I am going to be a senior next year and want to attend UT-Austin for undergraduate; however, I am very unsure of what major to pursue. I have narrowed the choices down to Business, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering. Yes, I know all three majors are very competitive but I was hoping someone would be able to help me figure out which one I have to best chance of getting into.
Here are my stats:
Indian Female
Dallas, Texas
SAT: 1460/1600 (Math 790, Reading 670)
ACT: 32/36
SAT II:
Math 2: 750
Physics: 650
Rank: 45/625 (7.2%, yes very annoying bc im not auto admit)
10 AP’s total
EC
Girl Scout Gold Award: STEM based
DECA (business club) national competitor (very involved in this club)
Attended various selective engineering/computer science camps through UT
Multiple leadership roles in school clubs
I know several people with stats much worse than mine, and not auto admit, that got accepted; however, I also know very competitive applicants that did not get accepted. One of my friends got accepted to UC Berkeley for comp sci but not UT even though she was in state for Texas and auto admit. Because of this lack of consistency, I can’t decide what to apply for.
The auto-admit policy means that the overall admission rate is not really relevant.
Auto-admit applicants have a 100% admission rate (to the school, not necessarily to their majors).
Non-auto-admit applicants have a much lower rate, probably closer to 15%.
The OP, with class rank just outside the top 7%, is probably one of the strongest Texas non-auto-admit applicants – but will be competing against out-of-state applicants who include those with better class ranks (top 1% to top 7%).
UT may not be the right place for you if you are not sure about your major. Say you get accepted Electrical Engineering but after a year you decide Comp Science is what you really want - I think it is dang near impossible to switch. Not a thing wrong with not being sure at this point but it might be a mistake to decide what you want to do in life based on which of the 3 will get you into UT. Lots of great schools in TX and beyond where it is much easier to change majors.
Ideally you will figure this out before you apply, however let me give you a practical suggestion. If you pick EE it has a “hardware” track and a “software” track (these are my terms). This may give you some flexibility. Lets say you start in EE and do decide you’d like to have more of a CS focus, you could focus your studies on the software side of EE. This will be software that drives the hardware platforms usually, so lower level code.CS focuses on the higher level application development. So although its not a CS degree, its a BS EE with software focus. You could then have a software background, get a good job in EE software, and then move to applications development (or stay if you like the EE software roles). Just something to think about from a practical point of view. I believe of your 3 choices this would be the only one that could maybe “give you a bridge” to one of the others.