Texas A&M: To rush or not to rush?

[als463]

Originally Posted by clemsongirl

I had to look it up since I didn't know these numbers off the top of my head, but the Bridge To Clemson page says that students in this program are enrolled at Tri-County Technical College for a year and are required to complete 30 credits there before automatically being enrolled at Clemson. This phrasing makes it sound like they're not Clemson students since they take no classes at Clemson and are required to reapply for admission to Clemson if they don't meet the 30 credit requirement. In this regard I suppose Clemson's program is different from the Blinn Team program.

ETA: Found this on the Bridge Program FAQ:



I think the reason the Blinn program and others like it in the state of Texas exist is because there's state laws on the books saying that they can only accept the top X percentage of high schoolers from any high school, thus forcing still-qualified students who didn't make that percentage for whatever reason to gain acceptance through these Texas programs. I think it's a better alternative than not letting qualified applicants in to the school at all, but it probably does make their overall graduation numbers look better if they calculate them a certain way.

The Clemson program sounds just like Gamecock Gateway at University of South Carolina. I know that those students who are accepted, and it's a smaller number like 90-100, still receive the same acceptance envelope as undergraduates at USC who are accepted fully into the university with the Gamecock logo saying, "YES!" That way, it doesn't feel like an outright rejection because it isn't. The students live in the dorms, eat on campus, and also attend various campus sporting events and activities. Like you feel about Clemson, I would really like to see University of South Carolina eventually allow students in this program to go Greek because I think it would help them feel more like students.

As far as universities trying to mess with their enrollment numbers, I was under the impression that the ones in Gamecock Gateway and Clemson's Bridge Program were also top students who slightly missed out and got cut for some reason like lack of being prepared for college. I'd love to see my other alma maters do something like this also.