Rejected by the University of Texas, Austin (UT Austin) and want to appeal? This article is for you.

UT Austin rejected a lot of students considering their 30.4% acceptance rate. But, submitting an appeal is your chance to turn the tables.

Are the chances slim? Sure! But, it’s also your only chance. And, that’s worth taking.

But, it won’t be easy.

Appeal processes have had a history of slim to 0 chance of acceptance. Additionally, competition for appeals is fierce. Many students have strong reasons for appeal such as transcript errors or crucially missing information.

That’s why writing your appeal letter carefully is so important. A solid UT Austin appeal letter will help you stand out.

That’s why we created this article: to guide you through writing a successful UT Austin appeal essay. Additionally, UT Austin does have some peculiarities. You’ll need to understand these before you start writing. So, please read through the first 3 sections first. Trust us: it’s important!

With that said, let’s get to it!

Table of Contents

1. UT Austin Appeal Decision Stats.
2. How Important is the Essay for UT’s Appeal Process? How Much of a Difference Does a Good Essay Make?
3. Some Important (Albeit Weird) Information Regarding UT’s History of Appeals
4. How to Answer the UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompts.
   • UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompt 1: Short Answer New, Significant and/or Compelling Information.
   • UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompt 2: Optional Supplemental Information.
5. The Harsh Reality… and What YOU Can Do.

UT Austin Appeal Decision Stats

Let’s start with UT Austin’s appeal stats.

That is, how many people get accepted off of appeals? What percentage of students applying for appeal to UT Austin get accepted?

Unfortunately, UT Austin does NOT make any appeal statistics open to the public. But, here’s what they have to say on their official appeal page.

“UT Austin carefully and thoughtfully considers all of the information you provide when you apply. Our application review process involves the careful reading and consideration of each application. UT Austin makes final admission decisions about an incoming class only after considering all applicants, the needs of the University and its academic programs, and limitations on class size. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the University would reverse its original admission decision. “

UT Austin Appeal Official Page

So, that doesn’t help much.

But, here’s what we managed to dig up:

Historically, less than 1% of students were accepted off of UT Austin’s appeal process. However, in recent years, a growing number of students are getting accepted.

This may be good news for students who were rejected. For, they may have a better chance of getting accepted through appeals. It should also be noted that this has only happened in recent years. Appeals are subject to change. So, UT Austin’s seemingly conservative acceptance rate of appeals being whimsical should make you wary. Be careful of what you put in your appeal essay, and don’t bet on them accepting you.

You should have a set of backup plans for what to do on the off chance UT Austin doesn’t accept you through the appeal process given its seemingly whimsical admissions rate.

But, stats aside, you can’t control how many people UT Austin wants to accept off the appeal pool. A college’s admissions rate and appeal acceptance rate are not in your control. You shouldn’t sweat it. That ball is in their court. Not yours. And, oftentimes many of our students are far too focused on what UT Austin’s appeal acceptance rates are.

You should not ruminate on their appeal stats too much. Just use it to make an informed decision: how much time will you dedicate to writing a solid appeal letter? How much are you going to bank on its success? What’s your alternative path if you don’t get accepted?

For you, you should consider what is actually within your control. And, what’s actually in your control is what you write in your appeal essay.

In the next section, we’ll be covering exactly that.

How Important is the Essay for UT’s Appeal Process? How Much of a Difference Does a Good Essay Make?

Now, for the next important point: how important is the appeal essay? Or, how much of a difference does a good appeal essay make for UT Austin appeals?

Here’s the short answer: it’s important and can make a big difference. But, UT Austin is weird about it.

The essay is important in that it’s the ONLY element of the UT Austin appeal process that you have control over. While no amount of hyperbolic writing can make your chances skyrocket to a 1000% acceptance rate, you can certainly maximize your chances.

However, a bad letter can definitely tank your acceptance rate.

So, long story short: writing a good appeal letter will somewhat boost your chances of acceptance to UT Austin. However, the benefit of it will still be at best slight in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, it’s better to write it well since a poorly written appeal letter can greatly reduce your chances significantly.

Texadmissions wrote a fantastic article detailing the problem with the essay process here. In summary, recent years have seen a good number of students get accepted compared to its typical ballpark 1% appeal acceptance rate. Additionally, a handful of these accepted appeal essays didn’t include compelling reasons for appeal.

Long story short, the sudden spike in appeal acceptances (with some essays being accepted without solid reasons), gives the appeal process a seemingly randomized chance of acceptance.

Now, here’s our opinion.

