For all those admitted or rejected to UT Austin Computer Science, can you post your scores?

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

The title says it all.

Please provide your SAT/ACT score, your GPA, if you’re a Texas resident, and some of your extracurricular activities.
I’m trying to compare my chances to your statistics and activities and “accurately” gauge my own chances of getting accepted to UTCS.

I actually posted a thread to see my chances for UTCS, but I want to hear about people who received an acceptance or rejection letter to the program. Here was the thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-texas-austin/1951159-university-of-texas-at-austin-computer-science-chances.html#latest

Whether you got into the Turings Honors program or just regular UTCS, I’m still willing to read your reply.

Thank you.

2

You probably want people to post their class rank as well.

3

@ucbalumnus Yeah, that’ll be great too.

Bump.

4

Accepted
New SAT: 1320 EBRW: 650 M:670
GPA: 4.94/6.0 weighted
Rank:46/846
Texas resident
Extracurricular activities: Computer Science Club 9-12 (president senior yr), ~150 community service hours done in volunteer club, NHS senior year, job since junior year, UTCS First Bytes CS camp

AP Classes: CS, Chem, Cal AB (BC not offered in school), Macro, Micro, Govt
DC classes, US Hist, English 3
Possibly Significant classes, Principles of Architecture & Engineering, Engineering, Technology Applications Independent Study, CS Pre-AP

5

Denied
New SAT: 1580 (790 each)
ACT: 35 (math 35)
Rank: top 14% (in a school where NMFs are 6% of class)
Texas resident
Extracurricular activities: Eagle Scout, other Scouting honors, 7 years band (2 band instruments), 12 years piano, compose music (finalist in 1 competition), mutiple CS summer camps, created several video games, NHS, probably other stuff I’m forgetting

AP Classes: 11 including CS (5), calculus AB, physics. Taking 2nd year of CS this year (after AP CS junior year).
As in all math & CS classes.
National Merit finalist
Good recs from CS, pre-calc, and music teachers

These are stats for son #2, who was denied this year. As I’ve mentioned here before, son #1 was admitted to CS 2 years ago with somewhat weaker stats and ECs. There has been a lot of speculation about what may have changed this year in the admission process (son #2’s experience was reflected throughout our high school). I think the only good takeaway is that it’s very hard to predict outcomes for UT CS. Best of luck and have some strong backups!

6

Wow @TexasMom2017 that’s crazy! So sorry for your son. What other schools is he considering?

7

Sorry to hear that @TexasMom2017! He is obviously very qualified. He hopefully has other good options.

8

Copied from Rice ED thread -

Accepted, Texas Resident (denied Turing Scholar - tbh most of my ECs were related to medicine since I wanted to do BME for the past 3 years, so I can understand the denial)

•New SAT I: 1570 (800M + 770R/W Superscore), 1560 single sitting
•SAT II: Math II (800), Biology M (790)
•Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9
•Weighted GPA (out of 4): 4.1-ish? idk, but it was the most rigorous course load possible
•Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Does not rank, probably top 10%
•AP (place score in parentheses): Biology (5), APUSH (5), AB Calc (5), Statistics (5)
*school does not let us take APs until junior year, thus the relative lack of APs
•Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Physics C, Dif Eq & Linear Algebra, BC Calc, AP Chem, AP Spanish
•Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): AP Scholar w/ Distinction, mostly local awards. National Merit Finalist

Subjective:
•Extracurriculars :
Robotics (Co-lead Coder)
Carnegie Hall Honors Performance in NYC (selected Tenor II)
Choir Tenor section leader.
Various vocal awards at state/local levels. Mentioned TMTA Male Vocal State Finalist for Classical and 1st Place Chamber group in Jazz, 2nd Place in Classical. NATS Houston Runner-up, 11th Grade Boys Classical.
Interact Club (Blood Drive Chair, 100+ hours)
Habitat for Humanity (Chair, 200+ hours)
Quiz Bowl (Recruitment chair, national qualifiers for all 3 years)
Varsity Track (4x400 relay - wasn’t all that great)

•Volunteer/Community Service: 500+ hours from various activities, mostly medical volunteering.
•Summer Activities: Junior year- Research project at local university on nanotechnology in the field of biomedical sensing. No research paper though, which was a shame (honestly too complicated for me to write one anyways).
Volunteered as Team Captain on weekends at a local hospital for 8hrs/week, still continuing through the school year.
Sophomore year - Physician shadowing and medical billing specialist for respiratory clinic (this made me a ton of money, which was great for a 15 year old building his PC)
Freshman year - receptionist at geriatric clinic

9

@3scoutsmom thanks. He’s considering Boston U, Northeastern, OU, UNT, and Trinity. Still waiting to hear from BU and the music school at UNT (he wants to double major in CS and music).

