UT TIGHTENS AUTOMATIC ADMISSION TO TOP 6 PERCENT
Officials blame steep rise in applications to flagship campus.
The competition is intensifying for Texas high school students hoping to qualify for automatic admission to the University of Texas at Austin.
Students aiming to enroll in the summer or fall of 2019 under the state’s automatic admission law will have to rank in the top 6 percent of their high school class. That’s a notch tougher than those enrolling in 2018, who had to rank in the top 7 percent.
For automatic admission to the state’s three dozen or so other public universities, students graduating from a high school in Texas need only rank in the top 10 percent.
“The change is due to the continued growth in the number of Texas high school graduates and a steep increase in applications to UT-Austin,” the university said in a news release. “Applications to the university rose from 38,000 in 2013 to more than 51,000 in 2017. The number of high school graduates in Texas rose by 14,000 during that same period and is projected to increase by almost 50,000 through 2025.”
Under state law, at least 75 percent of the first-year, in-state students at the Austin flagship must be automatically admitted. UT sets the percentage annually to meet that requirement. The remaining applicants, including those from other states and abroad, are considered under a so-called holistic review that takes race, ethnicity, grades, essays, leadership qualities and numerous other factors into account.
Some students from Texas who don’t get into UT-Austin through automatic or holistic admission can transfer in after a year at another UT System campus under the Coordinated Admission Program.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld UT’s use of affirmative action in admissions in June 2016. A group called Students for Fair Admissions, whose leader took that case to the high court and lost, is now challenging the university’s consideration of race and ethnicity in state District Court in Travis County.