CollegeVine College Essay Team November 14, 2024 23 Essay Guides 2024-25

How to Write the UT Austin Essays 2024-2025

The University of Texas, Austin is a large public research university with an enrollment of over 51,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. UT Austin is the flagship institution of the University of Texas system, and is the home to some of the best engineering, architecture, and business programs in the nation.

Since UT Austin is a selective school, writing strong essays is essential for making your application stand out. UT Austin’s application requires three prompts (one of which is optional) for all applicants, with additional writing requirements for students applying to these programs: Art/Art History, Architecture, Nursing, or one of the university’s many honors programs.

Read these UT Austin essay examples from real students to inspire your own writing!

UT Austin Essay Prompts

Ah, the common “Why This Major” college application essay. This essay is important to demonstrate to the admissions committee that you are passionate about the area of study you are interested in. Whatever major is your first choice, you need to take time to reflect and think about what drew you to pursue this field of study.

As detailed in CollegeVine’s article about writing the “Why This Major” essay, a couple key topics to cover are how you developed this interest, and your goals in studying this major. 

Show how you’ve looked into research or career opportunities that appeal to you, and the steps you have taken to pursue your interest, whether it be through hobbies, jobs, research opportunities, readings, etc. Do you have personal reasons for choosing this major? Detail those reasons, and explain how either a personal experience, inspirational character, or more have impacted your life and decision to study your major.

Here are some examples:

• Biology — You have been a passionate bird-watcher for most of your life. Your father would take you around to various parks and teach you how to identify various bird calls, differentiate between males and females within a species, and more. This has developed into an interest in the evolutionary and migratory behavior of birds, and you wish to pursue biology as the stepping stone to further graduate studies specializing in birds.

• Radio-Television-Film — Growing up, you’ve always had a fascination with movies and have become a huge movie buff. You’ve been especially interested in how the creative team creates and rig up the physical special effects and props. In your spare time, you and your friends make your own home films, and you are often the one who researches and creates any special effects and props with your available budget and resources. Though your home productions are not the most well-refined, you have had fun, and you want to pursue Film to get a better understanding of how to professionally create crazy shots and break into the film industry.

• Linguistics — Your family moved around a lot throughout your childhood, and in every new town or city you lived in, you were fascinated by the different slang and accents of the people around you. You’ve lived everywhere — Louisiana, Vancouver, Long Island, South Dakota, Southern California, and more, and you want to further understand how these regional quirks developed and how they affect the culture of an area today.

This prompt falls under the Extracurricular archetype, which asks you to reflect on one activity that has made a meaningful impact on your high school experience. Whether it’s a club, a sport, volunteer work, or even a family responsibility, the key is to explain why you are proud of this activity, and why it’s relevant to understanding what kind of college student you’ll be.

To get started, consider these brainstorming questions:

• Which activity made you feel the most accomplished or fulfilled?
• Did you overcome any challenges or obstacles while participating in this activity?
• What did this activity teach you about yourself, your values, or your community?
• How did this activity impact others? Did you help your team, organization, or family in a meaningful way?
• Why are you proud of this activity in particular? Is it because of personal growth, skills you developed, or the difference you made?
• How did you start in this activity, and how did your role evolve over time?

While you may have several impressive activities, the goal is to focus on one that holds particular personal significance to you, regardless of how prestigious or “impressive” it may seem on paper. The admissions committee is looking for more than just a description of the activity—they already have your activities list, so in this essay, they want you to go beyond just credentials and accolades, and provide insight into what this experience reveals about your character, values, and growth.

Focus on how this activity shaped you as a person. Did it help you grow in confidence, empathy, or leadership? Did it teach you perseverance, teamwork, or time management? Alternatively, did your participation impact others or contribute to a larger cause?

Here are some examples of potential topics:

• Student A is passionate about art and mental health. She might write about how she has tried out different mediums, from watercolors to clay, to depict her own experiences with anxiety, and how consciously exploring her emotions in the physical world has helped her get a better handle on her illness.
• Student B, a soccer player, could write about how he led his team through a tough season. After their coach was diagnosed with cancer, he assumed additional responsibilities as captain, such as compiling film and coordinating with the team bus driver, which taught him the importance of stepping up and harnessing your own abilities under adverse circumstances.
• Student C, who works at her family’s restaurant on weekends, could focus on how this responsibility taught her time management, customer service skills, and the value of hard work. She might focus on a busy holiday season when she had to take on new tasks, which was stressful, but also rewarding as she got to bring festivity and cheer to people’s lives.

