University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas · Founded 1883
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SAT / ACT required
UT Austin requires an SAT or ACT score again, starting with the fall 2025 entering class, after four test-optional years. Send at least one official score directly from the testing agency (SAT code 6882, ACT code 4240); an official Classic Learning Test score also satisfies the requirement, and the SAT essay, ACT writing and ACT science sections are not required. The university says scores do not change the decision for automatically admitted Texas students but are used to place them in majors. In its own Common Data Set every academic factor - rigor, class rank, GPA, test scores, essay and recommendations - is rated only CONSIDERED, with none ranked above another. Transfer applicants do not need scores. Source: admissions.utexas.edu - Freshman; UT News, 11 March 2024; University of Texas at Austin Common Data Set 2025-26, C7 and C8A (verified September 2026).
About
Texas's public flagship university, with about 44,000 undergraduates in sixteen colleges and schools. It is built for its own state: 94 percent of its domestic undergraduates are Texans, and a state law that guarantees places to the top students of every Texas high school shapes who arrives. Academically the weight sits in the sciences and the social sciences, with biology and psychology the two biggest majors by degrees awarded, while engineering, business, communication and health each award roughly a tenth of its degrees.
History
The University of Texas opened in 1883 on the hill where its Tower now stands; its eight professors and 221 students took their first classes in the temporary state Capitol while the first building went up. The original forty-acre tract gave the campus its nickname, the Forty Acres, though the main campus now covers more than 440 acres. The Main Building and its Tower opened in 1937, and since then the Tower has been lit to celebrate victories and university milestones.
What stands out
- 94 percent of its domestic undergraduates are from Texas, and students come from 219 Texas counties and 122 countries
- Sixteen colleges and schools and 156 undergraduate degree programs
- You apply to a specific major, and the competitiveness of that major is part of the review
- Standardized test scores are required again, starting with the fall 2025 entering class
- Early Action and a regular deadline - there is no binding Early Decision
- 97.1 percent of first-year students come back for a second year
Popular majors
Campus life
61 percent of first-year students live in university housing, but only 17 percent of undergraduates do overall. Greek life is modest: 13 percent of undergraduate men join a fraternity and 17 percent of undergraduate women join a sorority. Students are Longhorns, the live mascot is a longhorn steer named Bevo, and The Eyes of Texas is sung at the end of games and ceremonies.