The application process for The University of Texas at Austin can feel overwhelming, no matter how strong the student. With our coaching program, your student will have an experienced expert to guide them through each step of the resume & essay process, targeting the November 1 priority deadline.

So how do students who are dreaming of being Longhorns reduce their stress and make the most of the next few weeks? Here's our six-step plan for jumpstarting the UT Austin application.

1. FINALIZE THE FIRST-CHOICE MAJOR

At the beginning of the ApplyTexas application, students are asked to select a first-choice major. That choice of a major is crucial, since it becomes the lens through which an admissions reviewer evaluates each and every item in an application: transcript, test scores, essays, short answers, resume, and letters of recommendation. It's important to note that while students are allowed to list a second major, that major is rarely considered for anyone who isn't in the top 6% of their graduating class.

UT Austin has a number of highly selective majors: majors that have far more competitive applicants (rather than simply qualified applicants) than there are spaces available. Here's what makes an applicant competitive:

• Excellent grades in rigorous coursework that demonstrates preparation for their desired major
• A resume highlighting outstanding and unique extracurricular experiences or independent projects that align with the major
• Significant leadership and engagement in high school

The main takeaway when applying for a selective major: students should demonstrate that their academic and extracurricular background is a good fit for that major.

2. MAKE THE MOST OF THE EXPANDED RESUME

UT Austin recommends students submit an expanded resume to bolster their application, and we encourage students to use this opportunity to put their best foot forward.

The expanded resume is basically a list of every experience a student has had that will help the admissions office get a sense of who they are as an applicant. UT expects that these resumes might run three to four pages—or even more—so instead of just listing titles and dates, students should describe their activities, define their roles, and elaborate on their specific experiences. 

This gives students a chance to highlight all their experiences: academic, extracurricular, professional, and personal. And it means they can show off their accomplishments in a more detailed way, which enables them to further demonstrate their fit for their first-choice major.

3. TELL YOUR UNIQUE STORY IN THE PERSONAL STATEMENT

All freshman applicants to the University of Texas at Austin must submit the required essay: Topic A in ApplyTexas, or the UT Austin Required Essay in the Common App application.. This essay, between 500 and 700 words, plays a crucial role in the holistic review process for applications.

Here's the prompt:

 "Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?"

Essay A is a student's primary vehicle for communicating the aspects of their personality, perspectives, and relationships that a resume alone can't convey. It's their chance to give the admissions committee a sense of who they are and how they see the world.

Students are used to writing academic papers, where their teachers provide clear prompts, a list of expectations, and even a rubric that lays out exactly what they need to do to earn full credit. Personal essays are a different beast. The Essay A prompt is particularly open-ended. That means the expectations can seem frustratingly amorphous, and no one can tell your student with 100% accuracy what they need to do to succeed. That freedom of thought, though, is representative of what college will be like for your student, so it's a great chance to embrace that new mindset.

To start, it can be helpful for a student to rewrite the prompt in their own words to be sure they're clear on what it's asking. We've "translated" the prompt here to give you an idea of what we mean. Here's our take on what Essay A is asking.

Tell us a story. It might be a big, important story about an event or experience that completely changed the course of your life. But it might also be a small story: a memory or experience that has a special meaning for you, even if it doesn't seem important from the outside. We hope you'll choose an interesting story, but ultimately, the story is just a window into your world. We don't get to spend years in your company, becoming friends with you or getting to know you in your everyday life. But when we look through the lens of your story, we'll get a glimpse of who you are beyond this application. We'll begin to form an understanding of what you care about and how you make sense of the world. You get to choose where in your life or history you want to open that window for us—and then you get to tell us why that's the spot you've chosen. 

With that in mind, the Essay A prompt can be broken down into two primary components:

• The narrative component ("Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career...")
• The reflection component ("...that have shaped who you are today?")

4. SHOWCASE YOUR FIT FOR UT AND MAJOR CHOICE IN THE 4 SHORT ANSWER ESSAYS

When UT Austin introduced the short answer essays to their application in 2017, many students felt panicked. This year, two of the essay prompts have changed, and one new essay is required. Applications are already writing-intensive, so the thought of even more required writing can be an overwhelming prospect.

But when it comes down to it, these questions are intended to help students. How? By giving them more opportunities to showcase their fit for UT and for their first-choice major.

REQUIRED SHORT ANSWER 1: First-choice major

Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?

In this short answer, students need to communicate to the admissions committee what they personally find engaging and exciting about their proposed field of study. The admissions committee does not expect the student to be an expert in their field already, or to have their future career in this field planned out. But they do want to know that the student didn't just open the course catalog and pick a major at random.

