We have just realized that my daughter’s application was cancelled. The reason stated in the portal is “Transcript is not an official High School transcript”. My daughter, together with her HS counselor, immediately called the admission’s office. The admission person said that they received the transcript on time but it was not signed. My daughter’s counselor answered that she has never signed any transcript since the transcripts were submitted electronically. There are at least two other students under the same counselor applied UT Austin and their applications got processed and one of them got in (don’t know the other one’s result). The counselor did the same procedure for all 3 students but why my daughter’s application got cancelled? What are our options?
I hope we can get some helpful information here. Any information or recommendation on what we should do will be highly appreciated.
Wow, what a bad situation. ? I’d escalate this to the head of admissions at UT, I think. This sounds like a screw up on the UT side to me. Was your daughter an in state autoadmit based on stats?
UT automatically admits a specific top % of the high school class of in state students. The % varies by year. Not sure what it was this year, but let’s say 8% for an example. So any in state student in the top 8% of their HS class is automatically accepted (although not necessarily in their desired major). The remaining seats in the frosh class then go to in state students outside that percentile, out of state, and international students. Competition is tough for those remaining spots.
Thanks for the explanation. Found the contact information for the Assistant Director of Admissions, and I will contact him for the issue. Any other options?
@601abc was your daughter monitoring her BeALonghorn portal to make sure everything was checked off and received in good standing?
I ask this because my son, when applying fall 2016 to UT and 3 other schools, that there was something wrong with his transcript and he would not have known as soon as he did if it were not for the BeALonghorn portal stating the transcript was incomplete whereas every other school just had a red X that could mean any number of things, like not being received or an issue.
In our case, the whole second semester of Jr year had been left off of the transcript. No one at the school knows how that happened but it did and thankfully, it was able to be rectified easily with ordering a new official one and sent in before the deadline.
Your D’s portal should have shown something along the way that something wasn’t right if UT thought the transcript not sufficient/had a problem or did her portal show that her application and supporting documents were complete and in review? If it showed complete the entire time and everything checked off and satisfactory on the portal and only after the application deadline, you found out the transcript was not sufficient and the application was cancelled, then you have a case to stand on.
If you can prove that another student whose transcript was not signed and whose application was not cancelled AND they were admitted, I would definitely appeal and take it up the chain.
My D didn’t create the UT portal until the last minute. Once she did it then she saw he cancellation immediately. That should be her fault, or mine. Will this make us lose the ground to fight?
Yes, there are two other students who are under the same counselor as my D applied UT. They have no issue with the transcript. We actually know one of them got admitted, but not sure the other one. The counselor said she didn’t sign anything for any student. I think we need to confirm that she did the same thing for all her students on submitting the transcript.
From my experience with UT it seems as though they have an unusually high standard for their uploaded documents. Not sure if that is a result of an effort to combat some form of fraudulent documentation or limitations on the upload system itself.
My official college transcript (signed, dated, and verified) was rejected twice by UT. The first time because the two page transcript was formatted into a one page PDF. I corrected it into two pages but they rejected it again because the pages were oriented horizontally not vertically. It’s very possible their was some sort of small admin error on the counselors part that resulted in it being rejected.
Yes @Publisher The auto-admit for Fall 2019 was top 6% of graduating class.
@601abc If she logs into the My Status portal right now, what does it show about the transcript? Do any other of the supporting document or application have a check mark or X or any notation by them? Is anything else missing/not compliant from the portal?
It has been quite some time since my son applied but from what I recall, your daughter received an email to set up the portal within a week of submitting her application to UT. When you say she didn’t create it until the last minute, what does that mean, exactly? Her application would not have been cancelled until sometime after Dec.1 or whatever the date was for submitting supporting documents. Some schools give a week to submit those after the application deadline of Dec. 1.
That she didn’t set up her portal until the last minute to check her status is on her, not you. That was her responsibility. That part won’t be in your favor with UT because had she set it up and monitored it, the transcript issue possibly could have been addressed/corrected in time, but that is hard to say without all of the particulars.
I too, think you need to confirm that the counselor did the same thing for all her students on submitting the transcripts and go from there. I hope that they look into it for you. As someone stated correctly up thread, gaining admission from out of state is very difficult. Out of state students compete for the same 25% of admission spots as in state applicants out of the top 6% of their class and international students.
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High School Transcript -
details
The High School Transcript you uploaded for has been declined for the following reason:
The document is not a High School Transcript.
Unless advised above to contact the Office of Admissions, please resubmit your High School Transcript using our Document Upload System, or visit our freshman or transfer Apply pages to learn about other ways to submit items.
Yes, she received the email from UT for setting up the portal account on last Dec 2. Unfortunately she didn’t set it up. She thought everything was okay since the email said like “We received your application…”. She just set it up a few days ago and immediately saw the message… I know this is our fault.
I didn’t get hold the assistant director but did talk to the admissions office regarding this issue. After few phone calls I was told the application is now under review. The portal is also showing the transcript issue was gone and says “Your application for admission is in review.”. I asked what was the issue for the transcript and how long we have to wait for the final decision. Unfortunately the admissions lady has no answer for both questions. But the first lady I talked to told me it was definitely not a “signature issue” but something else she’s not sure. I have talked to two ladies in the admissions office and they are very helpful.
We totally have no idea what kind of situation we are in at this moment. I assume the regular admissions should have already finished. Will my daughter be the only one “in review” or there may be other applicants for whatever the reason? or applicants from the waitlist?
However we feel better that at least the application will not be ended as “canceled”, no matter what the outcome is.
@601abc I am glad to hear they put your D back in review. I have a feeling they had lots of interns working in admissions this year after hearing so many students got capped and shouldn’t have. Hoping for a great outcome.