You could argue that an honors app would indicate serious interest as it requires further attention to the overall app for an out of stater? Just a thought…
@VRN2021 , the housing application gives a timestamp so that is why people say to get that in asap if you would want to live on campus. It is a total donation to the school because many kids don’t know if they will get in or even go there when they do the housing app. I’m not having my son do the Texas Exes scholarship application because my daughter was an all star amazing stats kid and got zero dollars from it two years ago.
@ChillyCow Thank you. We will submit the housing application too.
@Cof22mom we received the same snail mail yesterday. We signed up for the event on Thursday. My daughter applied for Honors though.
Hey! I submitted my application on October 16 for UT and the BHP.
@Longhornbhp2025 Hey! I submitted my application on October 16 for UT and the BHP.
@Cof22mom @VRN2021 @CollegeParent123 I am always so curious how the school determines who gets these Honors Preview Day invites. My oldest son was invited to something like this his admit year but he was a NMF. I’m assuming there is an automatic letter sent out to all students who have met a mysterious benchmark. If your family got this letter would you mind sharing stats that you think may have triggered the invitation? I honestly don’t know if the letter indicates anything positive or not. Admission outside of top 6% is always a reach and major acceptance within the 6% is even tricky. I’m just curious what the trigger is!
Son’s stats:
IS, Class rank .0625 so not auto admit
National Merit Commended
35 ACT
@ChillyCow When you say amazing stats, what are we talking? Any thoughts on what they do look for with the Forty Acres scholarship? Debating writing 3 more essays over here, plus it seems like OOS is at a disadvantage with that one.
@Oldhorn - my son has almost the exact same stats as your son and was invited to the Honors Day preview. Intended major International Relations/ Global Studies.
@rbc2018, she was in state, Valedictorian, National Merit Finalist, 36 ACT, 1550 SAT, Student Body President, All State Cross Country, attended UT’s First Bytes Computer Science camp (competitive application to get in that), a thousand extracurriculars like debate team captain, first chair tuba, school plays, year round club team swimmer, etc , was either president or ran everything at her small private school, Community college classes, I don’t remember her weighted GPA but 4.0 unweighted, amazing writer and communicator, won outside scholarships for essay writing, etc. She was accepted into UT’s Computer Science but did not get honors or any scholarships. I’m not sure who they give merit money to but not her! I have no clue what they are looking for on 40 acres scholarships. My daughter got a full ride to Texas A&M and is large and in charge over there as a sophomore and happy as a clam! UT is my son’s first pick but he’ll be blessed just to get in as a homeschooler so we aren’t wasting time with 40 acres. It was a lot of extra work for my daughter that didn’t amount to anything but you can’t get any money if you don’t apply! Good luck; it’s like pulling a lottery ticket!
@Oldhorn
My daughter has similar stats. ACT score is 36 and SAT is 1550. Our school does not rank and we are OOS. Decent EC’s (leadership role in math club, awards in science fair and an internship)
@ChillyCow It really makes me wonder what in the world they are looking for. Maybe they are trying to increase representation from various categories, but that would be nice to know up front. For the 40 acres, the current recipients seem to be in state private school kids, so maybe there is a secret formula that only certain people know about 
Anyway, glad to hear your girl is happy.
@oldhorn, My son got invited to the Honors Day Preview program also. Not sure if they look at the entire stats or just the SAT.
Here are his stats
In-state
3.8 UW GPA
5.1/5 W GPA
SAT 1510
High school does not rank, should be in the 1st Quarter.
Intended major - Business
He has also gotten a couple of emails from admissions about his “future” at UT. We know for sure they are marketing emails. It makes sense to send one before applying to get the application, fees, and what not to increase their ranking, but not sure why they send it after they got the application. Just curious and a little bit hopeful seeing all these!!!
My older son with a similar GPA, same SAT, and quartile ranking graduated from McCombs last year.
Thanks @parent-21, @VRN2021 , @Noviite ! I bet it’s an auto generated mailing based on ACT/SAT scores then. They obviously sent it out to many students since the virtual sessions filled before we even got our letter in the mail. LOL!
@Oldhorn, it is interesting that they still have this auto mailing criterion set for this year since it is test-optional.
@everybody regarding the honors emails, I posted on #53 back on October 8th about this same thing regarding my son’s 2nd choice major in CNS. I don’t think he ever got an engineering honors (1st choice major) email, just the CNS honors email. Interesting, very interesting. Has anyone else gotten one for their 2nd choice major? You know, the 2nd choice major that they aren’t supposed to even look at for non auto admits, in theory?
My son also received the Honors Preview Day letter.
In State - Public School
36 ACT
National Merit Commended
Top 3%
Applied to Business and CBHP
He did his CBHP interview last week.
My daughter received Honors Preview Day letter as well and is signed up.
In State- private school, unranked (review applicant)
4.29 GPA
33 ACT
National Hispanic Scholar
Applied to CNS
I dont know if this helps but I’ve also gotten the letter:
3.4 UW, 4.4 W (School does GPA diff, actually around a 3.7-8 when using other school GPA scales)
IB diploma student with 4-5 AP’s
pretty good mix of EC’s
non auto admit (9%), instate
pretty good essays
1510 SAT
Weird thing was that I didn’t even apply for honors, since I know that UT is a reach in of itself for my major (Bio). I still got the letter haha, hope this helps anyone! not planning on attending since… well… I haven’t applied for any honors
For review admits, my kids’ HS seems to have good luck with team captains and those significantly involved in multiple school activities.
The UT Admissions Guy (a former UT admissions counselor) has a blog post that might be of interest. He says:
“Applicants and families also sometimes read too much into ‘invite only’ events for honors programs, for example, and misjudge that either being invited to or attending these events will improve their chances. As far as I know, the parameters for event invitations or attending virtual/in-person events do not influence admissions chances or signal anything in particular. They’re used primarily to drive application numbers and share information.”