Impossible to get in?

I would like to transfer to UT, but my friend who has talked to an admissions counselor said that the counselor he talked to said that UT is wanting to get rid of transfers by making it nearly impossible to get in. He said even people with a 4.0 GPA were getting rejected across the board. Has anyone heard something about this? Like I know colleges don’t like transfers, but it seems ridiculous to make it that hard to get in.

it depends on the school and the major. more competitive ones only have so many spots and reject ppl with 4.0s (usually engineering/CS and sometimes psychology in COLA). not impossible, just hard

The short answer to your reply is that your friend is not a good source of information with regard to UT transfer policy or statistics. Admission to UT as a transfer is tough. The overall transfer admission rate is right around 20% (and I’m not sure if that percentage includes other campuses without looking). Undoubtedly, some people with 4.0 college GPAs get rejected (just as some high performing freshman applicants get rejected). There’s only so much availability.

Admissions for transfers is holistic. GPA isn’t the be-all-end-all of admission (though VERY important). As the previous poster mentioned, school and major matter. What also matters is how you’ve demonstrated your passion and aptitude for your requested major for transfer. What have your done to bolster your application since you applied as a freshman applicant? Have you done anything more, or differently? Have you gained experiences and insights that align to your plan of study? How well did you/can you convey that in your application? Are you applying to an impacted major? Are you competing against typically higher performing students? All are factors into why otherwise strong students (freshman and transfers) may be rejected or deferred, or accepted, but not into their major.

My kid is an auto-admit to UT as a freshman for the class of 2024. He’s still waiting to find out if he gets his first or second choice majors. He’s rock solid, academically, but he’s competing against other rock solid students. A lot of them. So, it will come down to who, of all those students, are best able to project their passion and future success in that path of study. My son may not be one of the ones who makes it. But, it won’t be because UT is trying to keep prospective students out, it’ll be because they only have the capacity to let so many in.

Hi- My son went to tour UT last Monday. A&M had been his #1 choice and now he feels that UT is a better fit for him. He applied on 9/6 and has been in review for awhile as was to be expected.
His chosen major is Engineering. He was academic admit at TAMU but not for UT as he was top 15% but not 6% as seems was the auto admit cutoff this year.
Still waiting on Engineering review for TAMU.
Can anyone shed some realistic insight into his chances for UT?
-GPA-4.10
-SAT 1410 (730 ERW/680 Math)
-AP Physics, Honors Pre-Calc, “Engineer Your World” (dual credit course with UT junior and senior year)
-Student body president, robotics club president, over a year of working the same after-school job, NHS, International Thespian Society, Three years of acting in all school plays and musicals with lead roles, over 200 volunteer hours,
-AP and Honors classes in all subjects possible.

He is a stressed out mess right now because he is afraid he won’t get in and then that he won’t be able to transfer in later. He knows that both schools will offer him a wonderful program, but he truly believes that UT is far better culture for him (and he likely is correct)

Acc to my Texas SIL whose 3 kids went through the admissions process in state. UT-Austin is a very difficult school in terms of admissions if a student doesn’t get the auto admit. One of my nephews just missed that cutoff and even with 1500+ SATs, and close to 4.0 UW GPA, was not accepted there. He was accepted to highly selective schools including USC and Penn, but not his own state flagship. Going to a very competitive highschool with a lot of high achievers cost him the UT-Austin Admit, it seems.

Other two ended up at TAMU and Texas Tech.

I d treat UT-Austin as a high reach. It is for anyone for whom it’s not a safety, ironically

I wouldn’t worry about that. Just apply and see what happens. You might get in, or you might not, but you definitely won’t get in if you don’t apply. Be aware that business, CS, and engineering are hyper-competitive and those majors allow relatively few transfers. Keep some other schools on your list. There are plenty of great schools in Texas.

I think it would be very hard to get into the engineering school at top 15%.

This is my fear… he has been accepted to a few schools already including TAMU (just waiting to see about engineering). He did not apply to many of the top tier schools out of state because of the money factor. He is good enough to get accepted and good enough to get SOME merit aid, but not good enough to get enough aid for us to afford the tuition. Then he has the “DREAM” school of University of Washington that is not only competitive, but only lets in a small number of OOS students. And, the give very little in merit aid from I have read.