"When might I receive my major decision? Does UT have rolling admissions for freshmen?" UT Austin Admissions Waves, Decision Timeline, and Deferrals
Frog at my house in Ubud, Bali
Fall 2026 Update #1 December 15, 2025: A small batch of STEM/business admissions offers have released. I will update this post later by collapsing all of the updates from previous cycles.
I receive these frequently asked questions around this same time every year. We can only speculate on how UT might release their admissions decisions. Every year is different, and they often implement changes on a whim without communicating anything to the public or even to high school counselors behind the scenes. There is no rhyme or reason why some students hear back early, and others don’t. You will find nothing but frustration, dead ends, and suspicion towards your friends if you try to read the UT admissions tea leaves and divine how it works. Almost all of my clients gain admission in January/February, and few, if any, gain admission early nowadays.
Nobody has a crystal ball and can predict when and who will find out early. Not even UT admissions counselors know.
Don’t listen to the grifters and social media prophets who claim “to know” when UT will release their decisions.
We can only look at past data and use “inductive reasoning” to make imperfect forecasts about what may happen in subsequent years. I wish UT were more transparent about this and many other things, but it is what it is. That means the public can only go off unofficial sources like mine. Nevertheless, you can expect to hear back any time between late November and late January. Refreshing the email or My Status doesn’t make the release come any quicker.
No student is ever denied their major or to UT overall early - those decisions go out all at once, usually at the end of January/beginning of February.
In the past few cycles, everyone has heard back by February 1, regardless of whether they applied by the November 1 priority deadline. With UT declaring that all early applicants for Fall 2025 and 2026 will hear back by January 15, you should not expect to receive your decision early.
International applicants usually hear back on the last day of February or the first day of March. Architecture and Fine Arts students should also expect delays.
For Fall 2025 freshmen, approximately 8,500 students were enrolled out of 19,000 admitted students. UT received around 90,000 freshman apps. Around 11,000 are likely auto-admitted Texas residents, with 29,000 apps from non-auto-admits. Admit rate for non-top 6% will be around 10%, and OOS/international admit rate will be around 5%. The overall admissions rate will be approximately 20%, with substantially lower rates for STEM/business majors.
Here are my posts on appeals, the waitlist, Early Action, internal transfer, and external transfer.
When did previous UT application cycles hear back?
Fall 2025 applicants heard back on these dates:
December 10, 2024: It seems a small batch of decisions went out for varied majors, including CNS, Business, and Liberal Arts, including non-top-6% Texas residents. The vast majority of admissions offers were released. There is no predicting or identifying why a given applicant hears back early or not. UT received around 90,000 applications this cycle, a 24% increase from Fall 2024, with a 48% increase from out-of-state applicants.
January 16, 2025: UT admitted around 5,000 freshman, about one-quarter of all offers given. Everyone else was deferred. This was the first year UT had a formal Early Action/Deferral system, and the fact that 95% of offers weren’t given leads to the conclusion that UT was very far behind in their review process. Customer service people told families this as well. No other university had ever deferred almost every applicant on their admissions decision release deadline. I shared my initial thoughts in this video.
January 26, 2025: Forty Acres Semifinalist interview offers were distributed.
February 7, 2025, 6pm: UT released their big batch of admissions offers, CAP, and rejections for OOS applicants. It didn’t appear that any Honors program decisions have gone out. Here is my YouTube video of that year’s cycles.
February 18, 2025: Engineering Honors and ECE/Business (ECB) Honors decisions went out. ECE Honors remains under review.
March 1, 2025: ECE Honors and Turing CS Honors decisions went out on Friday and over the weekend. All honors decisions had been released by this date.
April 10, 2025: Some students have been offered a position off the waitlist only if they enroll in the “take the world by the horns” program that requires spending the first semester abroad, presumably in South Korea. Oddly, this process required an additional essay for inexplicable reasons. At least some out-of-state students also received this offer. Otherwise, basically nobody got off the waitlist for Fall 2025.
Fall 2024 applicants heard back on these dates:
November 30, 2023: A small batch of decisions were released. It also seems like for the first time ever at least a few students were rejected prior to the February 1 release deadline.
December 11, 2023: Over the weekend, a small batch of decisions went out for most majors and Texas residents outside of the top 6%.
December 14, 2023: UT released a larger batch this evening for students across many majors. Plan II has released some decisions.
January 13, 2024: A small batch of decisions have gone out over the past few days. Still, the admissions offers so far are a small fraction of the eventual total. This cycle seems similar to the previous one where most applicants are likely to hear back at the end of January.
January 20, 2024: Forty Acres Scholars Program released their semifinalist candidates. Two of my clients received invitations.
Thursday, February 1, 2024, 8pm: Almost all admissions and rejections have been released for all majors (except some in Fine Arts). It’s unclear how many Honors decisions have been released and how many remain. Honors programs do things on their own timeline. I discuss appeals and transferring in the linked posts. Here is my video for that cycle.
February 12, 2024: BHP continues to interview applicants. On February 19, they released some favorable admissions offers.
