UT-Austin Announces Significant Changes for Freshman Fall 2025
Scooter adventure in Tabanan, Bali
On March 11, 2024, UT-Austin announced significant changes for the upcoming Freshman Fall 2025 admissions cycle. As of writing, UT has not updated it’s admissions page yet.
The proposed changes include the following:
UT-Austin is not test optional. All Fall 2025 freshman applicants must submit an official SAT or ACT directly from the testing agency to be eligible for admission. Applicants do not need to submit the writing section.
Early Action deadline of October 15 with a guarantee to receive the admissions decision by January 15.
Changes to the Main Essay and removing one supplement, topics to be determined.
Introduction of a waitlist for the first time in many years.
“Narrowed scope of recommendation letters”
UT-Austin is not Test Optional
This is probably the most significant change and one that isn’t surprising, given that many elite universities, like Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Georgetown, MIT, and the University of Florida, have returned to requiring the SAT/ACT. Most universities went test-optional during COVID, but many universities are reverting to pre-COVID policies as we exit the pandemic.
What’s peculiar is that each university or public school system that chooses to require exams or remain test-optional examines similar data sets and comes to opposite conclusions. The University of California system, which remains test-blind, where test scores are not considered at all, argues that test requirements decrease access and inclusion.
In contrast, Brown argues that requiring the exam increases inclusion and access: “The data suggested unintended adverse outcomes of test-optional policies in the admissions process itself, potentially undermining the goal of increasing access. The committee was concerned that some students from less-advantaged backgrounds were choosing not to submit scores under the test-optional policy, when doing so could actually increase their chances of being admitted.”
UT-Austin’s press release makes a similar argument to pro-testing universities in general that SAT scores correlate with one’s college GPA and likelihood of graduating on time. From the press release: “Students who submitted standardized scores performed significantly better on those exams and in their first semester of college, relative to those who did not take the test or chose not to have their scores considered as part of a holistic review.”
Conversations around test requirements are extremely polarized along predictable political lines. After four years of widespread test-optional experimentation, I honestly don’t know how to make sense of the data or how I feel about whether a university should or shouldn’t require the exam. It’s all become so muddled that I can’t draw strong conclusions, and I sympathize with both pro-testing and test-optional camps. The issue is I can’t tell what’s true in an objective sense, or maybe somehow both arguments are right for different reasons.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I think or how you, as the applicant and family, should feel about these policies. Since enough universities have reverted to requiring them, it’s almost certain that you will need to take the SAT. Still, I shared my thoughts in a summer 2020 post, when this movement accelerated, if you wish to read them.
My primary concern is the timing. Fall 2025 applicants only have six months to take the exams, and with the SAT going digital, it presents a study learning curve (or perhaps an opportunity for students without access to test prep to perform better on a theoretically more level playing field?) There is also a big gap between the June 1, 2024, SAT and the one on August 24, 2024, which doesn’t allow for taking the exam over the summer. The ACT has June and July testing dates though.
I would have preferred that UT and other universities require the exam for Fall 2026 applicants to allow more time for families and applicants to adjust to this new reality or at least announce this a few months ago.
New October 15 UT Early Action Deadline
In 2017, UT-Austin announced its first official "Priority Deadline” of November 1. Over the past cycles, it was unclear what advantage, if any, applying early offered or whether applying early resulted in an applicant receiving their decision sooner. My suggestion then and now remains the same: most applicants should apply by the early deadline.
The press release states: “This optional deadline will require application submission by Oct. 15, with a guaranteed decision communicated to applicants by Jan. 15. The regular deadline for applications will remain Dec. 1, with a guaranteed decision communicated by Feb. 15.”
Essentially, every university that offers early deadlines, whether non-binding Early Action or binding Early Decision, has a November 1 deadline, which signals a shift from the nationwide consensus. Universities have “collective action” and “coordination” problems that I will discuss in the recommendation letter change section. UT unilaterally changing their early deadline to October 15 without coordinating with other universities or their sister school, Texas A&M, will add stress on families and schools who now have to contend with October 15, November 1, December 1, and early January deadlines.
The only students whom I recommend applying for regular decision on December 1 are those who are taking the SAT/ACT in October or November with the hopes of receiving their scores. If you think you can substantially improve your score, it is always better to wait and apply later relative to whatever unknowable advantage applying early might provide. Although UT has not explicitly said it, I assume that applying by October 15 will not allow you to update your test score after that date.
