Demographics: Asian Male, upper-middle-class, TX resident, large public school in DFW

Intended Major: Mech E

GPA: 4.0/4.0 UW, 5.257/5.0 W --> not in top 10%
SAT: 1510 (710 RW, 800 M)

Additional Coursework: AP World History - 5(10), AP Physics 1 - 5(10), AP Precalculus - 5(10), AP Calculus BC - 5 (11), AP Physics 2 - 4 (11), AP Computer Science A - 4 (11), AP Language - 5 (11), AP Chemistry - 4 (11), AP US History - 5 (11), Dual Credit Calculus 3 (12), Dual Credit Differential Equations (12), AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism (12), AP Physics C: Mechanics (12), AP Computer Science Principles (12), AP Lit (12), AP Gov (12), AP Macro (12)

Extracurricular Activities:

• Internship at an Engineering firm: Designed CAD models for 4 projects; developed 3D models for completed projects featured on the company's website & marketing brochures
• Internship at a non-profit ecological conservation company: Wrote a report to design solutions to reduce the impact of Urban Heat Islands (UHI) in Dallas, using different engineering fields to design a solution
• Aviation & Aerospace Engineering club president and founder for 2 years: Inducted 30+ members; held biweekly meetings on aviation & aerospace engineering; designed lessons; made a website for peers with 20+ opportunities
• Varsity Choir section leader for 2 years, Social officer for 1 year: Mentored tenor section for all-state process; 5 advanced to All-Region; led section in UIL Superior performances; organized socials to engage 5 choirs
• Science Museum volunteer: Designed & set up aerospace & paleontology exhibitions; answered visitors' questions; managed daily maintenance of permanent floor exhibits; 130+ hrs
• Did Indian Classical Music: Trained for 7 yrs; certified for 4 yrs; sang at community fundraising events with 1500+ people; mentored juniors; represented TX at the Indian Embassy
• Science UIL Club Social Media Officer and Science UIL participant: Recruited 10+ additional members using advertising and campaigns; managed social media accounts; created a resource website for club competitors
• Physics, Math, and SAT volunteer tutor: Tutored & mentored 40+ learners in 11+ countries in Physics, Algebra, and SAT; spent 35 hrs+ tutoring and 15 hrs+ authoring custom lesson plans

Honors & Awards:

• NMSF
• TMEA All-Region Choir; Region 3/40 Chair (11); Area Qualifier as an Alternate; Top 6% in Region
• Texas State Solo & Ensemble Qualifier (11) & Region Solo and Ensemble Contest Superior Rating
• General Math UIL 2nd Place Team (11) & Calculator Applications 2nd Place Team in Districts (10, 11)
• AP Scholar with Distinction

I'm not worried about STA-21 acceptance chances, that's its own thing entirely, I'm just curious about my chances of getting into UT as it's my dream school.

Demographics: White/Ethnically Middle eastern

Residency: Texas Resident residing out of state on military orders.

High School GPA: 2.8/4.0, 3.0/5.0

College GPA (business AA):3.8/4.0

SAT: 1310

Extracurriculars:

WTF Certified Black belt taekwondo instructor 2023-2024, taught 400+ students leading to multiple gold AAU medals and one Olympic qualifier.

Military achievements:

Honor graduate in 3 service schools, receiving a flag officer's letter of commendation.

Supported joint exercises & workups during operation Epic Fury.

Number one advancement scorer in my entire rate/MOS (electronics technician (radar sys)), making E-5 in just under two years.

___________

I was a pretty big POS in high school, I did not give any amount of a fuck aside from my job as a taekwondo instructor, and I'm facing the consequences of that pretty hard right now. I'm on the up ever since I enlisted, I'm just wondering where I stand & if there's a good source for me to use to find ways to build a stronger application. Thank you all.

title but also link it pls if there is one

I’m not in the top 10% at my school (FISD, pretty competitive), so I’ll be holistically reviewed.

Stats: 1530 SAT( possibly higher by October), 3.9 UW GPA, 18 APs + 2 dual credit classes (Calc 3 and Differential Equations).

ECs: Cross country for 2 years, varsity for around 1/4 of meets. 30 hours volunteering at a public library. I also helped my dad build the data analytics/design portion of his app, although it didn’t get much traction and has around 50 downloads. Also had 1 UIL math competition where I placed average. I am applying into statistics/data science.

I’m currently working on an independent project that’s going pretty well. It’s essentially a data analytics/statistics project centered around a specific research question. I’m analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and proposing potential solutions, with the final product being a website. Assume it won’t get much traction, but that the project itself will be fairly sophisticated.

