<p>Just wondering if anyone received notice that they are on the waitlist for any of the CNS Honors Programs? My S received a letter via snail mail today that said he was waitlisted for Turing. I'm very curious how many are on the list and how many, if any, have come off of it in the past. I know that some of my older son's friends came off the DS waitlist several years ago, but I have no experience with the Computer Science honors area. </p>
<p>I also got waitlisted for Turing Scholars today. I don’t know how the waitlist works, but this is from the Plan II waitlist info:</p>
<p>The Plan II Admission Wait List</p>
<p>Plan II regularly offers a wait list option to a small number of applicants.
An applicant cannot request the wait list option. If your application was denied, please see the information on the appeal process.
If the number of admitted applicants who accept the offer of admission is low, and our entering freshman class has spaces available, Plan II will make offers of admission to some applicants on the wait list.
Unfortunately, we can’t give any firm number on anyone’s chances of admission from the wait list. Only those who respond in writing to the Plan II wait list offer will be considered again for Plan II admission. In years past, about 50% of those offered the wait list responded. Assuming similar numbers to past years, the “active wait list” in any given year might include about 30-50 names. From that list, we might admit a modest number of applicants in mid-May.
If you were offered the wait list option, rather than offered admission or denied admission, and you wish to be included on the Plan II Honors Program wait list, you must:
respond in writing, on or before Monday, April 14, 2014
the letter requesting placement on the Plan II wait list, should be addressed to the Plan II Admissions Committee
send the letter to the attention of:
Jennifer Scalora, Director of Plan II Admission
Plan II Honors, The University of Texas at Austin
CLA 2.102 G 3600
305 East 23rd St,
Austin, TX 78712-1250
enclose the most recent record senior grades. (If no new grades have been added, your rank has not changed, and no other information has changed on your transcript since it was originally submitted, clearly state this in your letter and do not send another copy. But if you applied using your transcript with grades only through the junior year, you should submit your senior year grades.)
the grades and letter should be sent directly to the Plan II Honors office, unlike the original application documents which had to be submitted to the UT Office of Admission.
If we do not receive written correspondence from you by April 14, we must assume that you have made other choices and no longer wish to be considered for admission by Plan II Honors.
We understand that it can be difficult waiting to hear about the status of your Plan II application, especially when you may have offers from other colleges to consider. We won’t be able to tell you more until after May 15. By then we will know who is on the active list and how many spaces, if any, are available. As a result, we cannot answer specific questions over the telephone about your status on the waiting list.</p>
<p>How the Wait List Works
After the May 1 deadline, when those applicants who were admitted must let us know if they choose Plan II, we will know how many (if any) applicants can be admitted from the wait list. What usually happens is that more students than we can manage respond positively. So, often we are waiting for applicants to change their mind about coming just to lower our numbers down to where we wished to be in the first place. We have lowered our number of original offers of admission, but the “yield” factor (the number of applicants who accept Plan II’s offer of admission) is unpredictable, as is the original number of applicants—neither number follows any reliable trend.
If, for some reason our yield is lower than expected—something we don’t expect—we will take more students from the wait list. If the yield follows the averag,e then we will be able to offer admission to just a few folks on the wait list. If the “yield” is much higher than the average, we won’t be able to make admission offers to anyone on the wait list.
FAQs
The Plan II wait-list is not binding in any way—until May 1. If UT Austin is your choice, regardless of the Plan II final decision, then you have nothing to lose and you should go ahead and pay the $200 UT enrollment fee that is required to hold your place at UT and Plan II.
That enrollment fee is refundable as long as you contact the University IN WRITING (via mail or by fax—but NOT by email!) on or before May 1. Paying the enrollment fee does not affect your other school choices unless you are admitted elsewhere through early decision (which is binding). You can keep your UT option open if you wish that way.
The hard part is that Plan II will not be able to make offers to those on the active wait list until AFTER May 1. We must first wait until we see the number of those who accept the offer of admission to see how many, if any, spaces are available to offer to those on the Plan II wait list. So, it will be closer to May 15 before we finalize wait list offers.<br>
If your are offered admission to Plan II we will help you with major codes and other details at orientation.</p>
<p>The wait list admissions decision (received by paper mail) was:</p>
<p>Dear Csman123,</p>
<p>Thank you for your application to the Turing Scholars Program. This year’s applicant pool was our largest and strongest ever, so we had some extremely difficult decisions to make, including yours. We are placing you on our Wait List, and expect to notify you of a final decision by June 1st-- and most likely earlier.</p>
<p>In the meantime, bla bla bla. We’ll be back in touch as soon as possible regarding the Turing Scholars Program.</p>
<p>Sincerely,
Calvin Lin (signed), director of Turing Scholars program</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether to attend UT Austin. I originally was almost sure I was going to attend if I got into Turings, but the waiting game has became longer and longer, and am reconsidering my decision to attend UT. I’m going to contact the Computer Science department for more information regarding the waitlist. I was admitted to UT by the top 7% rule in November, submitted my application in early November. I have decent grades and scores (3.98 unweighted, high SAT, 5’s on 8 AP’s), but I think the main reason is my lack of computer-science related extracurriculars and classes due to overcrowding at my school</p>
<p>If anyone has any knowledge of the Turing Scholar waitlist, admissions, or any other info, can you please take the time to share it with us? I know there is a internal transfer application to Turing Scholars after being admitted to UT; does anyone have any info/stats on that?</p>
<p>Some information that was shared at the Turing Scholars reception on February 17th:
there are about 2200 CS majors at UT Austin; there are 200 Turing Scholars;
they offer admission to about 100 students, and they are hoping for a yield of 50.
