This is exactly the sort of drama that drums up EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR by parents and students who, using their own made-up definitions of strengths and weaknesses, try to self-define university admission standards. Hence all of the “my stats… his stats… her stats…” etc…, and the not-quite-subtle, “My school is uber-super-really-truly-most-very- competitive! That’s the only reason why I/He/She wasn’t in the top X%,” CC code-phrase for attending school in a high(er) SEC school, and desire for universities to assume that more $$$ and educational advantages spoon fed must surely mean “more smart” and “more wonderful” and those “other kids” can’t compete.
Yeah… No. That’s not how admissions work.
A couple of self-prescribed (because it benefits you to imagine it’s so) data points (out of the MANY that are actually used and valued by universities) are not the keys to the kingdom.
It looks like there were a lot of admits last night! Woot! Here’s hoping that a bunch of bright and wonderful students wake up this morning, and discover they were admitted yesterday evening!
Actually Texas state law requires 90% of each incoming freshmen class be comprised of Texas residents. That is similar to other states and reflects the fact that taxpayers in Texas help fund the public universities. As many have said, including experts like Kevin Martin, UT does not adjust for the level of difficulty at the various high schools so that is a non-issue. Also, per Mr. Martin, approximately 75% of AA’s get their first choice major. I hope that helps better understand the process.
DD20 was just accepted to CS, weighing with other choices: TAMU (likely NMM with $10500) and UTD (full ride). Non auto-admit, 6.5%, Excellent SAT. I Hope other scholarships come in soon, and we all prefer debt-free education.
D accepted to Mccombs yesterday. Non auto admit. Applied mid-September. BHP interview in November - no word on that, Plan II or LAH yet. After the third time through the college app process in the last 5 years, I can say that I am happy this is the last time! My oldest was accepted in the first wave of decisions a few years ago so I didn’t appreciate the stress that UT’s multi wave (for lack of a better term) decision release adds to the overall craziness of the process. Now I do! I am curious why UT does it this way but I don’t expect to find the answer on this forum. Best of luck to all who are still waiting - UT is a great school (my oldest is class of ‘19) but only ONE of MANY great options.
Just to update stat after reading other posts: DD20 was just accepted to CS, non auto-admit, in-state, 6.5%, GPA 3.9/4.81 over 4.0, SAT 1600, PSAT 1500, applied 10/16/19.
If my D is OOS and applied after the priority deadline, should I assume she will hear news after Feb 1? And are there likely to be any spots left for OOS students?
When do they send their “Gone to Texas Banner”? My daughter was admitted on Tuesday and was hoping she would have received it already, has anyone received theirs?
@nomatter
You seem to know a lot about how TU Admission functions. I guess my daughter (OOS, SAT 1460, Math subscore 770, GPA 4.13, applied before priority deadline, and her school doesn’t rank) is NOT an auto-admit? Are kids with similar stats, OOS, at a disadvantage with respect to in-state admits, when it comes to getting into their major? She listed Engineering.
Her portal is num about everything. Major, admission, - nothing. Can’t figure whether we should keep the hopes up here, or concentrate the “worry” at other schools…
@HokieCrazy
“Your D is automatically at a disadvantage purely based on being OOS. 90% of acceptances come from in-state.” - yes I understand. But still. What do the out-of-states need to get admitted and get into their major? Her scores seems to be decent. Any idea on OOS admissions?
Actually 75% are required to come from the AA pool; 90% overall Texas residents. I can find the statute but see “Your Ticket to the 40 Acres” by Kevin Martin. Also, if you look at the Freshmen Profile on the UT admissions page, 90% of the freshmen are Texas residents; 75% are AA, 15% are non-AA Texas residents, 8% are OOS and 2% are international. Those numbers for the freshmen class are consistent each year.
My son was admitted Monday Night and received his yesterday in the mail. They are very quick in sending the packet. You should get yours today or Monday at the earliest. Congratulations!!!
@ElenaParent Hi, we are out of state also. These types of questions are so hard to answer because there are so many factors that are considered. However, we still all try to find a basis of comparison. We use Naviance in our school and I find that is a helpful comparison because it shows you the scores for those accepted/rejected from your own high school and you can also look at acceptances/rejections compared to the entire applicant pool. So we can see that there have been 22 applicants from our high school in the past 7 years, with an average GPA of 4.3 and an average SAT of 1410 and zero have been accepted. The overall acceptance scores for UT Austin are lower than that, demonstrating how difficult it is to get in from out of state and particularly from our high school. This is an oversimplification but does provide students some general idea of what their chances are.
Numbers and statutes are what they are, but the way UT handles the admission process leaves a lot to be desired. Rolling waves and the lack of transparency are insults to the thousands of hard-working, deadline-respecting students (esp. OOS/priority) that apply each year; clearly UT doesn’t respect the application pool. And, encouraging each applicant to pay $50 ahead of acceptance for housing is unheard of, and done to fill the university’s coffers (imagine this, 55,000 x 50 = $2.75 million, not taking into account the application fee). Schools such as UT create a false sense of desirability (and selectivity) by driving application numbers up and delaying notifications, ultimately creating higher yields and lower acceptance rates (and false perceptions of higher quality). The university should consider a two phase application process: process AA and IS until quotas are met, release numbers and then open up applications to OOS; and drop priority/RD statuses as they are meaningless.
@beach1234 Naviance scattergrams for schools like UT are meaningless; one can be completely to the right of the total distribution and be rejected. Quotas and quality butt heads.
Currently awaiting notification: OOS/CNS (applied Oct 1): 34 ACT, 4.2 GPA.
@bh8690 Agreed and that was exactly my point. I would not call them meaningless. They are a reality check that although you may far exceed the ‘averages’ on Naviance, you still may not get in OOS.
@beach1234 The scattergram doesn’t provide any information in the context of UT’s admission process … a school that accepts between 75-90% in-state applicants precludes that most OOS will not be admitted regardless where they fall on the distribution.
Would be interesting to compare the stats of the AA to the stats of the OOS admits, and to the stats of the OOS rejects … wouldn’t be surprised if the national applicant pool exceeds the “quality” of the in-state AA population.
Hard to consider UT a nationally elite university when the majority of admits are AA/in-state.
