#applytexas

Hey! This is going to get rambly so I apologize now lol.

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First things first, I was ranked 11 in a class of 600 and therefore in the top 7 and 10 percent of my class and was automatically accepted to UT. From what I've heard, they quite literally might've put my application in an accepted pile without reading any of my essays or extracurriculars.

Next, I was a very dreamy high schooler and wanted to go to the Ivy League and become some CDC researcher developing vaccines (this is a way more insane thing to say in 2022 than it was in 2014), but what did I choose to write about in my essay? The school library. I was called my library's mascot. I got to school every morning 2 hours before class to do homework and wait for the library to open. I worked in our "bistro" which was a stockroom where we sold coffee and did homework while I hung out with my friends. I had a stack of mugs and repaired my textbooks in the workroom. My librarian was like a second mother. I was in book club and anime club in the afternoons and decorated with the students for the holidays. I wrote the coziest vignette of community and home that I knew.

At the time, I didn't know that this is exactly what I was looking for in college. I wanted to be surrounded by people I didn't necessarily call friends, but just people who knew what it was like to be one of those in-between kids who didn't do sports, or band, or theatre, but loved to be consumed by stories. I applied to UT as a Biology major with a focus in microbiology and was accepted. I would graduate UT 4 years later as an English major with a certificate in Creative Writing with a focus in Poetry, but I feel like that conclusion would probably make much more sense than biology to anyone who read my essay.

I hope you write with passion and honesty on whatever your topic is and get in with the major you want!

And if you don't trust me, my fave May Gao does essay reviewing cheap or free for less advantaged students: https://www.collabadvising.com/essays

Going to add more about UT below, I swear I loved it, there's just a lot wrong with the way most schools work and I don't want you going in completely blind.

NOTES ON UT

Freshman classes are designed to weed people out of in-demand majors (CRUEL!!! but I was told this on multiple occasions faculty). Intro classes are notoriously difficult for calculus, biology, chemistry, and organic chemistry. You will probably fail your first test. It's okay (my roommate was our high school valedictorian and failed our first chem test and cried all night). I got back to back 32, 33, and 76 on chem tests and barely passed with a D. I survived. Fun Fact: former VP of the school got exclusively Cs in his intro classes.

Pick the major you want the most BUT if you are unsure or may want to double major, choose the major that is the most selective. This includes Comp Sci, any of the communications school, the business school, and engineering. These majors are extremely hard to once you are in and attempt to do an internal transfer. When I was trying to transfer into Moody for film, they told me they only accept 1 internal transfer A YEAR.

This school is a class divide. Coming from a working-class Hispanic family and from a not great public high school, I was absolutely broken by the amount of people with summer houses, no debt, loans, or work-study, who studied abroad multiple semesters, went out every night or even every weekend. If you are not White, Indian, or Asian, you will have to be active to find your people. There are tons of culture groups and clubs, but it's jarring when most of your classes are homogenous just because of who actually gets into UT.

(Publishing this because this is info that might help other applicants as well)

Haha no it's fine, I'm here for you!! Okay WOW APPLYTEXAS. ApplyTexas was a bitch absolutely awful when I applied (pretty sure it still is because I doubt they ever bother to change the format to make it more applicant-friendly) so I totally understand your struggle haha. I remember it took me an entire day just to fill in the fckin activities page UGH

Anyways, to your questions!! AHH the Plan II personal statement <3333 I honestly think those five sentences I wrote were the best writing that came out of all the essays and things I wrote for college apps (and haha as you can probably tell from my college list, I wrote a LOT of essays). Those were really nice because they came to me pretty quickly, like I just got an idea and I wrote it down as quickly as possible before I forgot it, and then spent a few mins crafting the actual sentence. In terms of what I wrote about (and what YOU should write about), basically think about your personality and who you are, and consider which five specific parts of you you want to convey to them, and write about those! That might seem really general advice LOL sorry but if you (and any of you other Texas applicants out there) want me to, I can post my 5 sentences to give you a better idea of what I did! Like one was about my fangirl side, another about my name and my heritage, another about my passion for choir, another about my baby brother (<33333), and the last about my love for academics (except in a more unique way haha).

Who they accept: Plan II accepts pretty qualified applicants who can write well, basically, so your personal statement matters a lot. For sure. I mean since it's a liberal arts type honors program it seems like you have to show that you're interested in several different things... But that does not necessarily mean academic things, though, because look at what I did - I showed my passion for extracurriculars but also for more personal things like my family and my fandom obsessions haha so !!! everything counts, seriously, it doesn't have to be 100% school-related all academic and boring stuff. But honestly don't stress too much about it - there's no harm in applying, the worst that can happen is you could be rejected. Meh. (Trust me though, Ramee, I know you are a strong applicant, so go for it!)

My resume took FOREVER to format the right way and wow I really hated doing that, but if I remember correctly, it was 5 pages long and basically I listed everything I did from the summer before 9th to present (aka when I was applying as a rising senior last summer). I decided to include everything because hey, it's UT, so why not? I didn't do the same for the Ivies and other top schools because I felt like they might have thought I was resume padding at that point (the struggle was real, trust me), but since UT wants an "expanded resume," that's what I gave them!

I did fill out and submit the scholarship app, but I doubt it helped me very much, if at all - but there's no harm in doing it, right? Any chance at getting money is worth it tbh, especially with rising tuition costs these days. Do it after you submit your actual admission application (in fact I think it won't let you do scholarship until you submit the admission one).