Everything is bigger in Texas, including the flagship university in the University of Texas system, UT Austin. The public research institution in Austin, Texas, has over 40k undergrads. UT Austin is popular with students for many reasons, including research opportunities, great sports, school spirit, over 170 majors, its purposely “weird” home city, and being the #1 public university in the Lone Star state.
If you just Google “UT Austin Acceptance rate,” you will probably get a number around 30%, but that isn’t really the whole story. They accept in-state students at a higher rate. For out-of-state students, their acceptance rate was more like 12% (and for international students, it was around 13% last year).
This means that you need to be a competitive candidate to get into UT Austin, especially for out-of-state students. But what does that look like? We are glad you asked. Let’s break down what it takes to get into UT Austin.
What is Austin looking for?
Like most colleges, Austin assesses each applicant based on a variety of factors. However, unlike most colleges, it doesn’t weigh the importance of these factors and just lists whether it considers them.
While this is kind of annoying… it just means you have to look at everything they consider and crush it in the categories you can. You might not be able to change your state residency or your religion, but you can certainly do some volunteer work. Let’s look at the ones you can work on.
Rigor, Class Rank and GPA
You need your transcript to give “top student.” To do this, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The first is to simply meet UT’s requirements. They have a set of required units and recommended units. These are pretty standard but double-check anyway.
We advise taking all recommended and required units. But that isn’t enough. You need to take as many of these classes at the highest possible level. This might mean IB, AP, Honors, or Dual Enrollment, depending on your high school offers. The TL;DR is just to take the most challenging classes your school offers to show you can handle a rigorous class load.
Of course, while you are taking hard classes, you also need to maintain a great GPA. This is where we have to read UT a little bit. A lot of school’s don’t publish average admitted student GPA, but UT publishes basically no data about anything (including GPA.) However, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to maintain an excellent GPA. They also don’t publish class rank data, but trust us, they are looking for top students. You want to be in the top 25%, at least if your school ranks. If your high school doesn’t do class rank, that is fine, but you should still be taking hard classes and getting fantastic grades to make you look like a top student.
SAT and ACT Scores
UT Austin is making test scores non-optional again. So, if you are applying for Fall 2025 or later, you will need to submit scores. Ideally, you want those scores to be in line or better than your competition. Again, UT Austin doesn’t publish a lot of information about this, but last year their median SAT was 1420. That's a good place to start… try for higher than that. However, around 58% of students didn’t submit test scores; their median was 1160 on the SAT. So, next year, the median will most likely come down now that everyone has to submit.
You should still be pushing yourself to get a great score, especially as an out-of-state student. We are going to keep a close eye on UT and their test scores this year to get as much data as we can.
Extracurriculars and Talent/Ability
Not everyone with a 4.0 gets into UT Austin. You need to differentiate yourself; your extracurriculars are a great way to show off your talents and passions. UT Austin wants to see what makes you tick, and you should pursue these interests as much as you can. Seriously, we don’t care if you have a passion for yoyo-ing. But if so, you need to be the regional yoyo champion or publish a research paper into the history of novelty toys. Ok, that is a silly example, but you should strive to show commitment and leadership to your passions. You want to take on leadership roles and really commit your time. See how far you can take it! You might surprise yourself.
You also want one of your interests to have something to do with what you want to study at UT Austin. For example, if you hope to study finance, maybe you have done an internship at a financial institution, are president of your school’s mock stock market club, and/or have taken summer courses in finance. They are looking for intellectually curious students who are learning outside of the classroom.
Finally, if you can add some work experience and volunteering to your resume, it’s a great touch. However, same as above, they want to see commitment (and leadership) in these roles. A once-a-month shift at a homeless shelter isn’t impressive. Sorry.
Personal Qualities and Where to Show Them
You will notice that there isn’t a section on the application called “Character/Personal Qualties.” Instead, you want them to come through in two major sections: recommendations and essays.
When it comes to recommendations, you can’t fully control what your teachers and counselors say about you. However, you should ask teachers who know you well and like you, take time to fill out any brag sheets recommenders ask you for, and ask them early (they will appreciate you for it).
What you can fully control is what you write about yourself. First, you need to write an outstanding Common App essay. We have a ton of blogs on how to write a great Common App essay, and think this one is especially helpful. But if you need a crash course, good Common App essays do a couple of things:
Tell an engaging personal story
Showcase a couple of your positive personal qualities that we mentioned earlier.
Do the first two points in a creative or at least very well-written way.
It might sound simple but it can be tricky in just 650 words. If you need help, we got you covered. Reach out here.
They also have a fairly long supplement. Again, we have a whole blog on it. However, it has one long essay and four short essays. This is a lot of writing. The long essay is functionally a second Common App essay, and the short answers ask you to discuss your plans for college. These take a lot of thinking and, if you are doing it right, enough time to research to call out specific opportunities on campus. Give yourself enough time; this isn’t one you can rush.
UT Austin keeps an air of mystery around itself by not giving a ton of information about their incoming classes, but don’t let that fool you. You need to be a top student, especially if you don’t call Texas home. It is a lot to ask for, but we want to help. If you want an expert in your corner, reach out!
We are all ears! Contact us here.