In my January newsletter, I took a closer look at the University of Texas at Austin and specifically at how competitive it has become to gain admission in recent years. In January of 2020, UT announced that it received a record number of applications in the Fall of 2019. That number was 57,000. This January, the university announced that it beat last year’s record — by nearly 10,000 applications! With that many applicants and a freshman class size of only about 8,500, it is no wonder so many outstanding students who applied early received offers to UT’s CAP program last week.
CAP stands for Coordinated Admissions Program. It is an alternative pathway to enter the University of Texas at Austin. Essentially, many students who are not offered spots on the Austin campus are given the opportunity to attend a UT system school for a year with a guaranteed transfer to UT-Austin after meeting certain requirements. When you hear someone say they got “capped” at UT, it means they were offered the opportunity to participate in this program.
CAP can be a great option for students planning to major in the liberal arts, as CAP students are guaranteed admission to most majors in UT Austin’s College of Liberal arts upon successful completion of the program. However, students wishing to major in other disciplines, particularly in highly competitive colleges, such as the McComb’s School of Business, the Cockrell School of Engineering, or the College of Natural Sciences, should think twice about signing a CAP agreement. Though CAP students are allowed to compete for those majors like any other transfer student, competition will be stiff and chances of admission will be low. For that reason, I do not advise those students to take their CAP offers.
Another decision prospective CAP students must make is whether or not they want to spend a year at the schools to which they have been offered CAP admissions. Students are only offered admission to colleges where they meet minimum CAP requirements. The two most popular for Central Texans are UT San Antonio and UT Arlington, though each of those institutions has a limited number of CAP spaces, which usually fill up quickly. Other universities to which students might receive CAP offers are UTEP, UT Permian Basin, UT Rio Grande Valley and UT Tyler. UT Dallas is not a participating school. More information about CAP is available at https://admissions.utexas.edu/enroll/cap.
Students who applied to UT early this year and received CAP offers last week may begin accepting their agreements at 6:00 p.m. CST this evening. If you’re in that group, I would log on to the site early from more than one device to maximize your chance of success. If, for any reason, UT Austin and/or CAP doesn’t work out for you, you are in the majority! UT is a great college on many fronts, but not the ONLY college in the world, the nation, or even Texas! If you’re looking for alternatives, give me a shout. If you’d like to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, sign up here.
