The number of applicants soared.
The University of Texas at Austin received 90,562 applications for the 2025 fall semester, the number rising 12% in in-state applications and 48% in out-of-state applications from last year, according to UT News.
All early action students were sent an email from UT on Jan. 15, their promised decision day, prompting them to log in and review the “important information in MyStatus,” UT’s portal. However, instead of an admission decision, for the majority of students, there was simply a message saying that their application decision had been delayed to February 15. The day after, the wording on everyone’s portal whose application decision had been delayed changed from “delayed” to “deferred.”
This delay from UT Austin was “unexpected” to college counselor Jasmine Davis, especially since the morning of Jan. 15 she had seen some students start dropping in their UT acceptance letters and had even sent an email to the UT campus representative for Bellaire thanking her for her support.
“They had been letting us know all year they were only going to do two dates for dismissal of decisions; I just wasn’t expecting this,” Davis said. “I knew the decisions were going to be there, so we were kind of prepared to have discussions with students on next steps, but we weren’t prepared to have them continue to wait.”
Senior Joshua Block, who had applied to UT before the early action deadline, was surprised when he saw the message in his portal.
“I don’t work in the admissions office at UT, and so I don’t think I can really pass judgment on what their decisions were, but I will say I feel like they probably knew ahead of time that they wouldn’t be able to release everyone’s decisions on the 15th,” Block said. “Knowing that, they could have told people [before] to expect more delays, and instead, they led everyone to believe up until the 15th that it would be on the 15th.”
Despite this unexpected delay, Block and Davis are trying to find the bright side in the scenario. Davis is reminding students that their hard work will pay off while Block isn’t letting the delay change his opinion on the university.
“I was disappointed in the moment, but I understand, especially because January 15 was already gonna be an early decision day compared to other schools, and now it’s kind of just more standard with other schools,” Block said.
However, despite the majority of early action applicants getting a “delayed” or “deferred” response in their portal, there was a small number of regular decision applicants who got accepted. Although the exact number still remains unknown, senior Katelyn Nguyen was one of the people who received a decision early on Jan. 15.
“I was out at a coffee shop, and I was actually doing my USC application that was due that day, right?” Nguyen said. “So I’m just sitting there and doing work, and I’m checking my phone, waiting for the responses for everyone else, and I was waiting for the calls, just to see if my friends got in. Then [UT] sent me an email, and I looked at it and it said, ‘We have a new message for you on MyStatus.’ So I check, and I’m like, ‘My transcript’s messed up or something didn’t go through.’ So I click it, open it and then it loads the screen and just goes, ‘Oh, you’re accepted.’ I was sitting there in shock, and I had to walk out of the coffee shop because I was about to start screaming, right? So I went outside, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I got in.’”
Davis, after realizing that many student’s decisions would not arrive until February, wants to make sure that students aren’t completely discouraged.
“I know that it’s frustrating, but at the end of the day, wherever you are meant to be, whichever that university is, that’s where you will end up,” Davis said. “So all positive, nothing negative, because I truly believe that every student goes to [the] university that they should be in. Even if you feel like you are going to graduate from the University of Texas, that may not be how you start.”
All students will receive their admissions decision for UT by Feb. 15.