In writing your essay, you want to employ narrative elements to tell a story: How did you first get involved? What was your role, and how did it grow? Did you face any challenges along the way? How did you overcome them? Use specific examples to illustrate your points. Don’t just say “I was the team captain”—describe a key moment that demonstrates your leadership and why it made you proud.

Now, let’s look at some example responses.

You can probably tell that this is a weaker response. It’s too general and reads more like a résumé entry than a reflective essay. The student lists achievements without explaining their personal significance, nor sharing specific moments that contextualize those achievements. We’re also missing reflection on why debate matters to them beyond awards and leadership titles.

This example, on the other hand, vividly describes the student’s experience working at their family’s food truck, creating a tangible image of their environment and role. We can see their ability to handle responsibility and the development of their leadership skills, even as they keep their tone humble. They also reflect thoughtfully on how they learned to handle unexpected situations and became more resilient as a result.

Overall, we can easily connect their involvement in this activity to their potential to succeed in college and beyond. In other words, we understand why it should matter to admissions officers that they were part of this activity. To ensure your essay is equally successful, choose a deeply personal experience, and tell a story which allows you to reflect on how this activity has shaped you as a person.

This essay is optional and provides you the opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances that have affected your education during high school. This is not necessarily a space where you would include a creative essay about your passion for math or make a political statement. Rather this is room for you to let the UT Austin admissions committee know about any extenuating circumstances that may have affected your academic performance. 

Although in the near-past, the COVID-19 pandemic has and is still affecting many students across the world in various ways. This could be a situation that you may want to explain to the admissions committees.

Other non-COVID-related experiences may have also impacted you. If there is a circumstance, such as a loss of job, sickness of a close relative, mental health, or more that has affected your school performance, let UT Austin know here so the admissions committee may take it into consideration while reading your application. 

If any of these extenuating circumstances are written in your Common App personal statement, then you can include an excerpt here.

However, do not use this space as a way to excuse poor performances. Be direct, and let the circumstances speak for themselves. Also keep in mind that many students were disrupted by COVID-19 in similar ways, so you should only write about circumstances that went beyond those common experiences. 

There’s no need to take up the full allotted space or even really write a whole essay; just use as much space as needed to explain your situation.

Here, UT Austin is asking you to reflect on the significance of studying art history in today’s global world specifically. Admissions officers want to see that you can think critically about the value of art, how it impacts society, and what insights it offers about current and past cultures. 

To get started, here are some brainstorming questions:

• How has art shaped society in the past? Can you think of any historical art movements that changed political, social, or cultural perspectives?
• How does contemporary art reflect today’s global issues, such as climate change, migration, or social justice movements?
• Why is it important to preserve and study art from different cultures and time periods? What do we learn from artworks from a past time?
• What specific pieces or movements in art history have impacted your view of the world?
• How can art inspire change, foster understanding, or build bridges between different cultures?

You don’t have to answer all of these questions–you only have 500 words, after all–but hopefully, they give you a general sense of the kinds of things you might discuss in your essay. Note that many of the questions are designed to help you think of specific examples: while the prompt asks for your opinion, and this is ultimately a reflective essay, not an academic one, you should support your ideas with real artworks, to make your points more impactful.

Including examples like Renaissance art, 19th-century impressionism, or modern street art will make your essay more persuasive. And the more specific, the better! If you have a particular artist you admire, or even an individual work you find especially compelling, find a way to incorporate it!

Check out some possible topics below:

• Student A is passionate about how to design cities with communal gathering spaces, a topic they explored through their Latin class by doing a project on the Roman forum. They could draw a connection to the modern world by talking about how as more people move to the suburbs, feelings of loneliness and isolation increase, and how they see revamped urban planning playing a major role in building a more community-oriented society, where people have the opportunity to connect with and learn from others.
• Student B is curious about how the endless stream of visuals we receive through social media impacts our perception of the world, especially atrocities. They could reflect on how artists like Francisco Goya or Käthe Kollwitz used their art to protest war and injustice, and how today, nearly anybody can harness the power of artistic protest, but that has led to oversaturation, which diminishes the impact of any individual piece.
• Student C is of Italian heritage, and their extended family in Florence takes a great deal of pride in the city’s long artistic legacy. They might discuss how many people identify strongly with an artwork from their country’s past, but many people also feel a personal connection to art from a place they’ve never visited, and how in a world that is both polarized and interconnected by technology, art can be a medium to simultaneously take pride in your own identity and understand others’.

