UT Austin is the best public university in Texas, and one of the best nationally. It sees tens of thousands of applicants every year, and has the difficult task of choosing which to admit. All colleges are constantly tweaking their admissions policies, and UT Austin is no different. Their recent cooperation with the Common App is evidence of such.
Recently, however, UT Austin announced two major changes to their admissions policies for students applying in 2024 and beyond. The first is the end of their test-optional admissions policy. The second is the beginning of an Early Action admissions pathway. These come in addition to a number of other minor changes. We will go through all of these in this article, and discuss how they impact you, and your application to UT Austin. Let’s get started!
UT Austin is no Longer Test Optional
Test optional admissions began with the pandemic of 2020, as testing centers closed and students scrambled to get the needed materials. Since then, colleges have been part of a grand if accidental experiment, seeing whether or not test scores really matter for admissions.
Results are varied, as we discussed in a previous article. Some colleges looked at the data from past years and decided that test optional admissions are exactly what their school needs; others took the same set of data and decided to resume testing. UT Austin has now decided to join the latter group.
In their announcement UT Austin explained their reasoning. They are receiving more applications than ever before, and more and more students are applying with near perfect GPAs. Standardized test scores have proven to be a great differentiator for these high achieving students. Based on the data they collected, students with both a high GPA and high test scores perform better academically in their first semester of college than students with a high GPA who do not submit test scores.
They also point to data that students who do not opt to have their scores considered still take the tests, but score lower. This is reasonable, and in line with advice we’ve given in the past. UT Austin has decided to do away with this, as they seek ever more ways to evaluate an increasingly large pool of applicants.
How This Impacts You
If you are applying to UT Austin, you will need to report your standardized test scores, and they will impact your chances of admission. While guaranteed acceptance is still determined by class rank alone, admission to particular colleges or majors may take your test scores into account, especially for the most popular majors like computer science.
While the tests have always been important, this is another reason to study carefully for them, and to make sure you do as well as you can. If your scores are not where you want them to be, even if you have a high GPA, you may want to consider adding other test optional schools to your college list, as UT Austin may not admit you to your first choice major.
UT Austin’s New Early Action Deadline
This change is more in form than function; previously UT Austin operated using a priority deadline and a regular deadline. This language was often confusing to students, and was out of sync with the language used by other peer institutions. By renaming the earlier deadline, UT Austin will clarify any confusion here.
UT Austin’s Early Action deadline is October 15, and results will be communicated to students by January 15. The regular deadline for admissions remains December 1, with results communicated to students by February 15. This is an Early Action deadline, and applying in this manner is non-binding.
We recommend you apply Early Action if UT Austin is your top choice school. While they are required to admit students who meet their academic benchmarks, the most popular programs fill up quickly. If you want to study business, engineering, or computer science, you should definitely apply by this early deadline.
UT Austin Changes Their Essay Questions
In a brief note at the bottom of their announcement on standardized testing, UT Austin included a pair of important details. The first is that they are changing their primary essay to have a broader prompt, to allow for students to have more flexibility in answering, and to make it easier for students to reuse essays they wrote for other applications.
While they do not include what exactly this new prompt is, and they have not yet updated it on their admissions website, we can infer what they mean. Their new prompt is likely to be closer in tone to the required Common App essays. Their current prompt already has a great deal of overlap, and moving it even closer is a reasonable choice. Why they don’t simply forsake this prompt for the Common App essay is a good question, but not one we are equipped to answer.
This is good for students however. While the former UT Austin long essay had significant overlap with the Common App’s essay questions, moving it closer reduces even further the amount of work students will have to do. With the stress of applications already high, we welcome any relief given to students.
The other change UT Austin announced for their essays is a reduction in the number of short answers, from three to two. Unfortunately, they have not announced which of the three they are cutting, and their applications page has not yet been updated to reflect this announcement. While we know there will be fewer prompts, we do not yet know exactly what those prompts will be.
UT Austin did not reveal their motives behind this move, but we have a good guess. They are receiving more applications than ever before; 73,000 this past year. They remain committed to a holistic review of all applicants, which means they need to thoroughly read all 73,000 of those applications, some of them multiple times. Needless to say, this is a lot of work. Cutting just one essay of 300 words is 73,000 fewer essays for admissions officers to review; you can see the appeal clearly.
This is helpful for students in that it lowers the amount of work you will need to do, but it increases the importance of the other essays you write for UT Austin. It remains to be seen exactly what their essay prompts are going to look like this year; we will update you once we know more.
UT Austin Updates Their Waitlist Policies
UT Austin has fairly quietly announced that they are reintroducing the use of a waitlist. There are scant few details provided about how this will work in practice, but it does make sense as a new policy. Their announcement is simply that a waitlist now exists, that it only applies to students who are not automatically admitted, and that students will be notified as early as March 1 as to their admittance off the waitlist.
So what does this mean in practical terms? That is left somewhat ambiguous. It appears that students who apply who do not meet the cutoffs for automatic admission can now be placed on a waitlist. It remains to be seen what percentage of students this will impact, but we believe it will be quite substantial.
An increasing number of automatically admitted students are deciding to attend UT Austin, instead of venturing out of state or to private colleges as they more commonly have in previous years. This is making things difficult for UT Austin; they are obligated to admit a certain number of students each year, but do not actually have the capacity to handle all of the students they are required to admit.
Previously, this was not an issue, as top students would more often attend college out of state, aiming for the Ivy League or other top 20 schools. As acceptance rates for those schools have dropped however, more and more top Texas students are opting to attend UT Austin instead.
A waitlist is a good way to manage this, and reflects what UT Austin used to do in a more piecemeal form. Once the school knows how many of the automatically admitted students are actually planning on attending, they can more easily fill out the remainder of the class. This does take some careful planning; expect the first year they do this to be messier.
We anticipate most students applying to UT Austin who are not within the automatic admissions cutoff will be waitlisted in 2024. The school is going to err on the side of caution; they don’t know how this will work exactly, and more students on the waitlist gives them much more flexibility. This will not be as much fun for students, but is gentler than a straight reaction.
For advice on what to do should you end up waitlisted, see our article on the subject here.
Final Thoughts
Colleges are constantly changing and tweaking their admissions standards, in order to adapt to the fluid world we live in. UT Austin is no exception, and this latest round of updates is meant to reflect the lessons they have learned over the past few admissions cycles, and set them up to better serve their applicants. How well this will work remains to be seen, but don’t worry, we’ll keep you updated every step of the way.
Applying to college is always competitive, and has gotten more so as time has gone on. Even state schools like UT Austin are incredibly competitive, and becoming more so. If you want help crafting your application to UT Austin, writing the perfect essays, or preparing for your tests, schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can help you. Being based in Houston, we have a long history helping students get into UT Austin, and are always happy to hear from you.
