How hard is is to transfer into UT Texas engineering school?

My daughter has been accepted into UT Texas via the automatic admissions route. However, she was not accepted into
her major choices of computational science and mechanical engineering. When I look at UT’s website they say that internal transfers are allowed and are determined based on GPAs and how many slots are open for that year. She has been accepted into A&M’s engineering school as well as Colorado School of Mines. I’ve been advised to be very hesitant advising her to go to UT and relying on the internal transfer process to get into the school of engineering. Does anyone have any advice on this process? I think she would have chosen UT over A&M and now she feels like she just needs to go to A&M because it makes the most since. We live in Texas and price wise UT and A&M are more affordable. She has received some scholarship money at CSOM, but not enough to make up for the out of state tuition.

I’m sure there are success stories, but I tend to hear the other ones. Friend’s son was accepted into general studies (undeclared?) in Austin. Went in Austin and took appropriate classes to “transfer” to business school. High GPA (3.7ish). Did not get in business school when he applied…now a Sophmore and will apply again. (I know your daughter is engineering, but the rumor is that business and engineering are the hardest.)

Could she appeal and try and get direct entry?

I have a neighbor whose daughter really wanted to go to UT. She did not get in and decided to work for a year. Instead, her dad encouraged her to apply for spring semester (some do flunk out) and she got in. Be careful though, i don’t think u can take any CC classes as then u r a transfer versus direct admit.

Too many strategies and may depend on how set she is on UT.

Thank you for your feedback. She has other options and still waiting on a couple of schools that were high on her
list. They are reach schools though so I was just trying to come up with some guidance. I can’t tell right now if it’s that she was that set on UT or just the rejection of not getting into the engineering school. Hopefully once it is all settled in her mind she will be able to make a good decision for her.

All of my stories are anecdotal also but I would absolutely go with the choices where she is guaranteed into engineering. All the stories we have heard say it is next to impossible to transfer into UT engineering from another department.

Our deal was the same—any OOS choices had to be within range of UT or TAMU since we are in state for them.

Even with a high GPA, the engineering school at UT has about a 33% acceptance rate. A&M is just as bad. There are plenty of great schools in Texas. UT Dallas it a highly ranked engineering school that is nowhere near as competitive. Plus it’s in Dallas where there are numerous internships and job prospects.

It was not impossible to transfer to engineering, and easier for women than men.
If she can get 3.9+ in GPA after completing the first year courses in calculus, physics and chemistry with good grades before applying to transfer, she should be able to get in.

^^^^^ Have to remember that a 3.9 in college is way harder than a 3.9 in HS

Thank you all for the great info!

Hi, I know it’s kind of late but I’m a current student at a Jr. College and I have been researching and talking with people from UT on getting into the Engineering program. I had recently attended a tour for engineering at ut, and my best advice is if she is dead set on going to UT engineering school go to a community college. The internal and externals transfers have the same chances of being accepted, also if she decided to take the community college route she can take some of her engineering classes which looks better than someone who hasn’t. Secondly volunteer or gain some sort of experience with engineering. The admissions (from what was told to me) is starting to look at the whole student, especially in the essays so not just the gpa. Another piece of advice I had been given is show how she can work as apart of a team, engineering relays heavily on teamwork and communication between the different engineering disciplines to work on a project. I hope it helps, and all the information I have was told to me directly by an engineering advisor as well as multiple engineer professors who attended UT.

@tammy7949 My advice for your daughter is to choose A&M engineering.
UT engineering is pretty challenging to get in and also difficult to get a good grade.