Notice that all three of these examples don’t just talk about the modern world in general, but about the specifically global nature of our world, through building connection, protesting injustice, and exploring identity respectively. Admissions officers choose the wording of these prompts carefully, so make sure the “global” element is clearly addressed.

These examples also show how the art of the past should inform our understanding of contemporary issues, and vice versa. You don’t want to just discuss ancient art in isolation, but show why studying ancient art today still matters on a practical level, whether that’s by driving social change, preserving cultural identity, or shaping technological advances. In other words, you want to explain why you’re drawn to the field of art history, in the year 2024 specifically, in the first place.

Finally, to see how to turn your brainstorming into an actual essay, check out the following excerpts from example essays:

As you might realize, this example lacks depth. There are many statements, such as “art has always allowed people to express themselves,” “studying art helps us understand each other better,” “the universality of the human experience,” and “we have more in common than we think” which are vague, and not supported by personal reflections on the student’s own life and experiences. The student also fails to identify a specific aspect of the modern world that art can help us understand, so we don’t get a sense of what they’re hoping to do with their art history degree.

This much stronger essay provides a clear link between historical and contemporary art, and analyzes both through the student’s concern over the global issue of climate change. The student chooses specific artworks and artists, and even discusses how they seek to add to the artistic dialogue around this issue in their own work, so the essay has both depth and personal relevance.

The admissions committee is hoping to get a sense of your goals and reasons for applying to the Architecture program at UT Austin.

While impacting the world sounds like a weighty topic, UT Austin isn’t looking for you to embellish. The admissions committee wants to hear how you would apply an education in architecture to help the world in any capacity, and that goes for anything from your local community to the globe. 

First define your reasons for pursuing architecture. This is important since the prompt asks what the capacity to impact the world means to you, so you need to reflect on how you’ll impact the world and why you want to do it in that way.

Do you want to design houses in low-income neighborhoods since you grew up in low-income housing that wasn’t efficient or livable? Or do you want to design apartments with sustainability in mind since you’re from Hawaii and have seen how construction can disrupt the environment? 

When possible, mention specific UT Austin resources that will help you achieve your goals, as the prompt asks how your goals shape your approach to your college education. For the student who wants to create sustainable architecture, they may mention courses like Modern History of Sustainable Architecture or wanting to be in one of the fastest-growing cities in the US (Austin), offering many opportunities for hands-on experience in sustainable development.

This is a short prompt! The admissions committee wants to see through your eyes and get an idea of your vision of the world. Be concise in your statement, and make sure your photos have a common thread, even if it’s not initially obvious. For example, you could submit photos of the skyline at important locations or times to you, or you could submit photos of various objects that inspire you. This is a very open-ended prompt, and you can spin it to really show the admissions committee your unique outlook on life and the environment around you.

This is also a chance to showcase your creativity and artistic skill. While the program doesn’t require you to submit a portfolio, submitting some of your artwork would give you more of an opportunity to stand out, particularly because UT Austin allows you to mix and match the format of your submissions.

Another way to make your response more cohesive and concise is to submit work with an overarching theme, whether that’s various pictures of your neighborhood at sunset, or artwork you made in response to a specific topic. Tying the three submissions together with a bow will give the admissions committee a stronger sense of how you think about the big picture.

This question allows you to discuss why you chose Nursing as your first choice program. Although you have already answered why you want to pursue your first choice major in the short answers section of the application, this extra space really allows you to dive deeper into why you decided to pursue nursing as a career and allows you to show off your work towards your goal. You can add additional anecdotes about why you chose nursing that you might not have had space to include in your short answer prompt.

Before beginning this essay, write down the qualities you feel a good nurse would have. Are they compassionate, culturally aware, patient, knowledgeable, etc.?