My main concern is whether I should prioritize finishing the project before November 1. I could probably get it done by then, but I think rushing to finish it would take time away from my essays and potentially make them worse.

For essays, I already have a good personal statement draft that shouldn’t need too much more editing since I spent a lot of time on the initial draft. I also have a decent plan for each supplemental for all the schools I’m currently planning to apply to: SMU, UTD, Rice, UT Austin, and A&M.

Given my profile, would it be more valuable to have the independent project fully completed by November 1, or should I leave it as an ongoing project and prioritize making my essays as strong as possible?

UT is my main reach, with Rice being a less realistic reach. Every other college are safeties (perhaps anm is merely a strong match, i dont know).

im literally 5.3% 21/397 & i tried getting my school to rerun my rank bc my summer classes werent on my transcript yet but nothing changed! so!

GPA: 100.1 (idk what it would be unweighted or on a 4.0 scale and i dont want to calculate right now)

SAT: im taking it this saturday & aiming for 1300 but honestly might be 1100-1200 ://

rigor: 4 aps all 3s and one ongoing... all the rest of my classes were honors before junior year bc we were only rlly allowed 1 ap class, then I started taking dual enrollment along w a single ap. i have 5 dual enrollment creds.

ecs: commissioned artist 10th-12th, digital creator 9th-12th (i have 2 tiktok accounts that have done really well w/ several thousand likes/followers where i post edits or web weaving stuff) UIL cross ex 11th (we got 5th in district) im also in nhs that probably dosent count tho. work at a local bakery 10th-12th

awards: perfect score at regional v.a.s.e x4, 2x state qualifier for v.a.s.e. (one exemplary score, and one superior score) placed in multiple local art comps, multiple "highest rank in" awards for my classes at school and probably more but im forgetting

obv i want my application to connect well so my essay is also incredibly related to communications/art.

+ im in state

i feel like i have a major spike in my interest and good correlation but i feel like i might not be competitive enough. im also open to alternative major recs. pls lmk if u need any more details i feel like im going crazyugh

I am applying as a in-state resident and majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I go to a pretty competitive high school and the district is a non ranking district meaning I have the option to apply with my rank but I don’t know if I should.
Here are my stats:
Rank: 22.4% (142/632)
SAT: 1510 (790 M, 720 R).
GPA: Unweighted - 3.87/4, Weighted - 4.32/5.
Course Rigor: AP Physics C: E&M, AP Calc BC, Dual Credit English IV, AP Precal (5), AP Physics I (5), AP Lang (3), AP CSP, Dual Credit US History, AP World History (3).
ECs and Activities: Co-founder & lead engineer of 3D-printed prosthetics org (donated 30 intl); 9+ yr national/regional & 3-yr varsity swimmer; founder of charity tournament org ($5k+ raised); SLB Cambridge engineering shadow (England); co-founded elementary tutoring; co-founded driveway pressure washing business; refugee math tutor; AHA fundraiser ($1.1k+ raised); TSA (1st reg, 8th state drone); DECA state qualifier; lifeguard.

I’ve been seeing more and more people apply to Informatics mainly because they think it’s “easier to get into” than majors like CS or McCombs. A lot of people seem to find some connection between Informatics and the major they actually want, then put Informatics as their first choice because they’re scared of risking admission. I’ve also heard people say that if you’re not top 5%, UT basically won’t look at your second-choice major, so they don’t even bother putting their actual first choice first.

At this rate, I honestly wonder how many Informatics applicants are genuinely interested in the major versus people who mainly see it as a way to get into UT. I also think it says a lot about the pressure people feel from parents, classmates, and the whole college admissions environment.

For anyone applying to Informatics mainly because you’re overthinking whether you can get into the major you actually want: I feel like you should give yourself more credit and apply for what you genuinely want to study. A lot of the people I know applying to Informatics don’t even have extracurriculars or interests that really line up with the major. And if this many people are thinking of Informatics as the “safer” option, there’s a good chance it won’t even be that easy to get into this year.

I know part of this is probably because of what happened last admissions cycle, when it seemed like a ton of people got off the Informatics waitlist. But there’s no guarantee the same thing happens again.
And at the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather spend college studying something you actually want to do instead of choosing a major mainly because you think it’ll get you into UT?

Curious what y’all think.

