Is anyone else still waiting on Plan II? I haven’t received anything…
someone posted on the accepted students pages that they emailed and were told that decisions were mailed on Tuesday so i think it should be coming soon.
Naw, they haven’t put us out of our misery, yet.
But if you haven’t heard anything up 'til now, that means that:
- You haven’t been admitted, and
- You haven’t been put on the wait list, either.
Draw your own conclusions. 
While futzing with housing, I was on MyStatus and noticed that it has now been over FIVE months since I submitted my Plan II application. Geez, even Ivy League decisions only take 3 months. I feel incredibly jacked around by the whole ordeal. BHP applicants from my school got a thumbs up or thumbs down in a much more timely manner.
Rejected
@ploof123 I am sorry to hear that. Did you get a letter in the mail today? if so, where do you live?
36 ACT, Top 1% class rank at crazy competitive in-state public, NMF, AP National Scholar, etc. etc.
REJECTED.
One sentence through the portal.
“We are unable to offer you admission to the Plan II Honors Program.”
Cold, man, just cold.
Feeling really disappointed. Makes me feel like I wasted four years of HS working hard for that 1% rank, when I could have partied and slacked off, and still gotten my auto-admit major, since it’s on the “booby prize” list of currently available majors.
I’ll probably still attend UT, but this rejection is going to chap my hide while I’m there.
@tb2000 thanks; like @AndyDufrense I saw through mystatus. I live in Austin and my stats were similar to his (top 1%, pretty high SAT, NMF etc.) I guess I have the rest of my life to see if my efforts in high school were wasted… 
Rejected from LAH today. (I got into Plan II a few weeks ago.)
Turns out LAH requires you to declare a major in the College of Liberal Arts, and I had declared a Natural Sciences major. Oops. Fortunately Plan II was my preference of the two.
What a disappointment to not be accepted when you have worked so hard with such amazing results. I wanted to pass on some insight that my son and I picked up while attending an admissions workshop at my Alma Mater (William and Mary). The admissions process is completely random, arbitrary and capricious. Unfortunately, the decision regarding your admission into any school or program is governed by the subjective experiences, background and views of the few people who review your application. It truly is a holistic review and you have no idea which part of your application will be compelling. Schools are looking for “fit” and creating a diverse group. Don’t take it personally that Plan II didn’t accept you. They probably had too many applicants who shared your strengths. My son benefitted from hearing this from the admissions deans of several top universities. He’s prepared to get rejected from a lot of great schools and hopefully accepted into some. Best of luck to you.
My son was also not invited to Plan II on Wednesday, via MyStatus update. He received the letter from Plan II yesterday in the mail. Since he had already been accepted to LAH this didn’t sting as much. To be honest, I was a little concerned of the rigors associated with Plan II. Congratulations to all that did get into Plan II. To those great students that didn’t, I’m sure my words of support won’t help much now, but when you graduate in 2020 as Summa/Magna/Cum Laude students or have been elected into the many Honors Societies like Phi Beta Kappa etc, or nailed a prestigious research or internship program, this will be but a small bump in the foundation of your life and career. Good luck and congratulations to all. Get ready for the ride of your life.
Just following up with some additional information that may help next year’s kids “adjust” their expectations.
tl;dr version: When Plan II says, " a substantial number of our successful applicants come from the first five positions in their high school classes", believe it.
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Backstory: I attend a super-competitive public school. It is also a super-LARGE public school, with well over 1000 kids in the graduating class. That means that, even though I’m in the Top 1%, there are a dozen or so people with a higher class rank.
I didn’t think that was a deal-killer, as most of our tippy-top kids end up gunning for HYPSM and the like, instead of UT. Until last week, I was unaware of anyone with a higher rank applying to Plan II. Through the Twittersphere and lunch chat, I found out some interesting information. We actually had at least SIX kids from the Top 1% applying, as well as several highly-qualified kids below the Top 1% .
Let’s be real - Plan II isn’t going to make a dozen offers to kids from a single school. And I can understand and accept that.
As it played out, they made THREE offers to our school. Those were to the top 3 kids from our school who applied (ranks 3,4, and 6, or close to that). Being honest with myself, if the limit were 3, and if I were evaluating the applications in a vacuum, I would also have chosen those kids over me - higher grades, and also Ivy-worthy resumes.
No one below the Top 0.5% from our school got in, and someone ranked above me also got rejected. That makes me feel a bit less salty. I can blame my ginormous, faceless school, instead of me. 
I no longer feel as if Plan II did me wrong.
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In the end, the joke’s on Plan II, though:
-
NONE of those 3 kids will actually attend UT/Plan II. All three of those kids were using Plan II as a safety - one is already in at Wharton ED, another just got a likely letter from Brown (recruited athlete), and the third, although deferred from Harvard SCEA, is applying to something like 15-20 top schools, so she’s sure to get in somewhere with a bigger name (which seems to be her primary motivation lol).
-
They chased off the other two people from the Top 1%. One girl is going to take the merit money from TAMU, and the other one is going to go “anywhere I get in that’s not UT”. I’m the only one still planning to attend.
