Why does UT take so long to give out admissions results?

A&M just gave out their auto admits results a few days ago, yet UT hasn’t even said a word? At least they could tell auto admits that they have been admitted to the university. Why does UT take so long to make decisions?

So many people apply to UT which includes many of the more competitive programs there so they can’t accept everyone who they think would be good for that major or college right when they see their application because they might have too many people, they want to pick the best. I’m thinking of McCombs as a reference. If you didn’t apply to a non competitive college or major like Liberal Arts, be expecting to find out your major in February-March.
I was told A&M chose majors on a first come first serve basis. It made sense to me because many of the students who got accepted into A&M from my school got into engineering and they honestly weren’t all that great at school but they applied early and had auto admit. While our salutatorian, who was basically a human calculator, didn’t get into engineering because he applied like a week before the deadline.

@ASunnyDay I understand that, but you would think they would have the decency to at least notify auto admits that they have been accepted to the university as a whole, and wait to notify about major decisions later.

@ASunnyDay, but UT does not accept to majors at the same time they accept to the university, do they? In past years, every student we knew received their admission notice months before being accepted into a major. So that does not explain the delay at UT. A&M does accept into majors on a first come first served basis, so if you are an auto admit and apply early enough, you get your major and acceptance to the university at the same time.

If you think UT is slow on acceptances, you will really be surprised how long you may wait for your major! Kids we know had to pay to hold spots at other universities because they had deadlines to meet and still had not heard from UT whether they had been accepted into business or engineering.

@barfly How did they get those notices of admission without majors? I always wonder if I am looking in the right place. Somewhere in MyStatus?

@gettingschooled, I don’t remember that, unfortunately. My son graduated in May, so he’s already in college. But I remember that he and some friends were all accepted early in September last year to UT, but none of them got the news on their majors (all engineering or business) until much later. They all had to put deposits down at other schools where they had already been accepted into their preferred majors. In the end, they all ended up at other schools, some because they did not get accepted into the majors they wanted at UT, and some because by the time UT notified them that they got their majors, they were pretty excited about their other options and turned off on UT. I don’t remember this issue with my older kids. I think they were accepted into UT and their majors at the same time. But I may not be remembering this accurately.

I think notice came on MyStatus and then in a snail mail mailing. Last year kids received “Gone to Texas” signs in the mail. As I recall, and it is amazing how soon you forget this stuff, the MyStatus acceptance came pretty darn fast. My kid wasn’t as on the ball in applying as you are, though; he didn’t apply until sometime in October.

The acceptances slow down considerably as the weeks go by. Last year, the auto-admit kids who applied very early were accepted in a matter of days. Mine was accepted about 2 or 3 days after UT had all his materials. But kids who applied in October had to wait much longer to hear the good news. One more reason to apply early and beat the crowd!

@Barfly So i wonder why i haven’t been accepted yet. I turned in all my stuff by Labor Day and they notified me that they had received everything later that day. So why do they take so long? Is it really that hard to look at everybody’s rank and give the auto admits and acceptance to the university?

Is there a day in the fall in your school district when class rank becomes official? Not final, but some sort of official reporting day? I am trying to remember, but I think kids had an unofficial, unverified rank until some day in Sept/Oct where we live. The counselors were supposed to go back and make sure everything was correct by a certain date.

Could it be that date hasn’t passed for your school? And so UT doesn’t have your official rank yet?

@anonemuss I suspect it’s just a little slower this year. Not sure why it was so fast last year, but maybe more apps this year, or more early apps. Hang in there!

@Lizardly That day I think was a few days ago. I haven’t sent in that updated rank, maybe i should do that first, but i’m safely in auto admit, so it’s not like i would be greatly affected.

I hope you hear soon!

The lazy applicants, folks who applied after mid October, last year heard in about a week.

Check MyStatus daily. That’s the first place your acceptance will show up. Last year’s welcome message said something like “Good news, Future Longhorn! You qualify for automatic admission to The University of Texas at Austin. We’re not sure about your major yet.” Then there was a link to find out more about automatic admission and majors.

You probably won’t receive the #GonetoTexas sign or anything via snail mail until UT makes a decision about your major.

@FloMoMom How long does it take after you get the “You qualify for automatic admission…” to find out if you got into your major?

Every major seems to be different every year. It could be a week or two, or maybe not until spring. My Class of 2017 Longhorn applied for ME (Mechanical Engineering) just before the deadline of December 1, and was accepted within a week. My Class of 2019 Longhorn received acceptance into Liberal Arts within a month of application, yet Engineering applicants didn’t find out their major decision until mid-February.

Just logged in and my S’s status changed to complete/ on-time. Went to the admission tab and at the top it says “Good news! you qualify for automatic admission to the university of Texas at Austin. We’re not sure about your major yet.”

Yep, they just gave me auto

That’s automatic admission for you.
re: Long waiting times - UT receives well over 40k applications.
Take a deep breath and give it some time.