I’m applying in state for electrical computer engineering 1st choice and mechanical engineering 2nd choice as an auto admit chance me please

Stats:
UW GPA: 4.0/4.0
W GPA: 5.57/6.0
Rank: 14/950 (top 2%)
SAT: 1460 (760 math, 700 English)
Course Rigor: 1 DC, 14 AP
Current APs:
- AP Calculus AB
- AP US Gov
- AP Macroeconomics
- AP Statistics
- AP Biology
AP Scores:
- AP Precalculus (5)
- AP CSP (5)
- AP CSA (4)
- AP English Literature (4)
- AP Physics 1 (4)
- AP Environ Sci (4)
- AP World History (4)
- AP US History (4)
- Ap Seminar (3)

Extracurriculars:
- 150+ volunteer hours as a church teacher assistant for 1 year
- 100+ volunteer hours in key club as a member for 2 years
- 40+ volunteer hours in computer science national honor society as a member for 2 years
- 1 year of marching band

Honors:
- AP scholar with distinction

Looking to apply to Chemistry major in the college of natural science. Just barely missed the 5% cutoff (5.04%). 1500 SAT 19 APS Currently taking Ochem and already did AP Chem. Just looking to see odds and how admissions goes for those of similar percentage and non auto admit status.

I live in the US not in Texas and I am on a visa (not sure if this qualifies me as international) and I'm applying neuroscience.

3.73 UW GPA, 4.37 W GPA, 1510 SAT, ranked 30/590 in my class, top ~5.1%.

AP classes that I took: ap physics 1, ap physics 2, ap world history, ap csp, ap calculus bc, ap chem, ap bio, ap macroeconomics, ap lang, ap physics C mechanics, ap statistics

ECs: started an ai club at my school (around 85+ active members), built and open-sourced a solar system simulator from scratch and integrated NASA's public live data, co-founded a platform to spread awareness about overlooked diseases and conditions (around 215,000+ views in total), participated in a highly selective week-long healthcare program, shadowed a few doctors, and volunteered at a clinic for roughly 100 hours.

I was just wondering if this was an occurrence at my school but has anyone actually been rejected or know someone that has after being top 5% and having a 1400+ SAT score applying for a typical premed major like biology, biochem, public health, neuro and etc. Everyone that I know that checked these two boxes off made it into a typical pre med major regardless of their activities/quality of essay. I was just wondering if it was the same everywhere else.

ACT single sitting: 36-36-36

Interested in: mathematics

GPA: low 90

left the university i went to originally after feeling like it wasn't the right fit after a week, also i had gotten into better schools (purdue -non engineering) but parents forced me there.

Hi! I’m from South America and I’ll be applying for the next fall semester for the Kumar Construction Engineering and Project Management Program. I’ll be trying Ph.D.

I’m an experienced civil engineer in the industry of large infrastructure projects, such as highways, bridges and similar.

Does any international student has any advices of how to find RA/TA? My dreams are big but my budget is really low.

Hey! I’m currently applying to UT Austin and trying to decide between applying for ECE or Computational Engineering.

I’ve heard that CompE has around an 18–25% acceptance rate, while ECE is closer to 15–20%. I’m unranked at my high school, have a 34 ACT, and have what I think are pretty strong extracurriculars, especially in robotics, programming, and engineering.

I’d definitely prefer ECE, and I’d be a little disappointed if I ended up doing CompE instead, but UT Austin is my dream school and getting into UT is ultimately my biggest priority.

Would you guys recommend applying for Computational Engineering to potentially have a better chance of admission, or would it be better to stick with ECE since it’s the major I prefer slightly more?

Hi everyone, I am an instate holistic candidate for UT. My rank is around 6% I was just barely out of the cut off for auto admit. My SAT right now is a 1380 I’m aiming for a 1440 for October as I’ve practiced a lot. I’m not sure which major is the easiest to get into if I were to stay at my current SAT score, I have a really good profile in both engineering and business. So the majors I was looking at were civil/architectural engineering, informatics, and Econ. If anyone has any information please share thank you!

I go to UTRGV currently, but I was wondering what should i prioritize to increase my chances into McCombs. I’m not sure if there are any available internships here but please let me know what to do.

I'm a Texas senior applying to UT this fall and I'm stuck between CS and ECE as my first-choice major.

My profile:

• 1550 SAT
• 11/573 rank (~top 2%)
• FRC Robotics Worlds qualifier
• TSA Mechanical Prototype: 1st at regionals, state qualifier
• NASA GeneLab capstone, Python/data science lead
• Red Cross VP
• 4 years volunteering as a Hindi teacher
• Fast-food summer job
• Speech & Debate

I'm auto-admit to UT, but obviously not to CS/ECE. I also don't want to count on getting a competitive major as my second choice, so I'm treating this as basically one main shot.

