UT-Austin changes automatic admissions threshold from 7 to 6 percent

[TexasTowelie]

by Matthew Watkins, Texas Tribune

It just got a little harder to get into the University of Texas at Austin.

The top-ranked public university in the state announced Friday that students hoping to enroll as undergraduates in the fall of 2019 will need to be in the top 6 percent of their Texas high school's graduating class if they hope to gain automatic admission. The current automatic cutoff is 7 percent.

The change is the result of the growing number of applicants UT-Austin receives each year, school officials said. State law requires UT-Austin to provide automatic admission to students near the top of their high school class, but allows them to cap their automatic admittees at three-fourths of each freshman class. The remaining quarter is admitted through a holistic process, which takes into account grades, standardized test scores, race and extracurricular activities.

UT-Austin has tried to keep its enrollment relatively flat in recent years. But the number of applications has grown from 38,000 in 2013 to 51,000 in 2017.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/09/15/ut-austin-raises-automatic-admissions-threshold-6-percent/

The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

[Not Ruth]

1. That is awful, what is wrong with UT

It would suck to just miss getting in, just make more spots available

[TexasTowelie]

2. The cutoff rate used to include everyone that was in the top 10% of their high school class.

Unfortunately, there isn't much space for adding more classrooms at UT and their facilities are maximum capacity. It is also nearly impossible to work a full-time job and obtain a postgraduate degree at UT. I looked into getting a masters degree there and it would have likely required four to six years to complete because of my daytime schedule.

My best shot to get a masters degree would have been at Texas State in San Marcos, but that would have involved about a 40 minute drive in each direction. Texas State has the reputation as a party school so I didn't see much benefit for the buck by obtaining a degree from there.