The student should also demonstrate how they specifically—not just a generic student—will take advantage of the opportunities available to them at UT. So rather than writing a dry sentence like "I plan to apply for Department X's summer research grant," a student should write a sentence or two describing a burning question they hope to answer through their research: "With the support of Department X's summer research grants, I could deepen my understanding of [insert specific topic they're passionate about] and finally discover an answer to [burning question]—something I've been fascinated by since my sophomore-year internship at [relevant workplace]." The first sentence could just as easily apply to a thousand different applicants. The second is focused, detailed, and could only have been written by—and about—one student. 

REQUIRED SHORT ANSWER 2: Leadership 

Describe how your experiences, perspectives, talents, and/or your involvement in leadership activities (at your school, job, community, or within your family) will help you to make an impact both in and out of the classroom while enrolled at UT. 

The trick to answering this question: don't get too hung up on conventional definitions of "leadership." American popular culture tends to define leaders as people who have official titles, including Class President or Varsity Captain. We associate leadership with particular character traits, like self-confidence or charisma. And we may expect leaders to feel comfortable doing things like giving orders, delivering speeches, and making high-stakes decisions.

But there are only so many official titles to go around—and the truth is, many of us have talents and temperaments that are better suited to different (though equally important) social roles. A community or team requires many kinds of people and many varied skill sets to function effectively. 

UT doesn't want to admit thousands of leaders who are all carbon copies of one another. They want to create a heterogeneous community whose members contribute different strengths, experiences, and perspectives. So, if the traditional definition of leadership doesn't resonate with a student, they shouldn't try to fit their experiences into that mold. If they do, they'll likely wind up with a response that's vague on details and padded with generic statements. At best, they'll come off as a somewhat mediocre leader by traditional standards; at worst, they risk distorting or misrepresenting what they have actually achieved.

REQUIRED SHORT ANSWER 3: Why UT?

The core purpose of The University of Texas at Austin is, "To Transform Lives for the Benefit of Society."  Please share how you believe your experience at UT Austin will prepare you to "Change the World" after you graduate.

This question offers applicants the chance to tell the committee how studying at UT Austin will help them impact the world for the better. A student's impact could take the form of a chosen career, service/volunteer work, advocacy, leadership, or other creative or intellectual endeavors.

The key here is to combine two elements: 

• The student's reflections on how they want to impact the world (including the lives of others) for the better.
• The student's considerations of how their experiences at UT might enable them to do so.

Particularly when it comes to talking about future opportunities at UT, students should be specific, demonstrating their knowledge of the university and the possibilities it will afford them to use their education for social good.

If students have done any brainstorming for short answer 2, they've already spent a fair amount of time thinking about the role they play in the various communities or groups they belong to. Now they need to think about why they've chosen to be involved in those activities. What core values have guided these choices, and in looking to the future, how do those values inform the impact students hope to have on their community—and even the world?

5. ASK 2 TEACHERS TO WRITE LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

Recommendations are a crucial part of any student's college application. No matter how exceptional a student appears based on their essay, short answers, and resume, the recommendations serve as a reliable confirmation that the student is as promising as the rest of their application suggests. Because of the power that recommendations hold, it's important to be discerning when choosing recommenders. It's important to understand that teachers may take a few weeks to write your recommendation so be sure to ask as soon as possible.

Choosing the best possible recommenders is especially important at UT, where a recent policy change means that they now only allow for two letters of recommendation. With only two chances, students really need to consider who will write the most compelling endorsement of their talent, character, and potential.

For starters, students should be sure the recommenders they choose know them well enough to say something unique about them. If a student's recommendations are boilerplate or general—and don't speak specifically to that student's strengths and abilities—they won't serve as a value-add for the application. Similarly, students should choose people who they think would be excited to write these recommendations, as that excitement will shine through in the letters and make them stand out to admissions officers.

Students should also go out of their way to find recommenders who can speak to their potential in their first-choice major. That might be someone who understands the student's skill set as it relates to that major, or it might be someone who can speak to their passion for that specific field.

6. WORK WITH YOUR HIGH SCHOOL TO ORDER TRANSCRIPTS

School guidance departments usually have a specific procedure to follow—or form to fill out—to request transcripts, so students should make sure they know how to get copies of their grades sent to every college that needs them. For schools that use Naviance, transcript orders are typically made through this online system.



Whatever the system, remember: transcripts must be sent directly from the high school. Most schools won't send transcripts until the beginning of September, but we encourage students to request them immediately after the fall semester begins. The longer they wait, the more likely they'll run into a backlog from the guidance office.