The University of Texas at Austin, informally UT Austin, UT, University of Texas, or Texas in sports contexts, is a public research university and the flagship institution of The University of Texas System.
The University of Texas at Austin is one of the most selective universities
in the region. Relative to other universities in the state of Texas, UT Austin
is second to Rice
University in selectivity according to a Business Journal
study weighing acceptance rates and the mid-range of the SAT and ACT. UT Austin
was ranked as the 18th most selective in the South. As a state public
university, UT Austin was subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guaranteed
graduating Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their class admission to
any public Texas university. A new state law granting UT (but no other state
university) a partial exemption from the top 10% rule, Senate Bill 175, was
passed by the 81st Legislature in 2009. It modified this admissions policy by
limiting automatically admitted freshmen to 75% of the entering in-state
freshman class, starting in 2011. The university will admit the top one percent,
the top two percent and so forth until the cap is reached; the university
expects to automatically admit students in the top 8% of their graduating class
for 2011. Furthermore, students admitted under Texas House Bill
588 are not guaranteed their choice of college or major, but rather only
guaranteed admission to the university as a whole. Many colleges, such as the
Cockrell School of Engineering, have secondary requirements that must be met for
admission.
For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is
deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching and by U.S. News & World Report. For Fall 2014, 38,785
applied and 15,381 were accepted (39.7%), and of those accepted, 47.4%
enrolled. Among freshman students who enrolled in
Fall 2014, SAT scores for the middle 50%
ranged from 570-680 for critical reading, 600-710 for math, and 560-680 for
writing. ACT composite
scores for the middle 50% ranged from 26-31. In terms of class
rank, 69.4% of enrolled freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school
classes and 90.3% ranked in the top quarter.
UT Austin is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities in the
country. Nationally, UT Austin was ranked tied for 52nd among all universities,
and tied for 16th place among public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report's
2016 rankings. Internationally, UT Austin was ranked
tied for 30th in the 2016 "Best Global Universities" ranking by U.S. News
& World Report, 37th in the world by Academic Ranking of World
Universities (ARWU) in 2015, 46th worldwide by Times Higher
Education World University Rankings (2015–16), and 77th globally by QS World University Rankings
(2015-16).
UT Austin is considered to be a "Public Ivy" – a public university that provides an
Ivy League collegiate
experience at a public school price, having been ranked in virtually every list
of "Public Ivies" since Richard Moll coined the term in his 1985 book Public
Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and
universities. The seven other "Public Ivy" universities, according to Moll,
were The College of William & Mary, Miami University, The University of
California, The University of Michigan, The University of North Carolina, The
University of Vermont, and The University of Virginia.