DS has 27 ACT composite but only 19 on the writing portion. He is going to take it again in September. Is low writing score going to hurt him? He never writes well under pressure although he passed AP English Literature. He is an OSS applicant with a very strong academic, ranked 2/350. Any advice will be appreciated. He will be applying for computer science major as well. Thanks!
From my understanding, the writing portion is as important as its weighting in the Academic Index calculation used by UT. There are recent UT discussion threads on the calculation. The computer science major is one of the most competitive majors to apply for at UT, and spots open for OOS students (~10% of a given freshman class overall) are limited. Strong test scores will be required, and math scores have to be in the top ~3% nationally. Retaking the tests a couple more times this year is a good idea, and you might consider taking the Math SAT II test, though it is not required but maybe used for consideration (all the other top CS programs might require it). A friend of my son’s (also OOS) was admitted for CS at UC Berkeley, Washington, Carnegie Mellon, but rejected at UT.