The week before Thanksgiving was when my non-auto admit son received his acceptance and major notification during the 2015-2016 application cycle. Specifically, his portal changed on Tuesday, November 17, 2015. So, if past is prologue there may be a wave of applicants coming soon before the start of the holiday season. FYI, i recall that the status changed during the evening, which is also what occurred during the first wave of this year’s application cycle.
Out of curiosity, did the portal change for your daughter to include the housing in the last day?
@fatherof2boys was your son honors?
@TXlove, yes he applied to Liberal Arts Honors (LAH) and we only did that because we learned in a LAH info session that because the honors programs have priority admission deadlines earlier than the University freshman admission deadline, an applicant could learn of their admission to the University earlier. This is because if the applicant is someone the honors program is interested in, they will contact the freshman admissions division to ensure that the applicant merits admission to the University. We received notice on November 15, 2015 that my son was admitted to UT for his desired major in COLA. Sometime after that we received the invitation to LAH.
Thank you everyone for the responses! I think the housing thing said $50 deposit, and that housing isn’t guaranteed, but we are doing private housing anyway. But was hoping it meant something like an imminent acceptance. But bummer it doesn’t. 
We received the EID fairly quick, so if you didn’t get it, you should have your child check their spam. It then has lists of what they still need or don’t need, and the honors information is there as well if they’re going that route. Unfortunately, the UT application is one of the most non-user friendly ones we’ve seen.
I couldn’t agree more!! AND I got so excited when the housing came up, I thought that meant something. The good news, I think, is that they are definitely handling his application. The waiting is just pure agony! Good luck to everyone - excited to see others start posting whether they have heard or not.
Can anyone share info here on whatever important they talk on tomorrow’s Instagram Q&A, please? Especially anything on COE, please.
@2019MomHP You pay the housing fee before they even admit you?
@2019MomHPYes, my son is OOS and during our tour, our guide said applying for housing early in the process, before you know if you’ve been accepted is the way to go.
@kli586 It has been said before and will be many more times to come, but if UT Austin is high on your target school list and you have a reasonablish chance to get in, you should absolutely apply for Housing as soon as you submit your application and received your EID login codes. There are NOT enough on campus rooms/beds to even come close to satisfying the demand. (My guess… 40,000+ students, approx 15,000 on campus beds.)
Current on-campus housed students get priority to re-up for the following year. Those UT students have already done that back in January. After that it’s incoming Freshman. A rough rule of thumb is if you haven’t applied for housing by this coming January, not only won’t you get your 1st/2nd/3rd choice of dorms/room setup, but you may not even get a bed on campus. I’m thinking my daughter has less than a 10% chance of getting into UT, but we’ve still already signed her up for Housing in October.
With that said, there are tons and tons of options for off campus housing and growing. West Campus, as it’s called, starts at Guadeloupe Blvd and goes 6-10 blocks West. There are many options from high rise apartments, to shared small houses etc. There are still Meal Plans offered by UT for off campus students, which is what we’ve done for our LHS (LongHorn Son) The cost of housing plus Meal Plan was approximately $2500 more than the cheapest on campus housing option and less than the most expensive.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
PS On campus students will be asking you to find them a West Campus apartment within the first semester of their Freshman year, for their Sophomore year.
@UTDad1995Grad My D applied before October 31st and was auto admitted and waiting on the major and honors application status. How did you meet with your Son’s admissions counselor? My D does not have an admission counselor named (I think, unless we are NOT looking at the right place). Thanks for your help.
@HoustonTxDad if you call the admissions office in Austin they will give you the name and phone number of the Houston admissions office. My son’s admissions counselor is Talrah Pantallion (sp?). We called to set up an appointment and got one within a week. The UT office is in Greenway Plaza.
@UTDad1995Grad Thank you very much!!
@UTDad1995Grad @HoustonTxDad Just curious, why should we meet up with admissions counselor? Any tips/questions appreciated. Please share. Thank you
Hey! I’m an international applying this year, I’m a white female, 1490 SAT, 107 TOEFL, and still expecting my SAT subject scores. What do you think are my chances?
Plus, can anyone help me with extracurriculars? What should I include? I mean I am a memeber in many volunteering organizations, and I occupy different positions, so I don’t think these will fit in the volunteering service part.
@Embeechristmas We met with the admissions counselor before applying to discuss major choices and what my son’s odds were of getting this major over that major. The main reason we were concerned is that a friend of ours’ son graduated from the same high school as our son in May 2018, was in the top 1% of his class, and got a pretty good score on his SAT (1420 if memory serves me correctly). He was an auto admit (obviously) but he didn’t get into McCombs. It freaked us out a bit because we then started hearing about several other students who were in a similar situation with McCombs or Cockrell. Our son is a natural sciences guy and I hadn’t heard any stories about that college, but we wanted to hear from a UT official instead of learning it secondhand. When I brought it up to the counselor she chuckled and told me about the 75% first choice stat I referenced earlier in this string. She said that McCombs, and to a lesser extent Cockrell, are their own beasts and are very difficult to get into no matter what your class rank. Since you’ve already applied and been accepted, you may not need to meet with anyone until you get a response on your major.
@Embeechristmas I don’t have a specific reason to meet with the counselor. I was also curious like you.
I have heard Cockrell School of Engineering is the hardest school to get into (over McCombs, Natural Science, and P2) at UT because of the number of qualified top applicants (engineering majors compete with only other engineering majors). Reading the thread last year, many with perfect scores did not get in to their major of choice! If anyone has heard differently, please let me know.
Thank you so much @UTDad1995Grad for your detailed response! (I am worried about getting in to Engineering, but keeping my fingers crossed)
@HoustonTxDad LOL:)
For anyone who could not check UT’s Instagram q&a … The questions picked were really not that great- GPA/SAT-ACT, ECs, Essay #of words, if not AA, will I still get in… Felt like it was a waste of time…all general information you could have picked from UT stats