Then, write down the activities you did that correspond with those qualities. Did you volunteer for your local Red Cross, or organize a fundraiser for your local care facilities? Did you work in a nursing home, or at a daycare to gain experience working with people with varying needs? What academic classes did you take in high school to prepare yourself for a college nursing program? 

Maybe instead, your motivations to pursue a career in nursing are more related to your own life experiences. Is someone close to you in that occupation? Have you previously worked in a healthcare-related role? Or have you had your own medical issue where a nurse meaningfully changed your perspective on medicine?

Be specific, and dive into details on how your activities or life experiences relate to developing an interest in nursing and a nursing career. Chances are, you have already listed your activities out in another section of your application. Using anecdotes about specific instances or events is crucial in offering new information that will keep admissions officers engaged, and teach them about your passion for nursing.

This essay is similar to the Why This Major archetype, which asks you to describe your academic interests, with the added layer of needing to explain how they align with the liberal arts, and how a liberal arts education connects to your future ambitions.

To get started, reflect on the following brainstorming questions:

• What excites you about the liberal arts? Consider specific subjects, themes, or ideas that engage you–rather than just “flexibility,” go a step further, to “the flexibility to explore the intersection between fields that might seem unrelated, like Latin and chemistry.”
• How have your personal experiences shaped your interest in the liberal arts?
• How do you believe a liberal arts education will help you reach your future goals?
• What benefits do you think the liberal arts has for broader society? How can a liberal arts mindset help us address today’s global issues?
• Why does the interdisciplinary nature of the liberal arts appeal to you? Think about how combining specific subjects can enhance your understanding of each one, and the world as a whole.
• Do you have a particular career in mind, and how will a liberal arts education help you get there?

Although there are many ways to approach this essay, as “the liberal arts” is a big, nuanced idea, the admissions committee wants to see a clear connection between your personal, intellectual, and career goals and a liberal arts education. They also want to understand how you view the broader significance of the liberal arts in the world today.

Check out some example topics below:

• Student A, a student interested in psychology and sociology, is fascinated by how societal structures influence individual behavior. Her experiences tutoring younger students, and seeing how their circumstances impacted their ability to study, inspired her to start thinking about how to create a more equitable education system. In college, she wants to explore the intersection between her existing interests and public policy, so that she can get a clearer sense of how she can actually enact some of her ideas for change.
• Student B is passionate about writing and storytelling. He grew up in a bilingual household, where he constantly translated for his grandparents and saw how language shapes thought. He plans to major in English and study linguistics within a liberal arts framework to understand the power of language in shaping identity and culture. His goal is to become a writer and translator, and bridge cultural gaps through his work.
• Student C is drawn to history and philosophy, and is especially curious about how leading philosophers shaped societal approaches to governance and justice, for better or for worse. In her junior year, she did a capstone paper on how ideas from Plato’s Republic still shape political discourse today, and hopes to continue this research as she works towards her long term goal of working in international law, with a focus on diplomacy.

A good response will be specific about how your experiences and interests align with a liberal arts education. Whether through extracurricular activities, personal hobbies, or academic projects, your essay should reflect how your journey so far has naturally led you to studying the liberal arts. 

You’ll want to avoid generalizations like “a liberal arts degree teaches critical thinking” or “liberal arts degrees are well-rounded.” Instead, tie these ideas directly to your personal experiences–the key question you’ll want to answer is why critical thinking, or well-roundedness, matter for the field(s) you’re passionate about.

Finally, make sure you address all elements of the prompt, including the ones focused on the broader significance of the liberal arts. Answer the “Why should anyone study liberal arts?” or “Why does the world need the liberal arts?” question with a thoughtful reflection on the societal value of this approach to education, by connecting your personal goals to the universal.

The three examples above all do this, by focusing on educational reform, intercultural learning, and diplomacy, respectively. If you don’t know exactly what you want to do, that’s okay–touch on some paths you’re thinking of pursuing, and discuss how a liberal arts education will empower you regardless of which one you choose, or potentially even help you choose one in the first place.

Now, let’s look at some sample responses.

If you think this essay is vague and uninspired, you’d be right. It doesn’t show any real passion for the liberal arts, nor does it explain the student’s personal, specific connection to the field. The student comes across as somewhat shallow, and thinking of only how their degree would help their resume, rather than the deeper analytic and reflective skills they could learn. 

