Chance a Non-Auto admit, UT

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
1

Hello! thank you for taking the time to read this. posted on this sub before but wanted to do an updated post going into senior year

Demographics: Asian (Indian) /Black, 2nd gen, child of immigrant parents

UW: 3.5, W: 4.4, had a couple of high school classes in 8th grade that really brought me down, but every trimester after that has been weighted at 4.9-5.0 GPA out of 6. Large, semi-competitive public highschool (~3000)

IB Diploma candidate, taken 4 AP’s, taking two more senior year.

Rank: top 9%, outside of automatic admission, reside in texas

SAT: Just took it August 29th, fully expecting a score above 1500 (fingers crossed)

EC:

1- Band, tuba: have played for 6 years. Multiple regional awards, and have made area twice in the TMEA process. Second chair in my region for past 2 years. 1st chair all throughout my playing career in-school.

2- Marching Band- National level band. We have made finals at the SA super regional and have multiple other class awards. Currently have served on leadership on there for 2 years, finishing off as Brass Captain

3- Hindi Club- I took Hindi as part of my IB Diploma req, and I am co-president of the club going into senior year. Starting 3rd year.

5- Asian Club- 2 years

4- NHS- our school admits people in only senior year, might not even include it.

5- MUN- Have done this for a year, going on into the second year. No awards/leadership, but a delegate.

6- Food Bank- Have done this for a year, might re-continue in early December.

7- Founder of the chess club in 9th grade. Our system is based differently, so in 9th grade, we’re still in junior high, then we go to highschool. Started up a chess club that’s still going strong back in junior high.

8- Library volunteer- ~60 hours, over summer

9- Have about 200+ hours in volunteering/service, miscellaneous projects.

Internships/extra stuff:

1-doctor shadowing- This is a big one for me, and I’m still grateful I got the opportunity. cold-emailed a bunch of practicing neurologists in the area and I managed to shadow one doctor for 2 weeks, 3 hours a day, in junior year summer.

2- Worked at a body shop over this summer. Should I include it?

Essays/LOR:

pretty good essays (hopefully), have started a couple of weeks ago, and have multiple people reading and reviewing it. LOR from my band director and IB biology teacher also predicted to be good.

Thank you for coming this far if you’ve read, it really means a lot! I know as a non-auto admit I have to work extra hard to get a spot, but please let me know if I have any chance at all! Thanks again!

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Haha, forgot to put what major I want: Biology, College of Natural sciences

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You should be more than fine. Good job!

4

UT Austin should be considered a reach if you are not in the automatic admission category.

Work experience is a perfectly valid thing to put on a college application.

5

Thank you!! Do I hopefully have a goof application however? My main concern is getting tossed out at the sight of my GPA

6

Your description matches my nephew’s a few years ago. He just missed the auto cutoff. Also premed with research, publishing, great recs, shadowing. He did not get into UT but was accepted to some other. highly selective Schools.

So, yes, UT is a reach. It’s a reach or a safety and since you don’t make the auto cut, it’s a reach for you. A&M should be a good safety for you as well as the other UT campuses. You’d also be a great candidate for many other flagship state Unis If you are looking to pay no more than in state costs at your public schools, you should see what your expected costs at various private and OOS public schools and take financial aid and merit possibilities into account when adding such schools to your list.