What remains unclear and that UT has never communicated is how they trickle out decisions “in waves” where small batches of applicants receive favorable admission starting from late November while the vast majority of eventual admitted students do not receive their decision until the end of January. I wish UT would release all decisions in a single batch or at least clarify why some students hear back sooner. Trickling decisions adds substantial stress and anxiety within families, schools, communities, and social media.
Essay Requirement Changes
The press release reads:
“Modification of the required essay. This will provide greater flexibility in topic choice and enable students to leverage responses used on other applications, while expanding opportunity for a more personalized response.
Reduction in the number of short answer responses. This reduction from three responses to two will maintain the currently used major-related question, while creating a new prompt that allows students to highlight a specific activity of their choice.”
UT-Austin changed their essay topic in 2020 to invite students to “tell us your story.” Two years later, they joined the Common App, yet instead of opting into the Common App’s “choose one of seven essay topics” like essentially every Common App university, they still required this “tell us your story prompt.” Although UT has not clarified what will be required for the long main essay, I suspect they will opt into the essay choice system.
For the supplements, I was deeply critical of UT’s Change the World supplement implemented in 2022. It’s arguably the worst supplement of all time. It seems they will get rid of this topic, which I support. In general, I deride almost all supplement questions besides “Tell us why you want your major” and “Discuss an activity or extracurricular that matters to you.” In my Surviving the College Admissions Madness, I call for simplified and fewer essay requirements, and this change is a step in that direction.
I will make a separate post when the admissions website updates to reflect specific changes.
A Waitlist
Like the essay change, I support this modification. UT has announced an “Introduction of a waitlist. Applies to students who are not automatically admitted. Most students will be notified as early as March 1 if they are admitted from the waitlist.”
As I’ve written and videoed for many years, the Appeals process has become an absurd, farcical lottery in which UT fills the remaining spaces to make its enrollment class. I hope introducing a waitlist will bring some transparency and diminish the aggregate anxiety and stress that admissions rejections around “what families can do.”
Recommendation Letter Suggestion Changes
This change has a positive intention but will miss the mark in practice. The press release reads: “Narrowed scope for letters of recommendation. Applicants submitting letters of recommendation will be strongly encouraged to provide those letters from sources outside of their high school. This reduces the burden of this work on high school teachers and counselors and allows University staff to better leverage other materials.”
I’m deeply critical of the recommendation letter requirements in my Admissions Madness book. I argue that they’re a waste of time for students, recommenders, and the universities who must read them. I estimate a few million human hours are wasted each year on them. Of all the college application items, besides perhaps interviews, rec letters are the most energy for the least help evaluating applicants.
UT seems to agree, but they’ve taken a half-measure of adding ambiguity to an already muddled practice. Since universities do not coordinate their policies nor act collectively, UT’s suggestion will make zero difference in practice since almost every applicant applying to UT is also applying to other universities where they will either be required to submit a recommendation letter from a high school official or core subject teacher. Suppose even a single university on a student’s college list requires letters, and almost all top 50 private universities require them, including Rice. In that case, students will submit them everywhere, including UT, where they have always been optional.
If a critical mass of universities made the same change, this change could make a difference. Unilateral changes will not produce UT’s stated intentions to reduce school staff workloads. If UT were sincere about its care for school communities and staff workloads, it would have forbidden recommendation submissions, as the University of California has for many years. They have the chance to start a collective movement away from removing recommendation letters from the nationwide American admissions landscape, but I doubt they’ll take the initiative.
What will end up happening now is this equivocal recommendation will add more stress for applicants because now they will scramble to get recommendation letters from non-school sources under the mistaken assumption it’s now a requirement or “strongly recommended.” I hope UT clarifies its policies because this will cause a giant mess. One consequence is elite families will badger UT-affiliated staff to submit rec letters on their behalf since they’re not high school affiliated. Get ready for a mountain of crappy letters from “family friends” or supervisors at non-substantive internships or random UT alum. It’s obvious to me UT hasn’t thought through their modification.
My suggestion is and will remain not to go out of your way to acquire rec letters. If you’ve already secured teacher letters for other universities, still submit them to UT. Still, they do not make a difference for 99% of applicants.