The University of Texas Class of 2020 Decisions Thread

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
621

Accepted
College: UT Austin Cockrell School of Engineering
Major: Mechanical Engineering

Stats:
SAT: Didn’t take it
ACT: 35
SAT IIs: Chemistry (750); Math 2 (780)
GPA: 4.3
Rank: Top 3%
Other stats: AP Chinese (5); AP Chem (4); AP US History (4); AP English Lang (5); my school doesn’t offer many APs and doesn’t allow students to take any AP classes until Junior Year so I didn’t have many.
Senior year course load: AP English Lit; AP Calc AB; AP Calc BC; AP Physics C; AP Microeconomics; AP Computer Science

Subjective:
Essays: 8/10. I submitted my application earlier so I didn’t have as much time to edit and revise these essays that much
Teacher Recs: 9/10
Counselor Rec: 7/10 (Doesn’t like me much because of previous arguments where she submitted my transcripts and such late for academic summer camps)
Hook (if any): I’m a girl?

Location/Person: California Bay Area
State or Country: California
School Type: Private School
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female

Other Factors: Captain and President of FIRST Robotics Team; Head of Mechanical Team on FIRST Robotics for 2 years before I became Team Captain; Developed a training program for new members and personally taught all the power tools training sessions. I invited guest lecturers to teach the Electrical Training and Programming Training sessions while I taught the Mechanical Training sessions, teaching CAD lessons every day after school for about a month; Trained in Martial Arts for 12 years and joined the Demo Team; Worked as martial arts instructor for 4 years; Competed in Ajari Cup (2 Gold Medals, 1 Silver, 1 bronze); Served on Student Government for 3 years (Class President). I had to step down my senior year because students aren’t allowed to serve on Gov and be Presidents of a club (I was president of FIRST) ; Played volleyball for 3 years (Captain); Coach’s Award recipient chosen by Athletic Director at my school; Head of Graphic Design for Yearbook Team for 3 years (Designed the cover all three years); Head of Layout for Yearbook Team for 1 year; Founded Videography Club at my school (President and Head of Editing); Competed in CLTAC Mandarin Speech Contest for 5 years against students from China (2 First Place, 1 Second Place, 2 Third Place); Studied at Stanford EPGY (Java and Robotics then Topics in Physics), John’s Hopkins University (Engineering Innovation), and UC Davis COSMOS (Quantum Mechanics and Applications to Nanotechnology); Interned for 3 years at a Nanotechnology Lab as a lab assistant and helped 3D Model their next products; Interned at an engineering consulting firm my senior year; Participated in High School Chorale

General Comments: It was a miracle I got in. I honestly didn’t think I would because my counselor didn’t send in my forms until late December (like I said before, I’d had this problem with her many times and she did this same thing with many of my other schools). She forgot to send them in until I checked my portal and it said they hadn’t been submitted yet. Because of this, my application was considered late and I had to appeal. While it was eventually accepted, that had already put me at the very bottom of the pile of applications. I had pretty much given up any hope for getting in.

622

@goingnutsmom

I know part of the appeal for me was the amazing rankings of a lot of UT Austin’s programs. I couldn’t find the undergrad ranking but the grad ranking for my program, EE, was 8th in the nation. Pretty danged good lol. Also I personally just love Texas.

623

I got in!
COLA: Psychology (BS)
SAT: 1940
ACT: 30
GPA: 3.69
Rank: 33%
Ethnicity: Asian
State: Texas
I did a couple of things around the high school (class president, varsity sport, eagle scout, few clubs and other ECs)

Dope!!

624

Read on the UT Admission Guy- Kevin Martin’s blog that there was a record # of over 45,000 applications for around 15,000 spots- 91% admitted are from Texas.

A competitive year.

625

@dansmoaustin I’m sorry for your disappointment, but she will be very successful at the other wonderful schools she was accepted at. I know BME is ridiculously hard to get into these days, and one of the few engineering disciplines where they may not need more women. It seems that women in engineering go to BME, where the men go to all other disciplines. Perhaps thats a part of what happened. Is she an over represented minority? I know that sometimes schools in their “holistic review” tend to choose based on such demographic data. Anyway I share your disappointment. Son #1 was just denied from BME graduate program at JHU and he is very disappointed.

