UT-Austin To Automatically Admit Eligible Students In Top 6% Of High School Class

AUSTIN, TX — The University of Texas at Austin will automatically admit eligible Texas students in the top 6 percent of their high school graduating class beginning in the summer and fall of 2019, officials said Friday.

This change will not impact currently enrolled high school seniors applying for the summer and fall of 2018, who are automatically admitted if they are in the top 7 percent of their class, university officials said.

School officials attributed the change to continued growth in the number of Texas high school graduates and a steep increase in applications to UT Austin. Applications to the university rose from 38,000 in 2013 to more than 51,000 in 2017, officials noted. Correspondingly, 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, school officials noted.

Under state law governing admissions to UT Austin, 75 percent of the first-year in-state students must be automatically admitted. The law requires the university set the threshold for automatic admission on an annual basis to meet these requirements.

Officials said the change in the automatic admission threshold from 7 to 6 percent will allow the university to:

• Maintain the legally mandated proportions of the incoming in-state freshman class at 75 percent automatically admitted students and 25 percent admitted through the holistic review process.
• Adjust to the projected growth in Texas high school graduates.
• Continue to provide admissions spots for eligible transfer students.

“UT Austin is committed to providing a world-class education to exceptional students from across Texas,” UT-Austin President Gregory L. Fenves said in a prepared statement. “Today, the university is enrolling about 1,000 more freshmen than it did six years ago. We accomplished this by dramatically improving four-year graduation rates, making it possible for us to serve more students. We are committed to even further improvements, which will continue to expand access to UT.”

More information on updates to the UT Austin undergraduate admissions process can be found at https://admissions.utexas.edu/research.

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