Many of these students, of course, are waiting to see if they get into Stanford, MIT and CMU SCS. So I would imagine that the waiting list only moves starting in late March through early May.
We observed the Turing Scholars are a diverse group, ethnically and by gender.
A committee of professors reads your Turing Scholar application closely.</p>
<p>I can attest that they look at the candidates fully, as my son’s acceptance letter had a hand-written comment on some of the ideas he had written about on his blog, that were not in the application. This is evidence that they take the time to follow links applicants have provided to other work they have done.</p>
<p>Geomom,</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. Do you know if the 2200 includes graduates? I’m trying to understand the expected size of the 2014 freshman class. The article linked below indicates that 2012 enrollment was 1351, that the 2012 enrollment is only half of the peak enrollment which occurred in 2001. Additionally, the article states that department is “open-enrollment” such that an unlimited of students are able to transfer majors into CS.</p>
<p>I am just wondering how the department handles these apparent large fluctuations in enrollment. It raises concerns that either class size may increase or more TAs will be put in front of the students.</p>
<p>I hope it won’t appear that I have hijacked this thread. My son was accepted to CS but received the “regret to inform email” concerning Turing. We are oos, and I am now trying to assess the value of the general CS program which differs from Turing in both the class experience and the housing arrangements. We have a visit planned for later in the month, but in the meantime I’m eager to learn as much as possible.</p>
<p>Thanks for any additional insight.</p>
<p><a href=“It’s a Seller’s Market for Tech Workers in Austin | Department of Computer Science”>It’s a Seller’s Market for Tech Workers in Austin | Department of Computer Science;
<p>I agree the number of majors in the article, and the number given at the reception don’t match up. Even though the article was written 2 years ago, it doesn’t seem that they could have had 50% growth in 2 years.</p>
<p>However, I am sure the department is growing. The new building gives them room to grow, and they are very actively hiring faculty. The influx of faculty, in my opinion, is a huge plus. Also, the quality of life – the beautiful building with lots of social spaces and natural light, the mild winter weather – combined with exciting vibe created by new blood in the faculty ranks and lots of internships in Austin make me, as a parent, prefer UT Austin over CMC and MIT for my son. The latter universities strike me as cold, dark, and dreary in comparison. </p>
<p>The UT CS department has indeed seen 30-50% growth in two years. Because CNS is an open college at UT, any admitted student can declare CS as their major. In fact, one (possibly soon to be closed) loophole is a person in COLA could declare himself a CS major after his first year at UT.</p>
<p>@geomom, how are you sure that the department, outside of students, is growing? The department has grown by nearly 3x in 5 years according to this link: <a href=“From the Chair: A Year for the History Books | Department of Computer Science”>From the Chair: A Year for the History Books | Department of Computer Science;
<p>I am fairly certain that they are not hiring faculty commensurate with that growth nor will they even attempt to do so. What’s even more interesting is the Turing scholars landscape. 4 years ago, I am told they could not fill the 50 slots for Turing. Today, they are rejecting (not just waitlisting) very qualified applicants.</p>
<p>@boilerhorn, From the article you linked: “easily making us the largest computer science department among the nation’s top ten ranked programs.” </p>
<p>This doesn’t strike me as a positive for a prospective student. For the tech firms that recruit at UT and also the Austin area tech hub, certainly.</p>
<p>It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to see myself justifying an extra 20K/year in oos tuition for a program with declining exclusivity. It seems likely that a student is likely to be better off being in a smaller lesser ranked school and potentially be at the top of the recruiter’s list when they visit versus being in the middle of the pack of 600+ graduates.</p>
<p>Of course, some will argue that many boutique firms will not show up at a lesser ranked schools. Probably, but what confidence can one have that you will get a shot to interview/intern at these boutique firms.</p>
<p>UT is clearly a great selection for the Turing students from across the nation and the general program for in-state students. But for OOS, it is not clear to me that the value is there. I could be completely wrong. Maybe some will want to convince me I’m wrong. </p>
<p>I know the thread was about waitlisting for the Honors program, so I apologize for the tangent.</p>
<p>Bringing this back to the original thread purpose . . . Still wondering if anyone else (other than csman123 who already posted) is on or has insight into the wait list process for Turing. I don’t know if there are 10, 20 or 100 on that list. Kind of agree with tzero99’s comments about the program being great for Turing–maybe not so much for the mainstream CS students. This is what my S is struggling with right now when it comes to making a choice. He’s in honors with big scholarships everywhere else except for UT Austin.</p>
