I’m hoping to apply to either Pre-Law, McCombs, or the Engineering school (Comp Sci).
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): Haven’t got them yet
ACT (breakdown): 28 (English - 35, Math - 22, Reading - 29, Science - 24, Writing, 21)
SAT II: Haven’t taken it yet
GPA: 91 (My school doesn’t use the 4.0 scale)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Probably top 40%
AP: APUSH, AP English Language
Major Award: NSPA Best of Show Publications Website 3rd Place
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): NHS, Speech and Debate (Historian 1 yr), Morning News Broadcast (Anchor 2 yrs), School Newspaper (Web Editor 1 yr), School Yearbook, Political Awareness Club (Officer), Student Council (Cabinet 1 yr), Model UN,
Job/Work Experience: Sales Associate at Office Depot
Other
State (if domestic applicant): Texas
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: <50k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation
Comp Sci is in the College of Natural Sciences
I don’t believe there is a such thing as pre-law. You can major in just about anything and go on to law school. UT offers an Electrical and Computer Engineering degree (ECE) in the Engineering school and Computer Science degree in the College of Natural Sciences. Both are extremely competitive.
“As a state-assisted institution, the University reserves 90 percent of its spaces for Texas residents per Texas law; 10 percent of the spaces are reserved for out-of-state and international students.”
“Section 51.803 of the Texas Education Code defines the rules that govern automatic admission to Texas universities. Under these rules, the University is required to use automatic admission to fill at least 75 percent of the spaces available to Texas residents in each entering freshman class.”
Next year, you’ll need to be in the top 7 percent of your class in a Texas school to qualify for auto admission.
Since you do not qualify for auto admission, you’ll compete with everyone else for the 22.5% (25 percent of the 90 percent) of the slots left.
UT uses a combination of an AI/PAI to make these decisions. (See the end of this document)
https://www.utsystem.edu/sites/utsfiles/documents/institutions/best-practice-admissions-processes/ut-system-admissions-best-practices-2014-07.pdf
I hate to discourage you, but your rank and ACT are going to be problems for you- especially for McCombs, CS or ECE. Your PAI score might offset it but you will most likely get CAP. Applying to a less competitive major could increase your chances, but do you really want to go to school where you can’t major in what you want to?
Apply - write great essays, take your tests again, give it your best shot. In the meantime, read about CAP, decide if it interests you, be prepared if that is what you are offered.
Thanks for the feedback. Definitely appreciated!
@BluePinkerton To expand on what gettingschooled said about law school, you can major in anything and as long as it’s a four year bachelor’s you can apply to law schools afterwards. The way law school admissions works is 90% based on your college level GPA and your score on the LSAT exam, which is scored from 120-180. So if you’re certain you want to go to law school you should probably major in something that you can get a good GPA in (at least 3.5+), and which also allows you to learn the necessary reading, writing, and critical thinking skills to do well on the LSAT. This is why Philosophy, History, Political Science, and English are historically the 4 most popular majors for those applying to law school.
If you’re not certain you want to become a lawyer, which is probably very smart at your age, you may want to major in something more ‘practical’, such as engineering or business, which might hurt your GPA significantly, and your eventual chances to go to law school, but will likely give you more options without having to take on a huge amount of debt in law school.
Do you know your eventual goals? Engineering and law are extremely different, although the do overlap in the area of IP, in which it’s required that your have a STEM degree to specialize in that area of law.
Judging by your ACT scores though, if you’re really interested in law, you might want to go the liberal arts route and shoot for a very high GPA. Your Math and Science scores are relatively low, with high English and Reading scores, which indicates you might do well on a test like the LSAT which is entirely verbal. Moreover, an Engineering discipline may be difficult for you judging by your test scores, the high scores in English and Reading, on the hand, indicate your might do very well in one of the classical liberal arts that involves lots of reading and writing. Although, I would encourage you to do more research on law school, the legal market, and what lawyers actually do before you make this decision.