We don’t think that UT Austin’s recently generous appeal acceptance rate is any reason to be reckless with the appeal essay. Rather, we recommend you treat UT Austin’s appeal process like any other appeal: proceed with caution, be conservative about it, and write carefully.

Frankly, we don’t know what is going on in UT Austin’s admissions pool. No one does. And, it’s in your best interest to write a solid appeal letter as you would with any other whilst also writing your other appeals.

Some Important (Albeit Weird) Information Regarding UT’s History of Appeals

Okay, okay.

This all sounds super good, right? After all, UT Austin is suddenly taking in students off of appeals hand over fist.

In the Fall of 2023, something unusual happened with UT Austin’s appeal process.

Practically everyone was denied. However, this allowed students to submit a second appeal due to UT Austin leaving the portal open. This may have been in “error.” (and we really emphasize the quotation marks here…) Nonetheless, it let a lot of students in.

And a lot as in hundreds. That’s right: UT Austin accepted hundreds of students through the appeal process. And this is across many different majors too.

This left the Fall of 2023 as a weird sort of backdoor admissions year for a lot of students. Additionally, this phenomenon seemed to have occurred in 2020 and a few years before. But these instances of “generous appeal processes” were rather spotty and without explanation.

And —as heard through the grapevine— many applicants were accepted with less-than-favorable appeal letters. They supposedly “didn’t even have grounds for appeal” such as writing about “really, really wanting to get in.”

Wow…

Note: This is no excuse to write a sloppy UT Austin appeal letter. Write it sharp, and write it well.

Hypothetically, this could be due to UT Austin using their appeals process as a faux fall-back method in case they don’t meet their desired enrollment quota. That is, if they don’t get enough people in, they just pick from the litter of appealing students to meet their goals.

But, at the end of the day, UT Austin is silent about this matter and doesn’t seem to be releasing any statements about it.

So, they can keep their secrets.

It should be noted that UT Austin is not the only school to have had years of generous appeal processes.

USC has had many students accepted off the appeal process for seemingly no reason either. There were a few years back when USC accepted a good number of students off the appeal pool, and many of them had said the same thing. Their appeal letters had nothing of substance or worth appealing for. It just contained letters stating how much they loved USC and would like a second chance.

Again, this is NOT a reason to write a sloppy appeal letter. Solid appeal letters with good reasoning and professionally written prose can help turn the tide. You need to be careful and not bank on a “generous appeal year.”

Oh, and by the way, if you were rejected from USC and wanted to appeal there too, here’s an article on how to write the letters.

How to Answer the UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompts

Below we’ve pasted the prompt for the first UT Austin appeal essay, along with our “best practices” on how to answer it.

UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompt 1: Short Answer New, Significant and/or Compelling Information.

“One short answer (500 words or fewer) to the following prompt: Describe the new information (not already included in your original application) that should be considered by the appeals committee, and why. This new, significant and/or compelling information can be related to your  academic performance, extracurricular activities or a description of the extenuating circumstances.”

UT Austin Texas Appeals Website Page, Official Website

There are 3 elements to this prompt: Academic performance, extracurricular activities, and extenuating circumstances. We’re going to cover each of these one at a time.

Academic Performance:

Academic performance can include a number of things. Here’s a small list of things you can add to your appeal letter if they apply.

1. Grades going up (a spike).
2. Grades that went down but then back up again. (a dip and spike)
3. Performing well or doing better in hard or rigorous courses.
4. Receiving a new academic award; or, clarification of existing awards that paint a new picture of the achievement.
5. Scores from tests like the SATs and ACTs that saw a significant increase to demonstrate major differences from your previous application (about 200-300 point difference; or 1400-1600 score jump)

Extracurricular Activities:

1. Selected for a leadership position (does NOT have to be president.)
2. Elected to lead in one event rather than hold a position. But, this event is big and demanded a lot of responsibility.
3. Received a notable mention or honor that was meaningful and impactful.
4. Completed a personal project of your own within your major.
5. Completed a personal project outside your major.
6. Created a personal project that could be monetized or is big enough to have a substantial following.
7. Performed at a high level in any sport, extracurricular in school, extracurricular out of school, or hobby. Example: earning a black belt or earning your Eagle Scout award.

Extenuating circumstances: 

1. Discovering you were diagnosed with a condition, mental or physical, that could have explained previous academic dips in performance or made existing performance more impressive. (Example: ADHD making it harder to earn your 4.0 GPA compared to others.)
2. Financial hardships you or your family have endured.
3. Medical issues you or your family have endured.
4. Regional or geographical problems that made correspondence and application completion promptly impossible. (Example: being cut off from American internet due to China’s digital restrictions)
5. Many convoluted strings of events made being a good candidate harder than expected. (This is kind of hard to argue as a topic; but, it’s still valid by technical means. If something like a series of inconveniences happened to you, consider speaking with us to receive help on how to write about this properly.)

