Hey you!

Colleges & Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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<p>Yeah, I'm talking to YOU! Guest, lurker, question-wonderer, answer-desirer, viewer number 178, I'm talking to you. College confidential gets wayyy high google placement so I know you're reading this. Over 1200 views on a stickied thread and only fifteen responses. That means only 1 out of every 80 people that clicked that link bothered to say anything. That means 1200 people stopped by and didn't even say hi!</p>

<p>(If this is too long, skip to the TL;DR down below)</p>

<p>Why am I posting this? Because I love helping people like you. I mean, look at me. I'm posting on a Friday night! And it's not just me. There are a lot of us on here who'd love to help fellow Longhorns out! Big questions, little questions, normal questions, weird questions, easy questions, tough questions, fat questions, skinny questions, red questions, green questions, in a box with a fox. We'll answer them all!</p>

<p>What? You don't have any questions? Then you've gotta have all the answers! Help someone out and share some of that knowledge. It'll feel good, I promise.</p>

<p>No questions or answers? We'll take jokes too! Grammar Nazi? Call my typos out! Post anything, it doesn't matter. All I'm asking is for you to take the time to make an account and post. It's quick and I promise you won't get any spam. Nearly 145 THOUSAND views on the UT dorms thread. That's a BIG number. Yeah we get by, but our community has so much potential! </p>

<p>It's application season and I know you high school seniors are out there with tons of questions. Do yourselves a favor and post!</p>

<p>TL;DR- There are a lot of you out there without an account just reading and leaving but you could get so much more out of our community if you posted. Introduce yourselves! We're all Longhorns and we're here to help.</p>

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<p>Great post! I’ve wondered about that, too. People are missing out on a great resource by not asking questions here. I wish CC had been around when I went to college!</p>

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<p>“No questions or answers? We’ll take jokes too! Grammar Nazi? Call my typos out! Post anything, it doesn’t matter.” <----Comma splice</p>

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<p>Shorts sentences are syntactical speed bumps and were averted through the means of comma splicing, effectively maintaining the quick and easy reading pace I had intended. Good catch but they were on purpose :)</p>

<p>Either way, welcome to the forum saxplayer! I know you’re not that new but I hope you’ve found the community here helpful so far.</p>

<p>Pro tips: If you want to

someone, lead the quoted text with a (quote) and end it with a (/quote), replacing each parenthesis, ( or ), with corresponding bracket, [ or ].</p>

<p>You can change font color with the desired color in brackets too. i.e. (color=blue)asdf(/color) again replacing the ()'s with 's.</p>

<p>See them all [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode#color]here[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode#color]here[/url</a>]</p>

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<p>I asked a question and no one answered. Therefore I disagree with your statement OP.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I asked a question too, but nobody answered :/</p>

<p>I guess I’ll ask here to see if anybody will reply.</p>

<p>What are my chances of getting accepted into my designated majors? I’m choosing Computer/Electrical Engineering as my first choice, and biology as my second choice.
They’re two completely different majors, but I’m stuck between Computer Engineering and Pharmacy.</p>

<p>I am a Texas resident and I’m currently ranked 38/860 which is about top 5.7%. I got a 28 on my ACT. I’m currently waiting for my September ACT score and I’m taking the October SAT next week. I know my test scores aren’t really high, but I can’t seem to improve much. I’m an AP Scholar with Distinction, and I believe I have pretty good ECs.</p>

<p>Also, if I don’t do too well on my upcoming SAT, am I still able to take the November SAT? Will my scores come in before the 12/1 Deadline?</p>

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<p>Kostya1, I’m sorry that no one answered your post. </p>

<p>In all truth, what really prompted me to make this thread was the noticeable decline in activity after school started (in addition to some long-term members’ absence). Normally, this is attributable more to a lack of time than a lack of caring. Understandably, everyone has gotten more busy as of late but that doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t want to help anymore. </p>

<p>In regards to your question, it probably didn’t get a response because most are not very familiar with the external transfer process, especially as it pertains to a specific major/school in an off semester. I will, however, try to answer your question to the best of my ability:</p>