10

Your S’s stats and EC’s are amazing. UT denied him admission to CS likely because of his expressed interest in double majoring in the music school. And in part due to the list of schools he has applied to - a mixed bag - all on his list for a couple of reasons that UT can speculate - either because of the music major component - or the NM scholarships.

If he truly wants to double major - UT did him a favor. Even if he gained admittance to both schools at UT (CS and Music). He would have had to choose one.

11

@lots2do thanks for the kind words. I have wondered if the lack of 100% focus on CS did him in … but the truth is, I have no idea. All of his classmates who were non-auto-admit appear to have been CAP’d, including some brilliant kids, and the school counselors were also stunned. In past years, our high school has had a number of non-auto-admit kids admitted (including my older son) … One correction … you can add a second major at UT, it’s just that you can only have one major as an entering freshman.

12

@TexasMom2017 It’s sad to hear that such a brilliant student was rejected by UTCS.

Just the fact that you stated that makes me very scared in terms of my application.
I still would like to hear on more people’s admissions on UT Computer Science.

Bump.

13

Bump.

14

@TexasMom2017, Agree. It appears this year that they filled spots with auto admits almost exclusively. And yes, a student can declare a second major after thirty hours in residence. No guarantees he will be accepted. And with majors as different and as demanding as music anything and CS, the 4 year graduation goal of UT becomes unrealistic. The demands of those two majors - at least at UT - would make tremendous work load and stress. The two schools do not work together to make sure your schedule works for labs, rehearsals, performances, etc.

If you have met students at UT that are balancing the work load of these two majors, I would love to hear about them and how they are managing - and how many years to graduate. Just seems that most people that go down this road will eventually choose one major over the other.

15

In on this thread.

Accepted
Class Rank: 1/32
ACT: 32 (31E, 35M, 30R, 30S)
Race: Hispanic
Graduation with 38 dual credit hours
Senior course load: English 1, English 2, Pre Cal, Calculus, US Govt, TX Govt, US History, TX History, Macroeconomics, TX History, Intro to C++ (all of these were dual credit) and golf.

Extracurriculars:
300 service hours in a peer-to-peer program.
Started a golf team at my school.
Very active at my church with another 150ish hours and a year of leadership.

Work History:
Working since mid-15.
Saved up 17k to buy pay off my car and made one of my essays about this, very well written.

Reccomendations:
My employer 9/10
Principal 10/10
Math and physics teacher 10/10

Schools accepted to:
UT Austin
Texas A&M engineering honors
Case Western w/ 32500 merit
SMU w/ 36500 merit
Cal poly w/ 1k merit
Trinity w/ 20ishk merit
Northeastern w/ 20k merit
Alabama w/ presidential + engineering scholarship + honors (waitlisted from CBHP)

Rejected:
WashU (no showed an interview, oops)
GaTech (not sure why. I guess I wasn’t qualified enough or not enough interest, etc)

Pending:
Rice University

My essays:
Essay A: 9/10
Essay B: 9.5/10
I used a paid essay tutor who helped me a lot perfect my essays.

Income bracket: 250k+

Comments:
I was fairly surprised with the acceptance. I thought I wouldn’t get in, and I feel like I was border line accepted. Didn’t bother with honors.

To be completely honest, being top 17% almost murders your chances. From my talks with the admissions officers, almost all their acceptances are too 7%

16

Pretty sure bottom of the barrel but here goes. If anyone will give you hope it’ll be me.

Accepted

Rank: 10/244 (top 4%)
GPA:
Weighted- 4.518/6
Unweighted- 3.8
SAT: (new) 1260
In-state

Senior Course Load:
AP Literature
AP Government
AP Economics
AP Calculus
AP Computer Science
Research in IT

Taken all AP including Spanish with the exclusion of Chem and Stats

Though I’ve learned CS the past 3 years, I don’t have much to show for it. No projects or ECs. No volunteer hours at all. Worked since freshman year.

I guess what gave me a shot was my rank and maybe my essays. My SAT was a blow off because I wasn’t aware that I would have to apply for my major, so when I did find out and applied I was not expecting an acceptance.