<p>@cdkmom From a staff member at UT:</p>
<p>The Turing admissions committee has accepted 107 students. There are 24 on
the waiting list, which is not prioritized. Our goal is a class of 50.<br>
Students have until May 1 to decide if they’ll accept our offer to join
Turing. So, in all likelihood, students on the waiting list won’t be
accepted into the program until after May 1.</p>
<p>If you do not get into the Turing program now, you can request to enroll in honors courses when you meets with your adviser during freshman orientation. We let students into honors courses, space permitting, at the start of the term. Then, you can apply to Turing during spring of your freshman year, and will be
evaluated for admission based on your college work. </p>
<p>Thanks csman123 for the helpful info about the Turing wait list. My son has heard nothing and I haven’t seen anyone on this forum mention that they were accepted off of the wait list. My son was told by one of the CS professors about a month ago that because they had such an exceptionally strong applicant pool this year, Turing expected a lower % acceptance rate than previous years. But I’m still finding it hard to believe that many students will come off of the list if they are starting with 107 and only want 50. Sadly, I’m expecting that final rejection letter to appear in our mail box any day now. Pre-May 1st, I actually tried to talk my son into accepting one of his other offers where he was in the honors program and had large scholarships. But in the end, his heart was with UT. But he really wanted Turing, so it’s hard for him to accept that probably the only route left for him to take is to apply again in the Spring. I will say this, though. My older son had a friend that didn’t get into Dean’s Scholars as an incoming freshman. She applied again in the spring and was accepted. Three years later, she ended up being chosen as one of an elite group of specially-honored graduates sitting up on stage at the CNS graduations ceremony in May 2013. So it would seem that she should have been in from the start. On the other side of the fence, there are always a few people chosen for these elite programs that drop out or are forced out because of GPA issues or don’t even graduate. It’s impossible for the people making these choices to always get it right. Some get left out that deserve to get in and vice-versa.</p>
<p>I like that story about the girl who transferred to Dean’s Scholars and then tore it up. Maybe she didn’t sell herself quite right in her app, maybe she was quiet and her talents were under appreciated, but I am so glad she ended up where she belonged. </p>
<p>Lizardly: I like the story, too. She was very accomplished out of high school and it was hard for her to accept that she wasn’t chosen initially. No one could really figure out why it happened. But she took lemons and made lemonade. I’m sure it taught her a life lesson. I know it taught one to my older son.</p>
<p>Interesting that no one on CC ever indicated that they got accepted off of the Turing wait list after May 1st. My son actually knew of one kid at his school that got accepted during late April, but he decided not to attend UT. I realize that this forum is only visited by a small percentage of applicants, but I’m still surprised that not a single person posted. I’m guessing that not as many people rejected the Turing offer as they expected. Does anyone know if it really works to just tell your advisor at orientation know that you would like to be on a waiting list for the honors CS class for Fall? My son found a form online for petitioning to get into honors courses in CNS, but it said that you must have a transcript attached or the form would not be considered. Obviously, that wouldn’t work for incoming freshmen, who have no college transcript to submit. I suggested to my S that he should email Dr. Lin to ask about this, but he doesn’t want to do that until he has a letter or email stating that the Turing class has been finalized and that no one else is going to be taken off of the wait list.</p>
@cdkmom post your question in one of the threads below:
general UT admissions class of 2019 thread.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-texas-austin/1719215-university-of-texas-austin-admissions-p85.html
or
UT CNS Turing and Deans Thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-texas-austin/1730852-ut-austin-honors-2019-cns-turing-and-deans-p7.html
Much of this info is recently outdated. The CS dept and CNS college are now closed colleges with extremely competitive transfer requirements. It is now nearly impossible to get into UTCS as an internal transfer (re: CC and reddit posts). The department has leveled off at 2000 students, with 10% being Turing scholars. The incoming freshman class for 2014 was about 350, and that’s expected to stay the same. While freshmen admission is increasingly competitive, the overall numbers won’t decrease. Instead, transfers will be limited to the amount of space available after the freshmen have committed their admission.