Let’s look at a stronger example:

This essay is much stronger. It tells a clear story of how the student’s love for storytelling and curiosity about the universality of the human experience began, then connects their personal passion to a broader societal trend (rapid technological growth) and explains the relationship thy see between the liberal arts and this trend, as well as how they see themself working towards a better world in the future. 

Their response is specific and personal, and portrays them as intellectually curious. As you write your own essay, focus on checking those three boxes, and you’ll be sure to show the UT Austin Honors Program why you’re a great fit for their community!

This open-ended prompt is asking you to provide five distinct sentences that reveal key aspects of your personality, background, interests, and experiences. The flexibility here can be daunting, but on the flip side, you have the opportunity to present five different facets of yourself in a concise, engaging way. 

The goal is to give readers a well-rounded sense of who you are in just a few sentences, so each one should be meaningful and carefully thought out. Even though this is a short supplement, you should still carve out ample time for brainstorming, writing, and editing. Fitting your ideas into such a small space can sometimes be more challenging than generating content to meet a longer count.

To help you come up with ideas for these five sentences, think about the following questions:

• What are your key personality traits? Be specific, and go beyond just “nice” or “smart.” Are you introspective, ambitious, nostalgic, or adventurous?
• What experiences or hobbies define you? What are you passionate about outside the classroom, or even outside your extracurricular list?
• What’s a fun or quirky fact that others might not know about you but helps describe who you are?
• What’s something that has shaped the way you see the world? It could be a cultural experience, a personal challenge, or even a book or conversation that left a lasting impression.
• How do you interact with others? Are you a leader, a team player, or someone who brings people together?

Since you’re limited to just five sentences, you’ll need to be strategic in selecting the most impactful and engaging details about yourself. And you also want to make sure you aren’t simply repeating information that can already be found elsewhere in your application. Each sentence should add a new dimension to your story, to give the admissions committee a more fleshed-out look into who you are beyond your academic achievements.

To construct a compelling response, you’ll want to be specific, and avoid general statements. Instead of saying “I love reading,” say, “I spent last summer lost in the works of Gabriel García Márquez, enchanted by the magic realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Remember, your goal in these essays is to set yourself apart from other applicants, and the more specific you can be, the more clearly admissions officers will see how you’re different even from someone else who might have a similar hobby.

Also, as always, show, don’t tell. In other words, use vivid imagery and details to show who you are, rather than just making blunt, factual statements. Instead of saying, “I love playing the guitar,” you might write, “The rush of adrenaline I feel strumming the final chord at my garage band’s gigs is my favorite high.” 

Finally, this is a space to have fun and be imaginative. UT Austin specifically encourages you to be creative and think outside the box, so don’t be afraid to present a quirky or unexpected part of yourself. College applications are generally quite dry by their nature, and injecting some energy here can make a positive impression on admissions officers.

For example, you could say something like “I can recognize any Taylor Swift song in under two seconds,” or “Every Halloween, my twin and I pick a different couple’s costume to parody–in response to Barbenheimer, we went as Oppenheimer and Einstein, not Barbie and Ken.” 

You don’t want to come across as superficial, so make sure you’re still demonstrating something positive about yourself (dedication and creativity, respectively, in the examples above), but you should feel free to present the traits you’re highlighting in a fun way.

To conclude, let’s look at a complete package of five sentences:

In this example, each sentence offers a unique insight into the student’s life, from their cultural background (sentence 1) to their hobbies and personality traits (sentences 2-5). There’s a clear balance between creativity, intellectual curiosity, and personal values, and the sentences engage the reader by using vivid, specific sensory details.

To summarize: this prompt is your chance to show the UT Honors Program who you are in just five sentences. Be sure to touch on different topics, and explore them creatively and in depth, by using immersive language rather than general statements or clichés. And lastly, remember that this is a space where you can have fun!

Where to Get Your UT Austin Essays Edited For Free

Do you want feedback on your UT Austin essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

Need feedback faster? Get a free, nearly-instantaneous essay review from Sage, our AI tutor and advisor. Sage will rate your essay, give you suggestions for improvement, and summarize what admissions officers would take away from your writing. Use these tools to improve your chances of acceptance to your dream school!