Should You Enroll in UT’s Coordinated Admissions Program (CAP)?
Bike tour outside of Kyoto, Japan
Let’s talk about UT-Austin’s Coordinated Admissions Program, or CAP. I will discuss what CAP is, who it’s a good fit for, and who probably shouldn’t consider CAP.
What is the Coordinated Admissions Program (CAP)?
CAP is by far the most popular and common transfer pathway program. It guarantees admission only to Liberal Arts majors if you earn a 3.2 GPA at a UT-Austin system school during your freshman year. CAP is only offered to Texas residents and not out-of-state or international students. CAP does not require you to submit a separate application. Instead, you accept your CAP offer directly on your UT-Austin My Status page. You can only select the CAP schools you were offered, but if you rank in the top half of your senior class, every option should be available.
The most in-demand schools by far are the Arlington and San Antonio Campuses, so if you prefer these, you and your family must all be on your devices logged in and hitting refresh because spots fill up faster than tickets sold for a Beyonce concert. During your spring semester at the UT system school, you can try for any first choice major except Architecture and submit the required essay and resume. If you do so, you cannot select economics or psychology as your backup major, since these are the most in-demand Liberal Arts programs. If you want economics or psychology, select it as your first choice, and it should be guaranteed.
PACE is a very uncommon admissions offer
Another pathway program you may encounter is PACE. However, only a few hundred applicants are offered PACE, which allows for co-enrollment between ACC and UT-Austin. You cannot request PACE, so if it wasn’t offered to you, you cannot pursue it. I also want to emphasize that enrolling at ACC provides no transfer admissions advantage.
The ACC to UT supposed advantage is the most intractable myth among any UT admissions misinformation. Enrolling at ACC does not make any difference, as I outline in this post. You should not enroll at ACC unless you’re from central Texas. UT does not care whether you enroll at a community college or four-year university or UT system school when transferring. They only care about your college GPA at whichever institutions you’ve attended.
Who is CAP a good fit for?
CAP is a good fit if you’re open to completing a liberal arts degree. CAP provides no advantage or benefit for other majors like natural sciences, business, communications, or engineering other than the 3.2 liberal arts guarantee. CAP is also a good fit if you have fewer than 30 hours from AP or dual credit. Since CAP requires its students to complete a relatively rigid set of core curriculum classes, if you’ve already satisfied many of those requirements, you may be better off enrolling at a four-year university to avoid repeating too many classes.
CAP students must complete 30 hours by June 1 to be eligible to transfer to UT. CAP is also a good fit for students content with delaying gratification. It doesn’t matter where you begin your degree but where you complete it. I know it seems like the end of the world to go to San Antonio or Tyler for a year, but five years in the future, it’ll seem like a blip on the radar.
Who is CAP not a good fit for?
If you want any other major that isn’t liberal arts, CAP is not a good fit for you.
Even UT staff will tell students to enroll at a four-year university where they have a guaranteed pathway to earn a degree in the sciences, engineering, or business. Similarly, if you gained admission through top 6% but were not offered your STEM or Business major, you should strongly consider not enrolling at UT. It is difficult to change your major after arriving at UT.
So, some students propose completing CAP and enrolling in liberal arts and then trying to change their major after arriving at UT. This is not a good idea because it might put you in a position of needing to transfer a second time away from UT to earn your desired degree. CAP may also not be a good fit for students who desire a more traditional college experience and have offers from similar top 50 universities with a guaranteed pathway to completing their degree.
I hope you’ve found this post interesting. Reach out at kevin@texadmissions.com with any questions about CAP or working together on your external transfer application.