Can you get into UT Austin without being in top 6%?

Answered

The Top 6% is simply their arbitrary line in the sand for Auto-Admits, not Admits. Under the Ridiculous Texas Law, 75% of admits into the University of Texas system must be an auto-admit so what the school does is move the % slide to where it can get 75% as an auto-admit. So that's why it gets tougher and tougher each year because smart kids in Texas want to be auto-admitted. Does that make sense?

So last year, 57241 applied and 18291 were admitted. But 10.6% (1939) were out of state so that means that 16352 came from Texas. Of those 75% (12264) were auto admits, therefore 25% (4088) did not have a Top 6% in-State Texas ranking. And neither did the 1939 out-of-state admits.

UTTexas has a 45.5% Yield rate which means that of the 18291 admitted, only 45.5% actually enrolled. While this is high for any college it means that more than 1 of 2 people that get in, enroll in a better school like Rice, Stanford, or and Ivy.

I don't know what you mean by "outside of Top 6%", so I really can't weigh in with your chances. But if you are say a top 10-15% student, you should still consider applying because 25% of Texas admits are outside of 6%. On the 2020 Common Data Set, it did say that 86% are in the Top 10% and 96% are in the Top 25%. So that should give you some guidance as well. I'm assuming all the admits outside the Top 25% are recruited athletes like Football Players or Track Stars.

Good luck.