Changing Majors

I will be an entering freshman in the fall at UT Austin as an auto admit and had an okay application but did not get into the engineering program. I appealed to the College of Natural Sciences thinking that I would get in, as I knew people who had much less competitive applications that had gotten in (I had a 1350 SAT score with lots of extracurriculars and all that). Surprisingly my appeal was denied though. Now the university has put me in the School of Undergraduate Studies, a place where freshmen can figure out what they want to do. I’ve thought about doing an internal transfer, but I wouldn’t be able to until my sophomore year and I’d only have one shot because of all the college credit hours I already have. I really want to be put into the College of Natural Sciences so I can participate in the Freshman Research Initiative I don’t know if I could be put on a waitlist for my major, or perhaps have my application reviewed again. This has really begun to stress me out and has even begun to really affect my mental health. I’ve done everything I can think of to fix this problem but to no avail. I know I’m good enough for the College of Natural Sciences and can picturing myself doing really well there. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

I think you underestimate the competitiveness of the College of Natural Sciences. I got a 1450 SAT and got rejected from it and got accepted in Cockrell and McCombs. CNS is humble about its difficulty and just because you’re friends got in probably means that they are only outliers in the score ranges.

Don’t fret, just because you don’t get into CNS this time around doesn’t mean you can’t take intro-level CNS classes. Do well in those and reapply after your freshman year, I know you’ll get there. I was in Cockrell a year before transferring into CNS which I really wanted to do.

Well, my friend was also an auto admit but he only had a 1250 SAT, plus I know the CNS admits a lot more people than Cockrell. And I’m going to be taking the same courses that most of the first year CNS students are going to be taking anyways, but I just feel like I’m going to be left out and miss out on some amazing opportunities, like the Freshman Research Initiative. Is that the way you felt? But thank you, and if you don’t mind me asking where are you now at UT?