The application does not ask for essays, resumes, or GPA.
The University of Austin announced on Monday that applicants who satisfy certain test-score thresholds will be automatically accepted. For the previous and incoming cohort of students, tuition fees are entirely covered for all four years of study, valued at roughly $130,000.
The new university, which welcomed its first undergraduate students in 2024, will grant automatic admission to applicants aged 17-23 years old who have scored at least 1460 on the SAT, 33 on the ACT, or 105 on the CLT. Having scored in roughly the top 5 percent of test takers, students will be automatically admitted pending an integrity check and fulfillment of basic eligibility criteria.
“College admissions are unjust. Not just biased. Not just broken. Unjust,” reads the UATX announcement. “Students spend high school anxiously stacking their résumés with hollow activities, then collect generic recommendation letters and outsource their essays to tutors or AI. Admissions at elite colleges now come down to who you know, your identity group, or how well you play the game.”
Applicants previously had to submit a personal statement, essay, transcript, standardized test scores, and two letters of recommendation; now, the application does not ask for essays, resumes, transcripts, or a GPA.
Successful applicants must have a high-school diploma or GED equivalent at the time of matriculation at the university, and must not have completed a four-year undergraduate degree. In addition to meeting the test-score thresholds, applicants must undergo an “integrity verification” that consists of 1) disclosing any disciplinary, criminal, or unethical conduct history and 2) submitting a recommendation letter. The university states that applicants may be subject to an interview to verify information.
However, meeting the score thresholds is not the only route to admission. The regular acceptance process allows students to submit supplemental exam scores, and list three achievements (academic or otherwise) in a single sentence each. In the regular admissions process, applicants will be ranked by 1) SAT/ACT/CLT score, 2) additional exceptional test scores such as the Advanced Placement exams (4/5), International Baccalaureate exams (5/6/7), and SAT Subject Tests (700+), and 3) the three achievements.
Students who score at least 1550 on the SAT, 35 on the ACT, or a 113 on the CLT are invited separately to apply for the “Lonsdale Magaro Build Scholarship,” which awards $100,000 to support an independent project. According to the UATX website, that scholarship asks applicants to address the following essay prompt in under 1000 words: “What do you hope to build with your University of Austin education, and how will it strengthen the United States of America? Share with us a project design that falls within one of the following categories: (i) STEM, (ii) public policy and civil society, or (iii) arts and media.”
Many elite universities are returning to test-based admissions after discovering that test-optional admissions policies, often adopted in the name of equity, actually made it more difficult for qualified lower income students to gain admission, and may have resulted in a less academically gifted student body. Elite universities have also been forced to abandon affirmative-action policies, which were previously implemented through subjective “personality” metrics that were found to be discriminatory by the Supreme Court.
UATX is moving even further in that direction by eliminating all subjective admissions criteria for students whose test scores show them to be highly intelligent.
UATX’s new policies — which go into immediate effect and apply to the current application cycle for the upcoming fall semester — were announced just days after “Ivy Day” on March 26, when all the Ivy League universities release their regular-cycle admissions decisions for their undergraduate programs.
Although not all of the Ivy League schools have released their admissions data, the trend appears to be that fewer students have applied and a greater percent have been accepted. Yale University accepted 4.59 percent of applicants, up from the record-low 3.7 percent for the previous year; Yale received about 7,000 fewer applications for the incoming undergraduate class than the year prior. Columbia University admitted 4.29 percent of applicants for the Class of 2029, up from 3.86 percent for the previous incoming freshman class; Columbia received 632 fewer applications than the previous year. Brown University accepted 5.65 percent, compared with a 5.4 percent admissions rate for the previous class; it received 6,000 fewer applications.
“College admission should be earned—not inherited, bought, or gamed,” reads the UATX announcement. “At the University of Austin, your merit earns you a place—and full tuition scholarship.”
UATX was announced in 2021 as “a place in higher education for freedom of inquiry and civil discourse,” and a founding faculty member Peter Boghossian described the school as “a genuine alternative to the illiberalism and censoriousness that has taken over our university systems.” Within a year, the university had raised over $100 million in funding — despite having no alumni to draw on for financial support.
An UATX employee told National Review that there are 86 students currently enrolled. According to the university’s website, applications for the second round of regular decisions are due in mid April.