University of Texas @ Austin Class of 2025 After you've been accepted....Q&A

@rbc2018 and @srparent15 , super grin, like I said, I’m on the green team with UT so uncle to more seasoned parents but I have walked UT’s campus many times as my son has had lots of piano and swim competitions there over the years. I was always amazed that the students were always walking around by themselves and no one spoke to each other or made eye contact when passing. At TAMU, students are walking in pairs or groups and are more prone to acknowledge other people in their midst. I even had a student ask me if I needed help finding something when I was lost looking. I feel like a UT student wouldn’t even notice if I was lost looking bc they aren’t looking anywhere but the ground or their phone. I guess UT feels to me like walking around New York City in terms of people just being into their own thing while TAMU is a little more country/southern feel where people nod their heads or make eye contact to be cordial.

Many people recommend that students visit the campus to get the vibe feel. Some students eliminate a campus just based on how it feels when they visit. I was just throwing in my 2 cents of parental vibe feel when I’m on the campuses. At any rate, I think we can all agree that they are two very different feeling campuses even if you just consider the city vs country/suburban feel and things to do locally!

The NYC part is probably a somewhat accurate assessment in the context of how do I put it, UT is maybe more metropolitan, or at least they act like it. Coming from the Midwest I always found the people at UT and the Austin area to be the nicest most down to earth people I’ve ever met. Of course, if you come up here, then you would really see a difference!! :wink:

100% if people can visit they should. UT is also more liberal, even though parents may not be so.

This happened to many people on Saturday. You should look at that thread. Lots of high stats kids denied their 1st and 2nd choice majors, which, for an automatic admit it a “soft rejection.” They cannot reject AA, so they do not get their major. This happened to my top 3% son last year. He wanted Mechanical Engineering, 2nd choice was Electrical engineering. He was put into civil engineering. He appealed the decision and I suggest that your son appeals as well. Unfortunately, my son’s appeal was denied, but, at least, he was already in Cockrell. He might have still gone to UT and tried to change from civil to ME. He was prepared to do that even though he was in for ME (or the 1st year engineering with high probability of getting ME) at A&M, Purdue, Illinois, and UCSD. But, then he got into the University of Michigan, so that was, kind of a no brainer. He’s a freshman at UMich studying ME.

So, it sounds like your son is in the same situation my son was in last year, but worse because he’s not even in engineering at all, which should, ultimately, make his decision easier if he really wants to study engineering. It is difficult to transfer INTO engineering. My recommendation would be to appeal the decision. Many appeals WERE successful last year, and some kids even got admission into engineering without appealing. I am so sorry. I know how devastating and frustrating and infuriating that situation is when your kids has worked so hard and done everything “right.” With those stats, he will NO DOUBT have better offers from better schools coming.
My suggestions:

  1. Appeal.
  2. Depending on how badly he wants to go to UT, I would suggest his appeal includes that he is willing to accept a spot in some of the less popular engineering majors–civil and petroleum engineering were the 2 majors they were putting kids who did not get their 1st or 2nd choice majors, so, at least last year, those were the 2 with extra spots. I would ONLY do this if he is ok with studying civil or petroleum because UT is notoriously hard to change majors (even from one engineering major to another, more popular engineering major)
  3. With those stats, he, for sure, got into A&M Engineering, possibly even honors–that’s a great engineering school, so maybe learn more about A&M.
  4. Get excited about one of your other options, and he is sure to have many options because you definitely cannot get count on the appeal process. If it works, awesome, but he needs a plan B if he wants engineering.
  5. If he still wants to go to UT, start at a different school where he gets in for engineering and then try to transfer to UT after a year. It’s still hard to transfer to engineering, but I would think that it would be easier to transfer from a school after proving you’ve handled a year of engineering at another school than it would be to transfer internally from School of UGS. Do some research on kids successfully transferring from UGS to engineering. I suspect it’s difficult. I know we researched switching from civil to ME, and it was darn near impossible and extremely discouraging, so I doubt it’s any easier to move from UGS to engineering if it is darn near impossible to move from civil to ME. I have heard of kids doing this successfully transferring after one year from UT Arlington and UT Dallas.
    Good Luck! I know how it feels. It’s a terrible feeling, but I am sure there are better days ahead and probably better schools in your son’s future.
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Many got this “soft reject” last Saturday. I personally knew four in my HS. Two are my close friends. I know many people suggesting appeal, and your son should appeal, but do not wait the appeal results until April or May. Basically UT will not really review each case, UT wait to see the commitment numbers by April to see if they can spare a few more seats. Your son should be having other top schools as safety.

I visited Austin many times, last time I visited their AO, just base on the manpower I saw I don’t believe they really have such noble holistic review. My friends got soft rejected mostly because of our Frisco area has too many top students, or may be because they are Asian (I am Hispanic). UT appears to be putting more effort into securing their diversity profile than the content in the applications.

Essays “relevancy” is important, but now I come to believe for really top students like your son, you have to express one fact that “If you got accepted to UT you will have to go to UT because you have no other choice”.
My essay was blunt, first paragraph stated clearly “don’t even look at my transcript cause I don’t have money for Ivies or any out of states”. UT may think many top students have other choices so if you are top, the ECs stuff are nice but a more important message has to be there - you will 100% enroll if admitted.

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:pray: Thanks so much for your post.

