Still a freshman in college but UT is my dream school

GPA: 3.63
Applying to: Cockrell School of Engineering and SNC
From: Brookhaven Community College
Extra’s: I’m a minority and I qualify for automatic acceptance into UT, but getting into a school would be the most difficult I would say. What could I do to raise my standards besides GPA? Is there anything I should do that would help me get accepted? I ultimately got all B’s in my calculus classes and I am in Phi Theta Kappa and Ignite and plan to join more extracurriculars in school this coming fall

How are you an auto admit as a transfer? I was under the impression that the percentage rule only applies to incoming freshman. Also I’m pretty sure the only thing you can really do to boost your acceptance chances significantly as a transfer is to boost your GPA. Unfortunately the only thing that really signifies the ability of a transfer student is how well you’ve done in college level work. Concentrate on getting straight A’s in the remainder of your courses rather than wasting your time with irrelevant extracurricular activities. If you enjoy them that’s great, but don’t bog yourself down with them just in the hopes of increasing your admissions chances.

UT allows automatic acceptance for transfer students if you graduated top 10% in high school and completed basic curriculum at a 2-year college. It’s in the application, there’s an option that says, " do you qualify for automatic admission?" Overall, it’s discouraging but I will still apply and for sure I’m getting all A’s from now on.

I wouldn’t get discouraged. I couldn’t find similar data for engineering but I saw in the other thread that your second choice major would be Mathematics.

https://cns.utexas.edu/students/future/external-transfer#transfer-statistics

If you look at the average GPA’s you’re right in there. Stick to a few extracurricular activities that you enjoy and do your best to boost that GPA and you could be a very good applicant. Upward trends are a positive too.