626

College: Natural Sciences (Math major which was my first choice)

Stats:

SAT: N/A
SAT IIs: N/A
GPA: 3.2/3.5 or 3.6
Rank: 100 something out of 700
Other stats:

Subjective:
Essays: 10/10 (some of the best writing I’ve done; one was about my family using this metaphor about basketball and the other was about debate)
Teacher Recs: 10/10 from both (highlighted debate)
Counselor Rec: N/A
Hook (if any): Nationally ranked debater (top 20 in the US)

Location/Person: Bay Area
State or Country: California
School Type: Public School
Ethnicity: Indian
Gender: Male

627

Congratulations, everyone getting in, and I feel your heart ache everyone who was denied, paced, capped, waitlisted. I have seen many of your avatars and screen names for a while now, and it is exciting and woeful seeing all of your posts. My son was disappointed yesterday but today, is excited to move forward with Engineering at A&M. Good Luck to all.

628

If not a Longhorn than an Aggie is definitely a great alternative. Which is the more competitive school to get into?

629

@Thelma2 - the best of luck to your son. I am sure he will do great!

630

Accepted - McCombs School of Business

Stats:

SAT: N/A
SAT IIs: N/A
GPA: 3.6049
Rank: 19/475
Other stats: 32 ACT

Subjective:

Essays: 7/10
Teacher Recs: outstanding
Counselor Rec: N/A
Hook (if any): African-American and Indian, First-Generation Student
Location/Person: Mesquite
State or Country: Texas
School Type: Public
Ethnicity/Race: African-American and Indian
Gender: male
Other Factors: Fair amount of diverse extracurriculars.
General Comments: Congratulations to all future Longhorns!

631

@baylorpoly I think that most people would argue that UT Austin is tougher to get into than Texas A&M but I actually think it is fairly close. My D applied to similar schools as your son, btw. My daughter got into UT, A&M, and Cal Poly. We are waiting to hear from Baylor but most likely she will attend A&M for the simple reason that she loves the campus and environment. If you look at the stats for UT online, it will appear to be much more selective than A&M but I am not sure how true that is. The auto-admits really throw those stats off. If you are not auto-admit at either school, I would say that they are both very difficult to get into. Granted, A&M has auto-admittance for OOS where UT does not. What I find interesting is that D got into all three schools by some miracle. Her class rank probably got her into UT and A&M and the fact that she maxed out her science and math classes probably got her into Cal Poly. This was really all sheer luck because she had no idea about the admission criteria for any of the schools before applying. This has really been an eye-opening experience.

632

@Mom2Move Similar stats and rejected as well. Also accepted to UIUC.

633

College: Cockrell (Biomed Engineering)

Stats:
SAT: 2130
SAT IIs: 750 (Bio-M), 800 Chem), 800 (Math II)
ACT: 34
GPA: 3.64 (UW), 4.1 (W)
Rank: School doesn’t rank
Other stats: All Honors and APs every year of hs

Subjective:
Essays: (9/10) Spent lots of time on my Texas essays and submitted all 3
Recs: (9/10) Club advisor and chemistry teacher (known her for 3 years)
Hook (if any): I don’t know really!

State or Country: CA
School Type: Competitive public school
Ethnicity: Asian Indian

General Comments:
I’m so surprised and psyched to be admitted! I honestly think my essays and my recs pulled through for me. Quick question however, I saw that a lot of people received their honors decision yesterday as well. Were they all released with the admissions because my honors application shows that it’s still under review. Thanks and good luck to everyone else!

634

do all PACE students get offered to be on the wait list? or is it only offered to a select few from the PACE offered applicants? thank guys for answering, I really appreciate it.
Reply Share on Facebook

635

@schoolisfunforme They explained what CAP is but I don’t understand if I’m considered a real students or not. So many questions

636

Decision: Accepted!

