Chances Of Getting Into UT Austin

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

I’m a junior currently at a very prestigious private school in Texas, where about 10% of our graduating class (class of about 100) tends to get accepted into an ivy. Last year, I believe we had 9 ivy acceptances out of 100 students as well as a few MIT, Stanford, etc. Because of this, I am far from top 10% (our school does not rank anyways), but I want to know my chances of getting into UT Austin. My ultimate goal would be to be a business major at McCombs, but I know that I will not get into that school initially, so I plan to apply with Radio-Television as my first choice and business as my second (just in case I get lucky) and then switch after freshman year.

My freshman year of high school, my grades were basically awful. I had about a 3 GPA, with a few honors classes. By the end of my sophomore year, my GPA was up to a 3.11, because I averaged around a 3.2 that year (still bad I know). However, junior year, I decided to actually put some effort into school, and my first semester I finished with a 4.11 GPA (3.9 unweighted I believe, but our school only shows us the weighted version). Second semester this year should be about the same, and I should finish junior year with about a 3.45 realistically.

As for the class rigor, senior year I will be taking 3 math classes (AP Stat, AP calc ab, and advanced financial algebra). I will also be taking AP Gov and AP Econ. Also, I will take phycology, regular english, astro physics and the 4th level of our film class. Junior year, I only took 2 AP classes as well as honors math (precalculus honors). Also, I did an independent study in music history.

Below are my extra circulars:
-50+ hours of community service
-30+ hours of campus service
-Cofounder and officer of Science Club
-President of Cinema Charities Club (we make promotional videos for non profits who can not afford them to help them get the word of their organization out there)
-Investment Club member
-Model United Nations member
-In a group of students selected to give tours to prospective students and parents at our school
-Worked for a radio station as a full time employee for a month over summer
-2 Scholastic Art and Writing regional Gold Keys for films
-2 Separate Films Selected to Screen At South by Southwest (festival in Austin)
-Cinefestival 2014 film best of festival + emerging artist award (san antonio film festival)
-Anim!Arte International 2014 - worked on film that received Best student international film of North America + 2nd place youth jury -award (this is a film festival based in Brazil)
-Outsiders film festival - movie screened here as well
-2 years of basketball and 4 years of tennis
-National French Exam - honorary mention

Here are my test scores so far
PSAT: 202 (commended)
SAT: 1920 (I am retaking this soon, with the goal of a 2050)
ACT: 29 (Also retaking this and goal to get 31)

I took the ACT and SAT unprepared, so I feel like I can do significantly better on both. On the ACT, I got a 32 on math and reading, 28 on science but only 24 on english, because I was not prepared for how long the test was. If I had finished it (which I could have if I had practiced and known how long it was), I could easily get a 30 on that section.

Sorry this was so long, but based on all of that, what do you think the chances are of me getting into UT Austin? Also, what should I do to improve my chances aside from grades, because I am already doing everything I can to get those up.

2

Well, UT has a 40.2% acceptance rate (2013) so shouldn’t be too hard to get in.

3

Your chances are likely better with RTF than with the more competitive McCombs, but you should investigate the transfer possibility if your goal is a business degree. I don’t know how possible that would be. FYI, we learned this year that UT is moving away from considering an applicant for the second choice major. Good luck!

4

You need to be careful about going into Radio-TV initially and planning to transfer to McCombs. While it’s not impossible, internal transfers to McCombs are notoriously hard, and you don’t want to get trapped in a major you don’t want. Just my two cents.

5

Thanks for the responses. From what i’ve read, it seems like you need about a 3.7-3.8 freshman year to transfer into McCombs. Is this generally true? And is it easier to transfer in from harder majors than arts or do they strictly look at gpa?

6

@smoothies7‌ it’s a misleading 40.2%, especially if you’re in state. The top 7% auto-admit rule causes so many kids in state outside of that range to be rejected because the university wants some geographic diversity.

7

By the way, McCombs has a 25% acceptance rate. And the overall is skewed by auto-admits. I would say get a 33 ACT or 2150 at the least. I had friends with about the same level of EC’s as you with 2050 SATs and auto-admit status denied to McCombs.
And everyone is right about you having much greater chances at RTF, plus you seem like you would have fun with it. You should check out the formulas that UT uses for non-auto admits.

8

I lol’d at the “shouldn’t be too hard” comment.

I think you have pretty good shot at getting in the university, but probably not a spot in McCombs, at least not initially.
You have very good ECs. Just try to raise those scores a bit, like at least 32 ACT and 2100 SAT

9

I would concur that you have to make a very hard choice here. Your stats look competitive for RTF but they are likely to come up short respecting McCombs. Your plan to enter UT as a RTF major and simply transfer to McCombs is risky to say the least.

I think you are going to have to decide which is more important to you…being a student at UT-Austin, albeit without your preferred major, or being somewhere like A&M with your preferred major. If you are okay with the former, then go ahead and apply for RTF and see if you can transfer to McCombs later. If you fail to get the transfer, at least you’ll be at your dream school. However, if you really know that you’ll be unhappy being stuck as a RTF major, then I’d suggest you simply roll the dice and apply directly to McCombs coming out of high school as your “reach” school, and then consider a school like A&M where (I assume) you are likely going to be a competitive applicant for admission to their undergraduate business program. In the latter case, if you are granted admission to McCombs under the holistic review for non-auto admits, you are golden! On the other hand, if you are denied admission to UT, you are likely to get into A&M with your preferred major and at a quality,affordable school.

I think your plan to game the system maybe to risky, unless you are truly willing to take the risk of being stuck as a RTF major.

Good luck.

10

UT’s 40.2 percent acceptance rate is inflated by its super easy colleges and majors and auto admit. Getting into business, engineering, and college of natural sciences aligns with 20-30%, similar to other non auto admit public university’s, such as UNC. If it makes you feel better, I got into Electrical Engineering from the top 17 percent and my friend got into McCombs with a top 36 percent rank. UT loves rank, but they’re holistic, and me and my friend got in due to really good test scores and really good essays, so your not done, you just have to put in a lot of effort. Also note that we didn’t have a lot of extracurriculars, certainly not as much as you. Try and hope for the best.

11

thanks for clearing that up! @evanian15‌