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Why you shouldn’t make UT Austin your dream school (from an incoming freshman)
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Hey y’all, I’ve been meaning to make this post for a while but I figured I’d wait until the class of ‘26 started populating the subreddit. This post may contradict things you’ve heard in the past or repeat information you already know. Either way, I hope it helps.
UT Austin has the most inconsistent admissions of any school I know of. Here’s my story: I applied for engineering under priority application and I also applied to a CNS honors program. I know, it seems unusual to apply to a major in one school then honors in another but I knew it had been done before. Anyway, I got capped, also known as “accepted to the coordinated admissions program” (essentially an instate rejection). Since I was rejected from the school, they didn’t even look at my honors application. Soon after getting rejected, I sent in an appeal to see if I could get my admissions decision overturned. I knew it was a long shot, but who cares. Anyway, it worked and I was accepted for engineering. A few weeks later, I got an email saying I got into CNS honors. To rephrase that: the same school that rejected me for general admission accepted me into a far more competitive honors program. Same school, same admissions staff.
What’s crazier is that my story isn’t even that much of an outlier. We’ve all heard of kids getting rejected from UT and getting into ivy league schools and schools of equal merit. The worst offender being CS. I know dozens of kids who fit that description from my highly competitive instate high school alone.
Also, for you instate auto admit kids, don’t get too comfortable. I personally know two insanely qualified kids in the top 10 out of a class of ~700 who got rejected from their major (CS).
For you national merit kids, it also doesn’t mean much for UT. I can think of at least a dozen national merit finalists who were capped from my high school.
Also: the worst thing about UT once you’re there is how difficult it is to change majors, if you want to switch into cockrell, mccombs, or CS, best of luck to you.
One last word of advice: if applying for STEM, have relevant research and ECs. I personally find it absurd to expect 17 year olds to have their careers figured out but everyone I can think of who got accepted from outside of the top 6% had relevant research.
Moral of the story (TLDR): UT Austin admissions are far too inconsistent for you to make UT your dream/match/safety. I was rejected, then accepted, then accepted to an honors program all from the same application (plus an appeal letter). Of all the schools, don’t let your self esteem balance in the hands of a UT admission counselor, I’m sure they’ll do their best to destroy any trace of it.
I hope this was helpful, I’ve learned a lot about UT admissions and college applications in general and I’d be happy to answer any questions in the comments.
Top Comment: I fell in love with Austin over the summer last year but ended up getting rejected. Later got into HYPSM lol
Opinions on The University of Texas at Austin
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I'm from Texas and while I know its a well respected university here, I feel like I really have no idea what the rest of the country thinks about UT. I'd like to know your opinions/views in regards to UT's reputation. Does it have the same "Wow" factor as Berkeley, UCLA, and UMich, or is it just seen as another state school? Would you consider it a nationally recognized university, as in do you think most people know about UT? Would you consider it prestigious? What have you heard about UT? I've been really curious about this topic so I'm very interested in what you all have to say!
Top Comment: State flagship! Well respected and students probably have a great experience there.
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