<p>My daughter was denied - not deferred - at the Univ Texas at Austin. It was one of her top choices. Three friends in her class were accepted, but comparatively, her grades and test scores make the rejection more puzzling . On top of her good numbers, her sister is currently a junior there with an A average, and her aunt and grandfather are UT grads. She is a National Merit finalist, captain of the cross country team, a talented artist with an extensive volunteer record, and she has great teacher recs. She has had a rigorous course load at one of the top private schools in the city. She is an out of state applicant. </p>
<p>According to her Naviance scattergram, the GPA of accepted students from her school during 2011-2013 was 91.54, and the average SAT was 1360. Her GPA is 96.52, and her SAT was 1570. According to her placement on the scattergram, she was more qualified by the numbers than any other applicant from her school in the last 3 years. And as mentioned, her sister attends there now.</p>
<p>I know that there are myriad reasons why qualified kids get rejected during the college admissions process and that she'll be fine without attending UT. Besides her heartbreak, my concern is this: could there be an unknown and glowing deficiency or error in her application that might be duplicated in her other applications, and if so, how do you figure that out? She is waiting to hear from 4 schools at the end of March, so if there's a problem that we don't know about, how do you figure that out? Will it do any good for her to contact UT and ask? </p>
<p>Something in her essay could have been super controversial or just plain bad maybe? I’m not familiar with admissions at UT Austin but I’m pretty sure class rank is also very important. I don’t know a ton about UT Austin, but I know a controversial or bad/low effort essay can ruin your chances at a lot of schools.</p>
<p>I think the requirement that they accept a percentage of the top of the class from all Texas high schools means they have a lot less room for out of state, and it was probably the luck of the draw, not prioritizing. Maybe the fact she had a sibling there worked against her? As if they thought you had your share? I’m not saying that makes sense, but I have twins both applying to some of the same schools, and I do sort of worry the schools might just not want to take ‘twins’.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your replies. Maybe the sibling thing did work against her if they wanted to increase their number of families from out-of-state. I thought it would be a plus but maybe not. Good luck, collegevetting, with your twins! </p>
<p>TransferGopher, her essay was good, I thought, and not controversial. Her school doesn’t report class rank, unfortunately. Thank you again for responding.</p>
<p>It’s just VERY hard to get into UT-Austin these days. My nephew was in-state, but not in the top 7% of his class. He was one of the best players of his instrument in the state, an Eagle Scout, and the grandson of a prof who has been at UT since 1965 and is very involved with the athletics program. He was not accepted. He was so disappointed that he decided not to go for the CAP program (where you go for a year to UTSA and then transfer to UT if your grades are good). He is in a northern city that is having its third snowiest winter EVER! This kids hates cold, too.</p>
<p>It definitely isn’t the sibling factor. Having a sibling who is thriving at a school would NEVER hurt the applicant. It could be an error or it could be the randomness of the process. I would speak to her guidance counselor tomorrow, explain all the facts, and have her call UT. Alternatively you can call them yourself. You need some assurance that there wasn’t something glaringly wrong in her application… And there probably wasn’t. </p>
<p>It appears from the UT thread very few oos were selected, and if you were trying for business or engineering it was even more selective. I do not believe her sister had any influence negatively, I just think they are so limited by the 75% instate rule and I bet we will find out hey had a record number of applications. They do usually try to to take too many from the same school supposedly, there are many people with high scores and gpa that are also bewildered. Your daughter should not take it personal, she was one of many qualified who were turned away. I hope she realizes this opens a door somewhere else for her where she is meant to shine.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your replies. We have contacted her college counselor and are waiting to hear back but thought we’d ask here to get some opinions. The UT admissions office will be innundated tomorrow, but if the cc doesn’t get a sufficient answer, my daughter will probably call them herself. Although it’s fine with me if she doesn’t end up at UT, I do want to make sure there’s not something wrong with her app. Thanks again for responding.</p>
<p>For the most part, Texas public universities use class rank instead of grades or GPA. If the “top private school” has a highly competitive student body, her class rank may be relatively poor, significantly hurting her chances for admission to Texas public universities. Remember also that they also intend to fill about 75% of the frosh class at UT Austin with top 7% rank students in Texas high schools, so out-of-state and international applicants are competing for the rest of the spots along with Texas applicants just below the top 7% (and the the number of top 7% applicants is larger than expected, that might squeeze the remaining part of the frosh class even smaller).</p>
<p>^^ There are TONS of kids in Texas who fall within the 7% cut-off who shouldn’t be at UT – their high schools were, quite frankly, very poor. As you know, the 7% rule is Texas’ way of dealing with not having to deal with Affirmative Action. What happens is that TONS of kids who got in from terrible high schools (and with terrible SAT and ACT scores, since these don’t count in the 7% cut-off) who can’t make it, drop out. Thus, in sophomore year there are TONS of spots available for better qualified kids (with great scores) who really should have got in in as Freshmen but were pushed aside by the 7% rule. Lots and lots of kids who want to go to UT just simply recognize the quirk involved here and go to community college or take the CAP program and then transfer into UT. Couldn’t be easier or simpler. The only real downside is that if your daughter or son wants to go Greek, it is harder to do it as a sophomore than as a freshman, when most are taken. Point is: UT is an easy admit for a sophomore, just not a freshman.</p>
<p>These are all such interesting points, and I appreciate the helpful responses. One thing that puzzles us is that since her school doesn’t give out class rank (we are out of state), it seems like, given the 3 acceptances they gave at her school, she would have been one, since her grades and scores were significantly higher and she has a sister in good standing there. Thank you for the good info.</p>
<p>OP, sorry for your daughter’s disappointment. The rejection does seem odd, given that students from your school were accepted with lower stats (and not lower by an infinitesimal amount, either). I think it’s wise to talk with her college counselor, and perhaps to review her apps on her own. Is there an error in the essay that somehow wasn’t noticed, or something similar? </p>
<p>Was this her first decision, or does she have some acceptances in hand?</p>
<p>OP, HSs send a school profile which colleges use to infer class rank, even when class rank is not provided. If not enough info is given for that then perhaps that was the reason your D was not admitted. In this case lack of class rank may have worked against you.</p>
<p>Regardless of Naviance, her SATs seem very low to me.</p>
<p>For 2012, this was the SAT range of accepted students:</p>
<p>SAT Critical Reading: 550 / 670
SAT Math: 580 / 710
SAT Writing: 540 / 680 </p>
<p>OOS students often need higher scores at state schools, not lower ones to be accepted. You can’t tell from Naviance whether any of the other students (except her sister) had some kind of hook you don’t know about, too. Or it is just getting more competitive.</p>
<p>frazzled1, thank you. We’ll know more later today and will hopefully be able to read over her app to find out if there was something wrong in her app. She has her 2 safeties in hand, both in-state schools, and is waiting to hear from 4 others. The other suprising thing was that she wasn’t at least wait-listed at UT, but maybe they only wait list in- state students. My UT daughter’s roommate got in off a wait list, but she was from Texas. Thanks again for the responses.</p>
<p>Could it be a case of her being overqualified and they thought she was using it as a safety? Their CDS does say GPA is “not considered” (huh?) . Rigor and rank are “very important”. Her SATs are way above their avg. They list SATs as “important”. For Fall 2013 they admitted 43% of female applicants. Good luck to her- she sounds highly qualified.</p>