts were in the summer when I would assume their workload would be significantly lessened. They also misplaced my LOR TWICE! I have to have it resent two times!

In my experience, their office does not reflect highly upon the school. Hopefully my experience was isolated and not a reflection of the whole CVM's attitude. Either way, it doesn't reflect well.

 

[TexasTiger]

Agreed with all above. And, if it makes you feel any better, I got a C in Ochem I and still got in! So I wouldn't sweat it too much. Besides, if you're retaking the class and getting a better grade, and if you do well on your upper level sciences, they will more than likely take that into account and not put too much weight on a single prereq.

And I'm not a big fan of their communication skills, either. I sent an e-mail explaining my circumstances as far as potentially replacing their Technical Writing requirement with a research-oriented class I had taken at my university, and I did get a reply back giving me instructions on how to proceed (sending them the syllabus, explaining my circumstances, etc). However, I never got a reply from sending the second e-mail with my syllabus, which I sent twice (and made the person in the office send me a return email confirming they had received it the second time) and called twice thereafter, and NO ONE could give me an answer. So, I went ahead and enrolled in the course which bumped me up to the next part-time price bracket (an additional $900). THEN, I get my acceptance letter, and it says that the only pre-req I am required to finish by the end of the spring semester is Biochem II (which I was already taking)!!! It would have been nice if they had told me earlier so that I could have dropped the class without penalty, but as I was already halfway through the semester, I decided to go ahead and finish taking it.

Ugh. Sorry that was so long-winded, haha, it just made me angry! Hopefully you will plan better than I did 🙄

 

[ATX00]

I sent an e-mail explaining my circumstances as far as potentially replacing their Technical Writing requirement with a research-oriented class I had taken at my university, and I did get a reply back giving me instructions on how to proceed (sending them the syllabus, explaining my circumstances, etc). However, I never got a reply from sending the second e-mail with my syllabus, which I sent twice (and made the person in the office send me a return email confirming they had received it the second time) and called twice thereafter, and NO ONE could give me an answer.

Ugh, I'm waiting for an email response for a similar situation with a Biochem II subsitution. I really hope they respond before I have to sign up for classes. 🙁

They have been very friendly, so at least there's that. 🙄

 

[Kipani]

Excellent, thanks guys. I figured that would be the case. Part of the reason I decided to ask here was because getting a straight answer out of them is proving to be really difficult and/or slow. It took me a month to get them to accept food animal science as a replacement for their general animal science course and I still didn't get a straight reply for a question about the biochem requirement. I ended up taking 4 credits of biochem, not 5, and now my option is going to be taking comprehensive biochem I, unless I get a straight answer on taking an elective from the BC department itself. ><

I also don't think the communications thing is an isolated problem. Part of the reason I ended up out of state for my undergrad has to do with irritation about that exact thing when I was talking to them on a school visit my senior year of high school. 🙄 At least they're nice when they do respond!

 

[HopefulAg]

If you're calling the admissions office, it's best just to call Yolanda directly. She's the most knowledgable. She might sound pissed off about it but if she doesn't want to be bombarded with calls then they need to fix the students working at the desk that don't know jack ****.

Also, never leave a message. It's a waste of time. Both times I've left a message the average turn around time on getting an answer back was 2 weeks. And I wish I was saying that in jest, but no....

 

[Vet Engineer]

They also misplaced my LOR TWICE! I have to have it resent two times!

In my experience, their office does not reflect highly upon the school. Hopefully my experience was isolated and not a reflection of the whole CVM's attitude. Either way, it doesn't reflect well.

Don't even get me started on the LOR stuff! That was the biggest, most stressful pain in the *** ever!!!!!! I swear just getting all parts of my application in to TMDSAS plus A&M's applicant site was a million times more challenging and stressful than my interview!

 

[HopefulAg]

Yah the lack of documentation over what we needed for LORs was uh....terrible.

I loved that e-mail they sent about 15 days before the deadline: We need to send in a page with a barcode on it along with the letters? You can't guarantee that a letter that was sent without the barcode along with it will get matched up correctly ("but it probably will"). Damn it! Now I have to ask my LOR writers to write them again.

That irked the hell out of me, and probably my referers too.

 

[Pouches Rock]

It took me a month to get them to accept food animal science as a replacement for their general animal science course

I tried to get them to replace it with an equine class but they wouldn't....did they replace the general animal science course or the nutrition animal science course?

Also I haven't had any problems communicating with admissions but I have always talked with Yolanda