UT Austin announced changes to its admissions process and requirements for students in the class of 2019. 
These students can begin applying August 1, 2018 using the ApplyTexas application.
Essay Requirements
All freshman applicants will be required to submit one essay — Topic A — in ApplyTexas. Other long-form essays in ApplyTexas (B, C, D, S, etc.) will no longer be needed for freshman applicants to UT (but may be required for other Texas colleges).
As part of ApplyTexas, all freshman applicants will also respond to three short-answer questions to provide UT Austin with information about the applicant’s major/career interests, academics, and leadership. Responses to short answers are required items in UT Austin’s ApplyTexas freshman admissions application. (See prompts below). Answers are limited to no more than 40 lines, or about 250 – 300 words.
Applicants to a few majors will have additional requirements.
- Nursing applicants will submit an additional long-form essay (Essay N) outside the ApplyTexas process.
- Applicants to Social Work and Art/Art History will also submit an additional short answer response in ApplyTexas.
Revised Freshmen Deadlines
The Office of Admissions and UT Austin’s freshman honors programs have adopted two application deadlines:
November 1 – Priority Application Deadline (with notification no later than February 1)
December 1 – Regular Application Deadline (with notification no later than March 1)
The Office of Admissions and each freshman honors program will notify students who meet the priority application deadline no later than February 1. Priority notifications will include offers of admission to majors and acceptance to honors programs as well as deferrals. A deferral is a notification saying that a little more time is needed for the student’s final decision. Students who are deferred will receive final decisions no later than March 1.
Visit Texas Admissions – Applying for Admission for details about the essays/short answers, deadlines and everything else that’s required for freshman applicants.
Short Answer Prompts
Short Answer 1: Career Plans
If you could have any career, what would it be? Why? Describe any activities you are involved in, life experiences you’ve had, or even classes you’ve taken that have helped you identify this professional path.
Tips to consider: This is an opportunity to describe your academic and future professional interests. You may not yet be 100% certain about what you want to do, but is there a particular field that you think you want to work in, or a certain path you want to pursue after college? How have your interests and experiences influenced your choice of majors or your plans to explore in college?
Short Answer 2: Academics
Do you believe your academic record (transcript information and test scores) provide an accurate representation of you as a student? Why or why not?
Tips to consider: Feel free to address anything you want the Office of Admissions to know about your academic record so that we can consider this information when we review your application. You can discuss your academic work, class rank, GPA, individual course grades, test scores, and/or the classes that you took or the classes that were available to you. You can also describe how special circumstances and/or your school, community, and family environments impacted your high school performance.
Short Answer 3: Leadership
How do you show leadership in your life? How do you see yourself being a leader at UT Austin?
Tips to consider: Leadership can be demonstrated by positions you hold as an officer in a club or organization, but other types of leadership are important too. Leaders can emerge in various situations at any given time, including outside of the school experience. Please share a brief description of the type of leadership qualities you possess, from school and non-school related experiences, including demonstrations of leadership in your job, your community, or within your family responsibilities, and then share how you hope to demonstrate leadership as a member of our campus community.
Short Answer: Art and Art History Applicants
Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space affected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?
Short Answer: Social Work Applicants
Discuss the reasons you chose social work as your first-choice major and how a social work degree from UT Austin will prepare you for the future.