Friday, February 23, 2024: A few students have gained admission on appeal, including McCombs, and others offered CAP have been given PACE. I wondered if PACE still existed, and if it was possible to request appeal into it, and evidently both questions are a yes. This is by far the earliest that UT has offered favorable appeals.
Fall 2023 applicants heard back on these dates:
December 13, 2022: UT releases a small batch of regular admissions decisions from various majors and a handful for Plan II Honors
January 10, 2023: UT releases a small batch of regular admissions offers from various majors. BHP continues to request interviews
Monday, January 30, 2023: UT releases almost all decisions for all majors and residencies. Some Honors programs like BHP and Turing were yet to be released. I share my thoughts in this video
February 18, 2023: BHP continues interviewing students and doens’t release all of their decisions until the end of the month
Fall 2022 applicants heard back on these dates:
November 18 released a small batch of liberal arts and natural sciences
December 15 UT eleased a small batch of decisions, including non-auto admits and out-of-state for selective majors like CS, Engineering, and Business. Plan II also released a few.
December 22, 2021 a few Plan II and Health Science Scholars Honors decisions trickled out in the past week. BHP continues interviewing applicants. UT did not release any large batches of students in December.
January 14, 2022, UT released some decisions, mainly auto-admitted Texas residents. It seems some non-auto admits have also received their majors, but most auto-admit decisions have not been released. A handful of my top academic auto-admit clients have gained admission.
January 21, UT released their first batch of rejections and a small wave of admissions offers
January 25, UT released a small batch of acceptances, including for Architecture and Fine Arts.
Friday, January 28 2022, 6:40pm: UT released the main decisions, of which virtually all were CAP/rejections.
Here are my thoughts on that cycle: https://youtu.be/-W-J4XDlXK4
Tuesday, February 1: Many honors decisions went out, including for Turing, Liberal Arts Honors, Plan II, and varied Natural Sciences honors.
Fall 2021 applicants heard back on these dates:
November 20, 2020: UT released a small batch of auto and non-auto Texas residents from a variety of majors. Plan II honors release a handful of honors decisions.
Spring 2021 Transfer: Most applicants who had more than 24 hours completed heard “yes” on Wednesday, December 9. More decisions continue rolling out each day. The remainder heard back in early January.
Thursday, December 10, 2020: UT releases the first major “wave” of the Fall Freshman 2021 cycle with non-auto admits gaining admission across most majors. Ten of my clients received good news including an OOS McCombs. 40 Acres Semifinalists were notified over the weekend of January 3. Fifteen of my clients heard back at this time.
Friday, January 15, 2021: A small batch of admissions decisions went out around 5pm. No students had been rejected.
January 27, 2021: UT publishes their official (heavily downvoted) video.
Friday January 29, 2021 730PM (Central): UT released their final batch of acceptances to OOS and non-autos, around a dozen of my clients got in. I share my thoughts about the piecemeal/non-transparent decision release schedule in this hot take video.
Monday, Februrary 1, 2021 6PM: AllCAP and OOS rejections go out; nobody gains admission. It was a blood bath. I published a video sharing my thoughts.
Some honors programs released admissions offers after February 1 even for students who applied by the November 1 priority deadline.
For Fall 2020 applicants, decisions were released on the following dates:
November 22, 2019, was the first release of Major decisions for a very small handful of top 6% Engineering, Business, and other majors.
Thursday, December 5 saw another small release.
Friday, December 13 experienced the first “large” wave of favorable admissions decisions
January 10 to 17 saw smaller batches of releases
The major final wave of favorable decisions went out Tuesday, January 21, 2020, the first time in recent memory the main acceptance batch didn’t go out on a Friday
Event invitation marketing blasts
Applicants and families also sometimes read too much into "invite-only" events for honors programs, for example, and misjudge that either being invited to or attending these events will improve their chances. As far as I know, the parameters for event invitations or attending virtual/in-person events do not influence admissions chances or signal anything in particular. They’re used primarily to drive application numbers and share information.
When I worked for UT, we had a flagship invite-only overnight on-campus event that included attending a UT game. The parameters for the program were pretty wide, and although many of those students did gain admission including honors, some didn’t get in at all. UT has a CRM analytics software called Recruiter (unless they’ve moved to a new system) that determines which students are invited to what events, but to my knowledge Recruiter doesn’t play any role in admissions. Recruiter tracks all of your interactions with the university and their messaging flows to you. A few students in Open Records Requests accessed their Recruiter data. So if you're thinking to attend an event primarily because you think it will improve your chances, save yourself the time and don't.
What if I’m in the top 5%? Does that change my decision notification?
No. Top 5% only guarantees a space at the university and not your first choice major, so you’re in the same boat as a non-top 5% student or a non-Texas applicant.
A few days after completing your application, you should receive a notification, “Congratulations! You’re admitted based on your high school rank.”
This DOES NOT mean you receive your major especially if you’re applying for anything outside of Liberal Arts. Moreover, accepting your top 6% notification and submitting your enrollment deposit DOES NOT increase your chances for receiving your desired major.
What about Honors admissions decisions?
Honors programs each release their decisions at their own discretion. Nowadays, they tend to release most or all of their decisions later in the cycle, after the regular admissions offers are released. I discuss Honors admissions in detail here.