<p>As you may (or may not [know](<a href=“http://www.cs.utexas.edu/undergraduate-program/prospective-students/transfer-ut-cs-another-university]know[/url]”>http://www.cs.utexas.edu/undergraduate-program/prospective-students/transfer-ut-cs-another-university)</a>), to transfer in to the Computer Science program you must first independently apply through UT’s general admissions.</p>

<p>Your application seems to be very well rounded and I’m sure that, if given the chance, you could convince the admissions committee that you deserve to be at UT. However, a holistic approach that would take notice of all these factors is considered too time consuming for a university of UT’s size, much to our detriment. While honors programs will take the time to incorporate these qualitative factors into their decisions, general admissions is typically carried out as a numbers game which essentially turns your GPA into your application. That said, your GPA certainly needs to be the strongest part of you application.</p>

<p>Call the computer science department (512.471.7316) after the weekend and ask them where their GPA cutoff for external transfers tends to be. Try to get transferred to an actual adviser as the receptionists tend to read off prepared answers in response to such FAQ. Many majors/colleges can give you explicit historical numbers. Beware that most external transfers apply as soon as they break the required 30 hour requirement and fight to keep their GPA as high as possible over that short period. Nevertheless, if you make the cut you make the cut.</p>

<p>The CS department is one of the smallest in the College of Natural Sciences because it is a “closed major”. This means that they cap their student body at a certain number and only accept students to replace those that have left. While this may sound bad for you, it may actually be beneficial. As with any other major, students will certainly drop for one reason or another so the spots will be there. But because the number of acceptances are so limited, they may review applications more discerningly, giving you a leg up.</p>

<p>This was more opinion than fact but I hope it helped at least a little bit. Moreover, I hope your impression of the community hasn’t been irreparably damaged and I hope you stick around and keep us updated on your situation.</p>

<p>And of course, good luck!</p>

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<p>I don’t think asking for chances is a valid question.</p>

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<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE:</p>

<p>There is a specific board for people looking for chances. They aren’t supposed to go on the university boards.</p>

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<p>tranman07, </p>

<p>As I’ve gotten older and talked to less high school Seniors and Freshman, my grasp of what makes/doesn’t make the cut for each major has gotten a little outdated. However, it couldn’t have changed too much but I’d still like to let you know that my opinions are mainly reflections from the entering freshmen class 2 years ago.</p>

<p>First off, I’d like to commend you for choosing your majors in the correct order! Electrical engineering is definitely the more difficult major to get accepted to while Biology is the largest major on campus and (obviously) accepts the most students. What this means is that you have dependable safety net behind you in case EE rejects you. I can absolutely guarantee that you will get in to biology with your statistics.</p>

<p>Now for EE, your numbers actually seem to be perfectly average for acceptance. So while you don’t exactly stand out, you’re right on track! For Engineering, the Math score is much more important than the composite score so if your Math score was 30+ then, with your class rank, I would place you at about a 80-90% chance of acceptance. Engineering does rolling admissions so I’d recommend applying ASAP after your September scores come in. By the time an October SAT gets back it’ll probably be around Thanksgiving and that is definitely on the later side of things. EE, along with mechanical engineering, are the two largest majors in the Cockrell School of Engineering so you should have a spot waiting for you.</p>

<p>So what was the breakdown on your ACT or SAT?</p>

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<p>Since you are looking for questions, do you know if McCombs is rollling admissions? I didn’t realize that engineering was. S has already been admitted to TAMU engineering. He’s got low 1800’s SAT with 700+ in math. He’s in the top 3.5 of his class. He really wants to do engineering right now, probably civil-environmental but is just now taking BC calc, and AP Physics. He’s thinking of Bus as a safety net since he is considering the possibility that engineering might not look as good to him after taking these two classes. BTW he’s acing both now but it is early in the semester. It seems to me that bus is more difficult to get into at UT and I’m wondering if he can get admitted into Engineering as a second choice, which is what he presently plans for it to be on his application. Thoughts?</p>

