The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) is known as a trailblazing research institution ranked in the top ten of U.S. public universities. In addition, UT Austin’s vibrant student life and impressive athletics attract over 70,000 applicants. UT Austin can also count accomplished individuals like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Durant, and Stacey Abrams among their alumni. Hoping to join their ranks? You’ll need to nail your UT Austin supplemental essays. Let’s dive in.
UT Austin’s 2026-2027 Prompts
Long Essay Question
- Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt or one of your own design. (500–650 words)
Short Essay Questions
Each of the following prompts has a maximum length of 300 words.
- Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?
- Think of all the activities, both in and outside of school, that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why? (Guidance for students: This can include an extracurricular activity, a club/organization, volunteer activity, work or a family responsibility.)
Optional Short Essay Question
- Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance. (300 words or fewer)
General Tips
Your story is yours. In other words, these essays will benefit from your personal touch. Bring your own unique experiences, personality, and identities to the page. If you’re vulnerable without specificity, it’s hard to make heads or tails of your story. But if you share the concrete details underpinning your experiences, your UT Austin supplemental essays will leave a lasting mark upon the reader.
What does this look like in practice? Here are a few ways you can make your essays more personal and vivid:
- Focus on the details. Without sharing the concrete details of your experience and the specifics of your worldview and experiences, your story could sound like anyone else’s. Therefore, try to write an essay that could only be written by you. Being specific will make the difference between a general experience that many people have had and a personal story that is special to you. Even if you feel like you’ve lived a boring life, your story is still not the same as anyone else’s.
- Outline, outline, outline. An organized essay is easy to read and easy to follow. If your reader is puzzling over how your points connect and your plot comes together, then they won’t remember all the details you included (as mentioned in the point above, these are crucial to the success of your essay).
- Pretend you’re talking to a friend. If you’re having trouble writing a vulnerable, personal, or even humorous essay, then perhaps try brainstorming out loud or imagine you’re writing the essay as a letter to a friend. This exercise will force you to tell the story naturally, without any of the usual essay-writing inhibitions. Although this version of the essay may not be submission-ready, it’s a draft that can be revised until it’s something you’re proud of.
UT Austin Long Essay Question
Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt or one of your own design. (500–650 words)
This essay is the equivalent of the Common App personal essay. In fact, if you apply through the Common App, your personal essay completes UT Austin’s essay requirement automatically. If you apply through ApplyTexas, you can submit the same essay you wrote for other schools, one that responds to a different prompt, or something written from scratch. Either way, the admissions team is asking for one thing: a piece of writing between 500 and 650 words that shows them who you are as a whole person. If you need a refresher on the Common App prompts, check out our guide to the Common App essays.
Because the topic is entirely open, the hardest part is choosing. Start with a story only you could tell. Try listing five moments from your life that changed how you think, five things you care about more than most people do, and five questions you cannot stop asking. Somewhere in those fifteen items is an essay. Look for the entry you could write about for pages, and that reveals something your transcript and activities list cannot: your values, your sense of humor, the way you handle setbacks, or the way you treat other people.
Once you have a topic, structure the essay around a change: what you believed or did before, what happened, and how you see things now. Be concrete, with scenes and details rather than summaries, and save at least a third of your word count for reflection. Whatever direction you take this story, be sure to focus on the ways you’ve grown, learned, and developed resilience.
UT Austin Short Essay Questions
Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major? (300 words or fewer)
This is a relatively straightforward prompt, but it’s important that you provide a compelling answer. Consider the following questions:
- Have you been interested in this subject since childhood?
- Are you seeking a career that is linked to this major?
- Does this degree provide you with a jumping-off point for graduate school?
- Are you an activist seeking to enact change by learning more about the subject of your activism?
- Are you a natural creative looking to further your creative endeavors?
You can also zero in on the opportunities UT Austin uniquely provides to students in your prospective major. In other words, add on why you’d like to pursue this particular major at UT Austin. How would pursuing this major at UT Austin bring you closer to your goals?
In sum, try to list at least five reasons to pursue this particular major. Then, focus on providing detailed explanations of your reasons in your essay response.
Think of all the activities, both in and outside of school, that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why? (Guidance for students: This can include an extracurricular activity, a club/organization, volunteer activity, work or a family responsibility.) (300 words or fewer)
This prompt asks you to reflect on your high school involvement and identify what matters most to you. UT Austin wants to understand what you value and how you approach meaningful engagement. The most important decision you’ll make is selecting which activity to highlight. Don’t automatically choose the most prestigious or time-consuming activity on your resume. Instead, pick the one that genuinely means the most to you and where you can tell the most compelling story about your growth, impact, or values! This could be anything from leading a debate team to working part-time to help support your family, from founding a community service club to taking care of younger siblings. The activity itself matters less than your authentic connection to it and what it reveals about your character.
Once you’ve chosen your activity, focus on telling a story rather than listing accomplishments. Explain what drew you to this involvement initially, what challenges or meaningful moments you experienced, and how the experience shaped you. Be specific about your role and contributions, but avoid sounding like you’re reciting your resume. The “why” component of this prompt is crucial. Instead of saying you’re proud because you won awards or gained leadership positions, dig deeper into what this experience taught you about yourself, others, or the world around you. Maybe you’re most proud of how you persevered through difficulties, how you brought people together, how you made a difference in someone’s life, or how you discovered a passion you didn’t know you had. The best responses will reveal something meaningful about your values, work ethic, problem-solving abilities, or capacity for growth while demonstrating that you’re someone who engages meaningfully with opportunities and makes a positive impact wherever you are.
UT Austin Optional Short Essay Question
Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance. (300 words or fewer)
This prompt is optional for students to respond to, as there may be no “events or special circumstances… [that] have impacted your high school academic performance.” If you don’t relate to this prompt, you should feel no pressure or expectation to respond to it.
That said, if there are some lower grades, interrupted semesters, school transfers, transcript discrepancies, or the like in your history, UT Austin won’t hold these against you. That said, you’ll first need to explain why those discrepancies or other special circumstances came to be in your academic history. Here’s your opportunity to do so.
The key in this essay is to be specific and to-the-point. Don’t try to downplay situations or avoid providing proper context. The UT Austin admissions officers are experienced application reviewers able to identify any lies or obfuscations, so honesty is the best policy. You’re a high school student, and you’re human. If you share the proper context for your academic history, the admissions team will understand.
If you need help polishing up your UT Austin supplemental essay, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.