(BTW - his SAT score is 1560, not 1530 as I had written in my earlier posts :slight_smile: - I am getting yelled at by my student for this oversight :))
Yes, we are planning to appeal, however, we are not holding hopes for engineering school. I spoke with someone who handles the calls at the UT’s admission’s office. This person did not seem like the L1 tech support as she was able to look up his record and offer some comments.
I asked her about the “finality” of this status - and she offered that it is indeed final unless you appeal. This means that the application will be looked at again only if there is an appeal. She kept on repeating “soooooo many great applicants and it is soooooo competitive this year” - but I have seen OOS admits with lesser stats so I was a bit piqued by such patronizing banalities.

She was saying that UGS is the second-best outcome, and is better than being granted admission into a major (like liberal arts) which would be totally different from one’s choice. She did a light “sell job” on UGS and the consular officers who will “guide” your student through the process. She even advised us to contact the consular’s directly for guidance.

I was thinking that this could be an aberration (clerical mistake) but we found about another student who is in the same situation, this student has a much better rank but slightly lesser SAT (than 1560). There one more case but this student was a little bit less score and lower rank. One thing common between the three students is their “demographic makeup”. So it could be the situation where particular demography was profiled out of the school.

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:pray: Thanks for the great post, I am guessing that you got admitted to UT - if so then CONGRATULATIONS!! :raised_hands: :clap: :clap:

I understand both your points about (1) demography engineering (2) Essay relevancy. I can appreciate the first point and perhaps the recent BLM protests biased the process even more than in previous years, it is the second point that makes me wonder if UT Austin’s admission committee constitutes mean and small-minded people. How petty one has to get where one would want a student’s essay to suggest (and lie) that they will choose UT even if they get admitted to Harvard or MIT.

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Thanks, I was admitted to BME, which was supposed to be hard to get in. My goal however, was UTD but UTD somehow not offering me a cent in AES.

I lived with my grandmother who has a little onset of dementia. I have been working Target part time. My math used to be bad in middle school but my two Asian friends pulled me up even introducing me pre-calculus at 8th grade. They are my mentors and I look up to them. They also helped out watching out my granny at times when I am late off work. So for me getting in while they didn’t (rank 6th and 9th), I was quite upset. I didn’t even take UT application seriously spending 30 minutes to finish UT application in Target parking lot. I thought my essays were rude that day after having a bad day at work dealing with several customers refuse to wear masks and my boss didn’t want to confront them.

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Amazing!! :clap: :clap: :pray:

Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. Congratulations again !! You thoroughly deserve all the success you get in your life.
I guess you wanted UTD to be near your grandmother, I hope you will be able to find a good solution for her care when you are away in Austin.
All the very best wishes and blessings. :pray:

Hello! I was just admitted to the BHP and was wondering what is the best honors housing dorm for BHP and McCombs students?

Has anyone heard back from any CNS Honors Programs yet?

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nope and don’t see anyone else who has

may i ask what his stats/ECs were?

When do you get to know the merit scholarship and honors program acceptance for Engineering

Auto-Admit Top 3%
GPA - 4.46
Did not submit SAT/ACT
Math Subject Test - 800
Multiple ECs - Debate, Boy Scouts, Academic Decathlon etc.
Decent volunteer hours at Science Museum
National Merit Semifinalist
Above Average Essays

What’s wrong with Calloway ?

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Daughter was admitted last week and seriously considering the school. That said we are from the Northeast and have never been to Texas. Thinking of visiting, but wondering if they will have anything for admitted students that we should wait for.

Pre-pandemic, UT-Austin had on campus visits - and some of those were on days in the spring called Admitted Student or Accepted Student Days. In 2018, when my current Longhorn was deciding, we signed up online on the SAME calendar as all the other admissions office tours and information sessions. UT-Austin did not advertise the option to parents. My Longhorn may have gotten invites via the UT portal or via email that we never saw (our kids don’t give us access to their portals and we don’t ask as we want to foster independence - as next fall comes too soon and they MUST be independent by then!). If I recall, the accepted student visits were added to the admissions calendar on dates during the month of April. There may have been dates in March, too. UT admissions is such a machine. Not personal at all. At the event, each accepted kid got a lanyard that gave them unlimited access to the campus. My engineering kid entered the maker space and went all over campus that day - doing the roaming around without me (meeting up with kids from our high school, etc.). We also prior to that day set up an afternoon meeting with a professor and advisor (we did that on our own - not through admissions). My Longhorn needed to hear “congratulations” and “welcome to the Longhorn family” from someone other than his parents. It was a meaningful day for our Longhorn. I have no Earthly idea if they will do these Accepted Student in person events this spring or not. I would keep an eye on the UT-Austin admissions website. I am guessing (this is just a guess) that they will replace the in person style event with an online Zoom-like event. The year we attended, they packed everyone in the theatre in the Student Union to start the day out. That just won’t work this year with covid. My upper division Longhorn does not have one in person class, not even upper division engineering labs, this semester. Everything is online. This is a most unusual time to be in college.

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There are UT Direct accounts that parents get. I use mine to pay tuition. There are other things you can see on there as well, but I don’t really need to overlook anything for this kid, but I think there is a good amount of stuff on there for parents.

For all those who have gotten acceptances in your desired major, is there is a last date for acceptances you must let university know? The reason I ask is because my kiddo got CAP for Liberal arts (she is already accepted in A&M). I just wonder if kids did not get their first choice major and were offered COLA. Do they have the date for acceptance?

Is there any possibility of getting admittance into UT Austin if some seats did not get filled in COLA at a later date. Also
, is it worth appealing after getting a CAP? so confused :frowning:

I believe if you got CAP that decision is final. People who were accepted must accept admission by May 1st I believe also. If you decide CAP I believe it’s another date you must accept and at a specific time as well and apparently spots fill up in minutes.