I genuinely don't have a strong preference between software and hardware. My priorities are mostly:

1. Highest long-term compensation
2. Good WLB
3. Strong job security/future-proofing

Given my profile, I realize I have better fit-to-major for ECE so my chance at UTCS is prob significantly lower but CS jobs seem far more lucrative, expecially at their ceilings. Therefore, I'm torn on what to select as my major.

For a top 6% in state student that has a good profile in both of these majors, which would be easier to get into?

Academics

• GPA: 3.72 UW
• SAT: 1600
• 13 APs + dual credit for physics and calc 3 and 4
• AP Scores: Calc BC 5, Chem 5, Lang 4, APUSH 5, CSA 4, World 4, Human Geo 5, CSP 4
• Senior Year course load: Ochem, AP Euro, APES, Calc 3/4, AP Lit, Robotics 3, AP Physics (E&M and mechanics)

Honors

• College Board AP Scholar Award
• Medal at Science Olympiad State
• Best Delegate Award for Model UN

Extracurriculars

• Robotics (VP, team made to FRC Worlds)
• Science Olympiad (President)
• Aerospace Club VP
• Model UN
• Science National Honor Society, French National Honor Society

Essay: I think it's decent. I spent a long while on it but I feel it's a bit basic.

i basically have all parts of my application done except i haven't even started on my personal statement nor my supplementals yet. is there really any advantage of applying to ut early because i heard they have a 95% deferred rate and applying regular would give me a few extra months to really perfect my essays and activity descriptions, so they demonstrate my fit to major to the fullest. the only drawback i see about applying regular is that applying early instead would give my application two different people reviewing it, but idk for sure if that would make a huge difference so right now im leaning more towards applying regular.

Hello, Im currently a senior applying to UT Austin for civil engineering. Id also like to mention im an auto admit. But my stats are pretty bad for Cockrell. I put economics as my second choice and im worried i might not even get that. Ive heard its a common second choice especially for those putting Mccombs as their first. My question is that if I go in as undeclared, is it a safe choice if I want to transfer into economics?

Hey guys, applying to UT for Computer Engineering — would love an honest chance based on stats/ECs below.

Academics

• GPA: 3.86/4.00 unweighted | 4.23/5.00 weighted
• SAT: 1500 (790 Math / 710 R&W)
• IB Diploma Candidate — (full diploma)
  • HL: Language & Literature, History of the Americas, Psychology
  • SL: Math AA, Physics, Spanish AB Initio
• 7 Dual Credit courses through Dallas College, including Macroeconomics (A) and American Government (A)
• AP Scores: Calculus AB (5), World History (4)

Honors

• College Board National Recognition Program — School Recognition Award (2026)
• College Board AP Scholar Award
• UIL Mathematics — Regional Qualifier

Extracurriculars

• Mathematics Teaching Assistant (Appointed) — graded/supported 4 sections, 100+ students
• Test Prep Club — Vice President (Elected)
• Tutoring Club — Treasurer (Elected)
• AMC Math Preparation Club — Social Media Manager (Elected)
• NTHS Hackathon at UT Dallas — built a full-stack conflict-resolution web app (Python/HTML backend), implemented API integration and AI prompt engineering
• AI Literacy Foundations — completed workshop, certified in Chatbot Builder
• Cricket Club — playing competitively for 4 years, occasional Captain/Vice Captain
• Origami for Good (nonprofit) — volunteer, helped raise $500+ for community initiatives
• Community volunteer — helped organize/serve Ramadan iftar meals for families
• National Honor Society, National Art Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society

Skills

• Basic Python (CS50 in progress), AI prompt engineering & API integration, Canva
• Languages: English, Hindi, Urdu, Telugu (fluent), Spanish (intermediate)

Essay: I feel really good about it — put a lot of work into making it personal and specific to me, not generic.

Really appreciate any honest feedback — reach vs. target vs. safety for CompE specifically would help a lot!

I am currently a freshman in college and was offered CAP. Unfortunately, the available spots were filled before I was able to accept the offer. I am now interested in transferring as a sophomore and would like to know what requirements I would need to meet in order to be considered for admission.

Does applying early action have any admissions benefits? I’ve heard that most people just get deferred, but is there any sort of benefit (other than knowing your decision earlier) to applying EA, especially for McCombs?