I’ve been seeing a lot of threads asking how to get into UT. I was in your shoes last year and and know the college admissions process is terrifying. As an OOS student, I was even more terrified (oh, the horror of holistic admissions!). UT was my top choice, and I am more than thrilled to be attending this year as a chemical engineering major! I already had this advice written out for a PM, so I edited it a bit and decided to post it to help y’all out a bit.
Some general information before we get into the advice:
[ul][]A lot of people ask which majors are the easiest/hardest to get into. I would say the hardest majors to get into are anything in the business school, engineering school, and computer science. People also ask what the hardest majors are in engineering, and I’d say petroleum, architectural, biomedical, and chemical (though I’m not 100% sure on that).
[] My first choice major was chemical engineering, so I mainly know about the engineering application process.
[] I am from California, just in case anyone was wondering.
[] I will not list my specific stats, but you can stalk my replies if you want to know them.
[/ul]
** On to the general advice! **
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ACT and SAT scores at UT are only considered based on your best single-sitting score (aka no “superscoring”). My advice is to take practice tests for both tests and focus on whichever test you do better on. My biggest regret is focusing on the SAT when I clearly was better at the ACT (I took the ACT cold and comparatively did better on it than on either of the times I took the SAT, which I did study for). I would probably try to aim for a 2000+ or its ACT equivalent regardless of major, and a 2100+ if you are applying to CS, engineering, or business. Also, study a lot. I wish I studied more, but I mostly dicked around and completed the prep books while listening to music and/or watching TV. There is also a formula used for admissions that you can find somewhere in the UT threads. If you’re applying for engineering, UT doesn’t care about your CR score, only writing and math (which is really weird and a good thing to know).
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Essays are really important! That’s pretty universal for the application process. I’m pretty sure that my essays may have been the make or break factor of my acceptance. Write lots potential responses to the essay prompts (I think wrote at least 6), and ask your teachers, friends, and counselors to critique them. I wouldn’t ask your parents, as they tend to mom-ify or dad-ify them, and it’s pretty obvious. Since I had so many essays written, I just answered all of the essay prompts even though I think we only had to answer 2. That may have shown that I was really interested in UT, and you may want to do that if you have time.
Also, START YOUR COMMON APP/APPLYTEXAS/ETC ESSAYS NOW (over the summer), especially if you’re applying to a lot of schools. I had to write a ton of supplemental essays. You don’t know those prompts until you begin filling out the actual application, and they are related to either a specific college or a specific major.
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Teacher recs! Get as many recs as UT allows. I think it’s 2. They aren’t required, but they can definitely bolster up your application.
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Try to up your rank as close to the top 8% as you can. I was in the top 7% (last year’s requirement for auto-admission) at my school, and that also probably helped. I’m pretty sure UT doesn’t even consider GPA, because I transferred schools and we never sent in my old school’s transcript.
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On the application itself, make UGS or an unpopular CNS major your second choice (though I’d only recommend this for in-state students, because they only consider first-choice for OOS/international students). That way, UT knows you’ll still be interested in attending if you don’t get your top-choice major. I think it’s not hard to switch from UGS to biology, so I wouldn’t worry about not being able to get into bio if you’re admitted into UGS.
This ended up a lot longer than I originally intended, haha. Hopefully my information is helpful, and HOOK 'EM \m/
- Edit: Forgot to mention that my advice may or may not be completely accurate. I am a lowly college student and not an admissions officer. *
@imthereal I think your advice is right on target, especially the parts about class rank, essays and recommendations (which all matter) and GPA (which doesn’t matter to UT). The only thing I want to add is that rigor of curriculum is very important to UT. UT actually gives a lot of tips/hints about how to apply and be successful. (At least they did before the website was redesigned…not sure where those tips are now.) If something is optional but strongly recommended (like a resume), just do it!
Here’s the link to what UT considers in making admissions decisions:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=788
I hope others read this and take your advice to heart.
@FloMoMom I was going to add course rigor and completely forgot! When I originally wrote this, it was to a rising senior so the courses taken were sort of set in stone. Thanks for your feedback 
Should I send both my SAT scores for cockrell because my first one has a high M+W but is lower in composite than my second one? Also can I send test scores after submitting my app because I am taking the SAT again in October and I’m applying in August.
I would send all of your scores, as a school can’t count lesser scores against you. You can send test scores up until December, I believe!
@imthereal just to clarify, did you send in more than the two required essays for your application?
@fatherof2boys Yes I did! I believe I answered 3 of the prompts.
It is a myth that submitting more than the two required essays will improve your chances. The computer-based system UT Admissions uses for application review has only two fields for essay scores. Therefore, any third (or fourth, or fifth) essay you submit will go unscored.
Quantity is not a substitute for quality, and UT is looking for quality. In my experience as an application reviewer, writing more than two essays dilutes the quality of all your essays. High school students on the whole do not have college-level writing skills (even though they may think they do), and the additional time/effort you would take writing additional essays would be much better spent re-writing and polishing the two essays actually required.
@PastePotPete Assuming one has multiple essay prompts to choose from to fulfill the essay requirement, how would an admissions officer go about choosing which essay to read? Would they just choose one randomly? This strategy plays on the possibility of an admissions officer deciding to glance at multiple essays and choosing the best for the application review. Anyhow, as an admissions officer I’m sure you can give more insight on how that works to the masses!
Also, let me clear up on my own essay adventures. I definitely agree that you should focus on the main essays, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend writing extra essays just for the purpose of filling every essay prompt. I had written many essays, but ultimately chose 2 that fit the Common App/UC prompts and revised them many, many times over; however, I had to write many supplemental essays for other schools (and the topics differed from the typical “Why engineering?” to “Are you a geek or a nerd, and why?”). Some of these supplemental essays happened to work with the extra UT essay prompts, so I added them per counselor suggestion. It worked for me (I was ultimately admitted to my first choice major), so I was just basing this off of my own experiences. Thanks for the correction
@imthereal Identifying which essays are “best” is up to the individual reviewer. Ideally, all essays would be read and the two better scores recorded. But there are significant time constraints (not least because reviewers are mostly Admission staffers with other responsibilities in the office), so in crunch periods especially (Nov-Jan) one may simply glance over the essays and pick the two that look most promising. For apps with three or more essays the common pattern I saw during this past cycle was one essay that was good or merely OK and two or more that were sub-par. Honestly, out of 700+ applications I reviewed during this past cycle, I saw maybe a dozen with 3+ well-written essays. It’s not a secret: good writing is re-writing.
@PastePotPete That makes me wonder if my essays were sub-par or if I was one of the few who had multiple well-written essays, haha. I’m hoping the latter. Thanks to you and all of the admissions officers for going through thousands of essays each year (and for admitting me, lol)! I honestly can’t express how nervous I’d been over UT admissions since my freshman year of high school, especially since OOS space is so limited. I’m so excited to be a student at UT and honestly can’t think of anywhere I’d rather go for college