Will I get into UT Austin (and CS/Engineering)?

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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First of all, I would like to apologize in advance for the wall of text that I am about to make you read, but please bear with me because it is important how my GPA came to be the way that it is now.

I’m a high school junior in a (not so competitive) Texas high school, and I’m currently ranked 26/401, so I need to jump 2 more people in order to be in the top 6% that UT Austin will take. My unweighted GPA is 3.8570, and I’m currently taking 5 APs; by the end of high school I will have taken about 12 AP courses. I’ve also just taken the SAT, and I will prepare enough to get 1500+ on the next time around, as I don’t feel too great about this one. In terms of extracurriculars, I admittedly don’t have too many notable achievements in my name, except for when my FRC team made it to World Championships in Houston as a rookie team, by winning the Rookie All-Star Award.

So that’s a quick summary of my academics, but I want to explain why my GPA could’ve been much higher than it is now: in the summer of my freshman year my family and I moved to Texas form California. In California I was at a very competitive high school which did not weigh GPA and did not rank. In this school I made a ~3.58 GPA because I honestly could not keep up with all of the competition. However, the school I’m at now does rank and have weighted GPAs, so what the school did was take all of my grades that I earned and use their own way of calculating GPA on it. This is a big deal because my other school gave GPAs based on intervals; 80-89 was a 3.0 and 90-100+ was a 4.0, and so on, whereas here each percentage lost in your overall grade is a loss of 0.1 in GPA. So when I came in to the school as a sophomore, my ranking was honestly a joke for UT, but I had a pretty high average at the new school and my rank became 49/403 (I forget the exact GPA that I had). So I was depressed but continued to work hard, and entering junior year, I had a ranking of 27/403. After my first semester of junior year, I have only jumped one more position because of how hard it is to change your GPA drastically over time. I have yet to jump two more people to be an auto-admit to UT, but, according to the GPAs of the two people in front of me, I may only be able to jump one person feasibly (if I’m extremely lucky with my grades, I’ll jump the second as well.) So the most infuriating idea to me is that I’ll only be behind the top 6% by one person and that I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

I almost forgot to add, I want to major in STEM; either Computer Science or Engineering, I’m not completely sure which yet.

So knowing all of this, do you guys have any suggestions? I plan to explain this fully in an essay during my application, but I don’t know if UT will honestly consider my position, and, even if they do accept me, I don’t know what I can do to increase my chances of being admitted into the Cockrell School of Engineering or the College of Natural Sciences.

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Here’s the deal. Whether or not you jump 2 more spots to get into UT autoadmit means nothing about getting into your first or second choice major. You may be an autoadmit and then they don’t think you make the cut for either CS or Engineering and they put you in UGS where you get to choose from a list of available majors which are often not great options for transferring into said majors. I would worry less about the jumping of 2 spots and more about how you can prove your passion and abilities in CS/Engineering. Robotics, coding your own projects, STEM clubs with leadership, internships or part time jobs, etc. UT is all about rank and test scores but if your not a shoe in, they really want to see that you are very into your chosen field. A lot of top top kids did not get their majors for whatever reason. Focus on what you love and do it in your free time. This is what should be in your essays - would not mention your transfer or grading issues etc…IMHO.

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@dansmoaustin thanks for the advice!

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If you go back and look at what kids got into UT with their stats, its all over the map so its really hard to guess. There is not guarantee for non-autoadmit students. Those are 2 of the 3 hardest schools to get into besides McCombs. You will be reviewed against other applicants to those schools. That being said, a great SAT score will help as will great essays, resumes and recommendations. I wish there was a better answer but just keep working hard and doing things that support your interests - this summer especially and write good essays about it. But if STEM is really important, have a few good safe backups.

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@computernerd108 You may PM me for your particular situation.
I am a CS graduate from UT (was offered an admission twice), was in CS and ECE at UT, and my son is currently at UT engineering.

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You need to also ask “how hard is it to switch majors at UT?” We got the impression it was very difficult to switch. In fact, we know someone who wanted to switch from BME to MechE and was denied.

I think you have a good chance if you can make sure your SAT is 1500 or greater. Make sure you are on track to take AP physics and AP Calc BC.

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So far so good on your stats. One thing about UT is even if you’re an auto admit, it still doesn’t guarantee admissions into their engineering program. It’s super selective with very limited slots. If you find you don’t like engineering, UT makes it nearly impossible to change majors. Be sure to apply at several different schools. Texas A&M is ranked just as high, but the selection criteria is not as academically stringent. It’s based more on first come first serve. A&M also guarantees a major change to any field of study with a 3.5 GPA. If that falls through, UT-Dallas is a top engineering program, and it’s in the middle of Dallas where there are tons of internships and job opportunities.

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For engineering/CS they care more about how you’re fit to the major rather than your academic achievement. I’ve seen a plethora of people get rejected with 1540+ SAT scores with rankings in the top 5% of their class.

In fact, I’m not even in the top 10% of my class and received an SAT score in the low 1400s and still got accepted to UT computer science this year.

What I’ve noticed is that UT cares primarily about how your extracurricular activities relate to your major of choice and your aspirations to UT and how you might be able to help with the reputation of the university. If you can show that off in your essays, resume, and recommendation letters then you have an excellent shot.

And for a final note, UT also cares if you’re challenging yourself with AP/IB classes so make sure to take a reasonable amount of advanced classes that you can manage.

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Hey @Shadowsych , can I DM you?

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Also thanks guys for the suggestions! I’ll be sure to keep them in mind when actually applying.

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@computernerd108 Sure!

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Actually @Shadowsych I have no idea how to DM on this site, so can you DM me? Sorry about that lol

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what is the meaning of DM?