School: Cockrell School of Engineering
Major: Electrical Engineering

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown):2280 in one sitting (730 R, 790 M, 760 W)
ACT (breakdown): Didn’t take
SAT II: 780 Math 2, 790 Bio E, 790 Chinese, 740 Physics, 790 Chinese
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): School doesn’t do unweighted GPA, but maybe around 3.7~3.8?
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Biology(4), AP Macroeconomics self-studied(5) AP Physics 1(4), AP Language and Composition(5), AP Chinese(5)
IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C Mechanics, AP Physics C Electromagnetism, AP Computer Science A, AP US Government and Politics, AP Literature and Composition
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Central Taiwan National Debate Championships 1st Place, WSC Taiwan Round debate champion, WSC Global Round debate champion

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Debate Club Captain- On the national WSDC debate team + Represented Taiwan at the NSDA National Round in Texas. Central Taiwan National Debate Championships- 1st Place, NIFTY Impromptu speaking-1st place, and some other debate awards not worth mentioning.
Swimming Team Captain- 200 meters Butterfly Hsinchu City-1st Place; Broke two Hsinchu County records for 50 meters and 100 meters Butterfly in November 2014, and a lot of other swimming awards not worth mentioning.
WSC Club Founder and President- WSC National Debate Champion; Global Round Final Debate (Represented Taiwan’s top debater at Dubai); Global Round (Dubai) Debate Champion…etc
Robotics Team Co-founder and Captain- International Student Software Competition (ISSC) 2015; TAIROS Industrial Robotics Convention… no major awards
World Cultures Club- Founder and President- Helped out at lantern festival, volunteering at migrant worker centers…etc
Every Child Counts Club- Vice President- Fundraisers, community service at orphanages…etc
Piano- Had a lot of regional awards, nothing major
MUN- Had around 6 best delegate awards and some chairing experience

Job/Work Experience: Had a biorobotics internship at NCTU in the summer of 2015 and wrote a research abstract on the matter.
Volunteer/Community service: Had around 70~100 total community service hours volunteering at the Hope Center for migrant workers, teaching children English/Chinese at the Honghua Orphanage…etc
Summer Activities:

  • Had a biorobotics internship at NCTU. (Created a prototype for a rehabilitative robotic exoskeleton- I worked on the electromyography of the exoskeleton)
  • Represented Taiwan’s national debate team at the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC)
  • Was the champion qualifier team in Taiwan so we attended the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Round in Dallas, Texas.

Essays (rating 1-10, details):
Commonapp- Rushed it for the ED deadline (7/10)
Texas Supplement- Sped through the essay during class at school (6/10)
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Counselor- Doesn’t really know me (6/10)
AP Physics teacher- (8/10)
Debate Coach- (9/10)

Other:

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yeapp
Intended Major: EE- Electrical Engineering
Country (if international applicant): Taiwan
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Taiwanese (Asian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 80,000~100,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I wish

Reflection:
Strengths: Extracurricular activities and awards
Weaknesses: GPA, essays, race/gender
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Hmmm… I don’t really know
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Accepted Purdue EE, Accepted UIUC EE, Rejected UPenn EE

General Comments :
Not bad :smiley:

637

@dansmoaustin, you’re not the only parent bewildered by UT admission decisions.

My D was denied BME with the following stats:
1/582 (Houston area school with 37% Asian) and will be valedictorian
GPA: 4.82/4.00 W, 4.00 UW (absolute hardest math and science curriculum possible)
14 AP classes
2210 SAT (M-770, R-680, W-760), Math2 – 790
She was not offered option of any engineering.
She found out a fellow student, top 11% with GPA of 4.3, was accepted to BME. Don’t know exact SAT scores but pretty sure not above 2200. However, he is Hispanic and we are not. Sometimes it’s as simple as they don’t want your kind. Already accepted to TAMU BME and Honors everything with many apps still outstanding.

638

Definitely sounds like BME was very difficult to get into this year.
Sounds like there are other great options & hopefully they will work out.

639

I keep hearing stories like this. I am sorry that your daughter was denied. UT’s loss is TAMUs gain. The sad part is that lots of kids admitted to the engineering school will be gone in a year. It’s a fact. And I don’t think it helps them in the long run. What was her second choice? I think that they need to fix the process so that kids who clearly want to do engineering and have the stats to be successful are offered at least one other option in that school. To be told to look at the list on feb 26 and choose from history, Econ or gender studies…or whatever makes zero sense. Maybe a general engineering option so they can prove themselves freshman year and get the classes they need to move into a major in the same school.

640

Congrats to everyone that got in! I’m a CAP student at UT Arlington so I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if you have any questions regarding the CAP Program I would be happy to answer.