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<p>Civil engineering is one of the more lenient engineering majors to get in to but it’s not very big so I’m not sure what that adds up to. I don’t have much personal experience/knowledge about CivE admissions but my impression is that top 3.5% and 700+ in math should get him in.
On the other hand, his numbers seem to be similar to the few that I’ve heard from my friends in business. Again, I’m not very familiar with the business school and don’t want to make any assumptions.</p>

<p>Sorry that I couldn’t answer that better but the little experience I have only tells me that his Business 1st, Engineering 2nd plan is at least plausible. I also don’t know if McCombs does rolling admissions but that is a question that could be easily answered by a quick email or phone call.</p>

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<p>Thanks for giving it a try Frever. We do need to call and see if Bus is rolling. If not it would seem that Civi could be full by the time the bus decision is made.</p>

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<p>@Spectrum, it was my understanding that for Fall 2012 admissions, all majors, including engineering, will holistically review all candidates. Thus, rolling admissions will not be occurring as they once did. This will be especially true for McCombs and Cockrell candidates since there is such competition and due to the sheer number of applicants. </p>

<p>According to Admissions, decisions regarding these competitive majors will occur around December 1. If your son really wants to be an engineer, it might be advisable to put engineering as a first choice major. Having McCombs listed first may make it more difficult to get into Cockrell. In fact, many prospective engineering students place their 1st and 2nd choices within engineering, e.g. Civil, then Chemical.</p>

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<p>Whoa, link please?</p>

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<p>Thanks Frever, that gives me some hope. I got a 30 on the math for ACT. I know it’s low… I do bad on standardized tests… However, I do get all A’s in my math classes at school. I’m taking AP Calc AB next semester as well! </p>

<p>So I’m assuming EE/CE is one of the easier majors to get accepted into for Cockrell? My brother is currently at Cockrell, and he had similar stats to me. I hope I get accepted into Cockrell like him…</p>

<p>Do the SATs/ACTs correspond with how well you do in college? If so, that won’t be good :/</p>

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<p>Well apparently what I said isn’t 100% credible anymore.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Numbers used to be very strong indicators for what you’d get accepted to but apparently things are a-changing here at UT. Auto-admits to Cockrell normally get an acceptance w/in 2-3 weeks of submission… I wonder how long it takes now. Nevertheless, I don’t think this should affect the average applicant. Unless your EC’s are really lacking or phenomenal then I don’t see it changing your chances much. Each major will probably continue to accept about the same caliber of student but with a few nuances. The only time you should really worry is if they start cutting seats.</p>

<p>And yes, ECE is one of the easier engineering majors to get in to but don’t read that as a result of it being an easier major. It’s more of a product of it being one of the biggest majors in engineering.</p>

<p>By the way, you shouldn’t get down on yourself before you’ve even started. Standardized tests aren’t everything and there’s a lot more to being a good student that pure smarts. Everyone worries about how they’ll do but no one, especially not those tests, can predict anything for sure. Just go out there and give it your best.</p>

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<p>My son is a freshman at UT and even last year we were told that all major decisions were made holistically, which means that the entire application is considered. Single decision date is not what “holistic” means, IMHO.</p>

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<p>Sorry but could you please explain what you mean by single decision date?</p>

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<p>

As of July, UT has drastically changed their admissions procedures for **competitive majors<a href=“engineering,%20business,%20communications”>/b</a>, especially McCombs. Other colleges, such as the College of Natural Sciences, has fewer applicants and there may be rolling admissions of some sort. </p>

<p>Prior to Fall 2012, class rank played a huge role in automatic admission into these competitive majors. If a prospective student was ranked in the top 1-2% of their high school class, they were offered admission without regard to their test scores or resume. For McCombs, that number was 75% of the incoming class. That is not the case anymore. </p>

<p>As mentioned, Admissions has said that the sheer volume of applicants that must now be holistically reviewed within the competitive majors will slow down the process. So, admission notices, “rolling” or not, will be delayed for these majors.</p>