Computational Engineering vs. Math

My daughter is finishing her Jr. year and will be applying to UT Austin, I am hoping to get some input on what program she should apply to, her interest is in data science, AI and she plans to go straight to grad school - Math or Computational Engineering?

SAT: 1540 790/M 750/E, Math2 Subject-800, thus far she has all 5’s on APs and will be graduating with 15 APs, all the usual suspects - Comp Sci, Physics, Chem, Calc, etc. and a couple of dual enrollment CC(mainly to get out history) GPA 3.85 unweighted 4.8 weighted - BUT she is likely not to be in the top 6% when applying- very competitive suburban school where the Top 15% are literally separated by 1 weighted AP class that can be taken freshman year which she did not take. Usual ECs - student counsel, orchestra, ran a team for TedxYouth, Works p/t tutoring kids in math, volunteers to teach underprivileged kids for free. Spent last summer at UT doing research in a lab. Didn’t cure cancer or save the world before 18, no major national awards.

She is concerned that she may not get into the engineering school and thinks may have a better chance applying math. Thanks in advance for any insight and advise.

If Engineering is her passion, she should apply to that as her first choice major and put math as her second choice major. It sounds that she is a very good candidate for UT in general, even not being in the top 6% for automatic admission but that wouldn’t guarantee her admission to her major anyway. My daughter was an auto admit but I also think the summer camps that she took at UT before her senior year helped her meet the staff and showed on her application her great interest in the school.
I also read somewhere that the engineering department prefers you to apply to them with a first and second choice in engineering. I would attend one of their sessions specific for the college.

As a parent of two ECE students, one auto admit and one not, I would encourage your daughter to apply for engineering.

Our non-auto kid called admissions before he applied because his GC told him he had less of a chance due to his rank. (As in he shouldn’t bother at all since he was “only” in the top 10%) The UT admissions person emphatically told him to please apply after hearing his test scores. DS also had a very strong resume to back up his scores. He was accepted and double majored in ECE and CS and then went on to Georgia Tech for grad school.

Here is the curriculum for ECE. You can look at the technical cores available and see if that overlaps your daughter’s interests. The engineering dept. has fantastic internship opportunities and scholarship money. Our other ECE student (with a higher rank) received an full-tuition scholarship and is currently applying for additional funding this year/summer.

Good luck!
https://www.ece.utexas.edu/undergraduate/curriculum

I suggest looking at the curriculum for Computational Engineering and comparing it to anything else. As you look at schools - each curriculum will be slightly different in classes offered.

https://catalog.utexas.edu/undergraduate/engineering/degrees-and-programs/bs-computational-engineering/