The thing is, it doesn’t really matter all too much what you write about in this prompt. While major events like curing cancer would probably turn the tide tremendously, most topics are not going to be a deal breaker.

If anything, it’s going to be about HOW you write about your topic and leverage its themes and the character traits drawn between the lines.

For example, let’s say you’re a student who managed to increase their GPA significantly since the last time they sent their application.

Don’t just say that and assume the admissions officers know what to infer about it. It can’t just stand on its own as a statement. Instead, you need to think about the themes and character traits you can extract from the event; and then, mention those to put you in a positive light. In this case, your spike in academic performance may demonstrate that you’re not just hard-working. You’re also someone who values intellectual curiosity and higher learning even without the promise of prestige at a university. The fact that you continued to learn and perform at a high level demonstrates your dedication to what you’re studying; and, you can apply that intellectual personality to UT Austin, where your curiosity will be put to good use.

So, remember: it’s about HOW you write about the topic, and it’s not all about the topic in itself!

Now, for the second UT Austin appeal essay prompt.

UT Austin Appeal Essay Prompt 2: Optional Supplemental Information.

“Any relevant supplemental information (optional):

1. One letter of recommendation from a teacher, school official or community member who can speak to the nature of the appeal, which should include compelling background.

2. Updated transcript, if applicable.“

UT Austin Texas Appeals Website Page, Official Website

For this one, we heavily recommend having a supplemental letter of rec if and only if you believe it would provide new context. That is, the letter or rec should demonstrate another dimension of your personality, accomplishments, or character not originally shown in the application.

If, however, the recommendation letter is only regurgitating the same information that was provided in the initial part of your application, it may not help. In fact, it can work against you by demonstrating that you’re just using a Hail Mary attempt at squeezing into the admitted pool.

Now, let’s say you don’t have any teachers, school officials, etc who can provide you a rec letter that provides new information.

Should you lose hope?

Well, no!

Most counselors, teachers, and school officials don’t know their students very well in general. So, they’re often more than happy to let you have control over what goes in the letter of rec. In other words, you write the content and they check it before signing off on it.

This is common practice in letters of rec writing today.

If you don’t think you have any relevant new or compelling information to show in a letter of rec, try to discuss it with your counselor or college admissions essay editor. Just be honest. Say that nothing comes to mind; but, you want to get in and see if you can conjure a detail to discuss.

The Harsh Reality… and What YOU Can Do.

There’s a harsh reality to the UT Austin appeal process. But, before we get to that, don’t forget: below we’ve pasted the dates and deadlines for appeal.

Now, here’s a harsh reality of the admissions appeal process at UT Austin: the appeal process can be unfair.

That’s right. Why?

Well, we’re going to be very blunt here. Some of our accepted students didn’t have strong reasons in their appeal essays.

Meanwhile, other students with fantastic essays + new and compelling information didn’t get in. That doesn’t just include students we didn’t work with. It includes some of our students as well.

So, at the end of the day, there’s a level of randomness that is a bit unfair to you.

We know. This sucks. It’s the way the admissions process is; and, we wish it could be more fair and equitable. But, that’s just how they operate.

But, what you CAN do is your best. We know: it’s so cliche. Do your best, and everything will be okay. However, we want to emphasize this mindset here because it’s something we tell all our appeal essay clients. If you do everything within your power to maximize your chances of acceptance (including writing a solid appeal essay) you can be guilt-free.

We’ll repeat that for the people in the back.

If you do your best this appeal season, you have nothing to feel guilty for.

You can rest knowing you’ve done everything you possibly could. And, not only that, you won’t stay up at night ruminating about what “could have been” had you just worked harder on the appeal letter. Writing a solid appeal letter to UT Austin isn’t just a way of maximizing your acceptance rate: it’s also a way of giving yourself closure post-rejection, such that the “what if”s don’t come to haunt you in the future.

This is a major part of the emotional aspect of appeals and rejections. And, frankly, after having consulted with countless students on their appeals, we feel the pursuit of closure via doing everything one can is very, very, underrated.

Of course, if you happen to have any questions about how to write the UT Austin appeal essay, or just want help with writing it, do let us know! Schedule a free consultation with us today! We’ll get back to you within 24 hours! We’ve helped countless students get accepted into the schools of their dreams via appeal; and, our most common acceptances include UCB and USC.