So they accepted all the ones NOT serious about UT, and bonged all the ones who WERE serious about UT. Oops.
My daughter was accepted to Plan II last week. Her Mystatus was updated around the 27th and then a few days later the large envelope came in the mail. She is very excited and honored. UT was her top choice school, and Plan II was her dream. I really believe Plan II is a wonderful “fit” for her. She is very interested in the interdisciplinary structure that this program offers.
I know there are a huge number of highly qualified applicants that apply to Plan II every year. I’m sure it’s not an easy job to choose from such a talented applicant pool. I don’t envy the job of the admissions team, but I do think they are trying hard to choose students who will excel in the program academically AND who seem to be a good fit with the Plan II philosophy. From my own research I have learned that it is a very unique, rigorous, and exciting interdisciplinary program, but it’s probably not for everyone.
Anyway, for what it’s worth based on my daughter’s experience I can tell you that the Plan II admissions process is not only about scores and rank. Of course, academics do matter…but they aren’t everything.
Congratulations to everyone heading to UT in the fall. No matter which program or school you are in, it is an amazing university and you are sure to find your place among all of the interesting people there! I am envious of you ALL! Hook em!
If you remain interested in attending Plan II and are going to UT regardless, I would strongly suggest you appeal your denial, and seek a review of your application. The process is automatic and a student of your caliber would likely be placed on the wait list. The list clears very late, making it impossible for those not currently attending to select Plan II. If you are a committed Longhorn–take this route.
For those who are accepted into an Honors Program, don’t forget (like me) to go to the Honors tab in MyStatus and either Accept or Decline the Honors program. This needs to be done prior to May 1st, or you will be declined automatically.
Son will decline his UT Plan II honors offer and give up a 40k Engineering honors scholarship tonight. So, at least one slot will open up. Good luck to all with their final decisions. -psy
My son was accepted into LAH several months ago, and just received notice that he was accepted into Plan II from the waitlist yesterday (I posted about the timing for LAH above). Just three days ago, he decided to accept the offer from UT for LAH. Now we are wondering if he should change to Plan II. He’s attracted to the “prestige” of Plan II (especially because he’s interested in grad school, law or med), but does not want the restricted curriculum. We attended the “Best of Texas” a few weeks ago and met the LAH advisors and other students and parents who were admitted. It was a really impressive crowd. He’s about 90% sure he’s going to go with LAH because he wants to choose his curriculum, but we will follow this thread in case anyone has a compelling selling point for Plan II.
BTW, he was also offered admission at UCLA, William & Mary and Emory. Those three options were going to be significantly more expensive, and while they are admittedly higher “ranked” schools, we decided that the extra $100+k wasn’t worth it.
@miltaryparent , agree about the cost not worth it. As you stated in an earlier post your son didn’t far well in the math side of ACT. Is that similar in his HS transcripts? Reason being, from what I know of Plan II it’s Honors/Steroids Math and Science. If that’s not really his forte ( ie Psych major) then the Plan II prestige could be boat anchor on his grades. Either way, Congrats to him on Plan II and LAH. Good to be him!!
@TXDad56 advice is the game plan my son and I formulated. My son was admitted to LAH back in November. He’s interested in studying history as an undergrad and then attending law school. He bombed on the math section of the ACT/SAT and has perfect scores on English/Reading ACT and near perfect score on SAT English. He did not apply to Plan II because we knew the curriculum including Plan II physics was not his cup of tea and would destroy his GPA. We felt it would be much better to simply concentrate in the area he was strongest in (social sciences/humanities) in LAH and take non-science major mathematics and sciences courses.
I attended UT as an undergrad back in 90s, majored in government. I was not in LAH which had recently been started back then and obviously I was not in Plan II either. I worked hard to get as high a GPA as possible knowing that I needed that for law school admission. I coupled that with a great LSAT score and was admitted to UT Law, (currently #15 nationally), and received the Robert S. Strauss Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Law - proud that there’s still a plaque in the law school with my name on it as a Strauss Scholarship recipient
@miltaryparent I attended Best of Texas as well and I was also impressed by the presentation by LAH. I can tell you I have a colleague who is also an alum of UT Law who graduated a few years after me. She was a member of LAH and she had quite a few friends in Plan II. One of the interesting things she told me is that her friends in Plan II who applied to some law schools outside the state of Texas had to explain to the admission staffs at those schools exactly what Plan II is. Now, that’s a minor inconvenience; however, I think it does give you some insight into the prestige factor. If you son excels in LAH, he will be fine as far as selective law school admissions goes. In any event, by far the two most important factors for law school admission are GPA and LSAT score - after that criteria such as whether the applicant participated in their school honors program or even the academic reputation of the school itself are much farther down on the list. Having said all of that, if you think your son can handle and even excell at the rigor of Plan II math and sciences, then by all means go for it because as nice as LAH is, Plan II is by far the better program to me in terms of forming a close-knit academic community of scholars. I just know my boy was not going to be acing their science/math curriculum. Good luck to your son whatever you decide.