15 Tips for your UT External Transfer Statement of Purpose
Cliffs of Moher, Ireland
In this post, I provide an overview of UT’s transfer statement of purpose along with 15 tips to consider when writing your essay.
The easiest way to reach me is by email kevin@texadmissions.com and to complete this questionnaire for a free email admissions assessment and to discuss pricing and services.
1. Understand the questions that the transfer statement of purpose asks
The UT-Austin transfer statement of purpose prompt is overly wordy and pretty difficult to understand at first glance:
“The statement of purpose will provide an opportunity to explain any extenuating circumstances that you feel could add value to your application. You may also want to explain unique aspects of your academic background or valued experiences you may have had that relate to your academic discipline. The statement of purpose is not meant to be a listing of accomplishments in high school/college or a record of your participation in school-related activities. Rather, this is your opportunity to address the admission committee directly and to let us know more about you as an individual, in a manner that your transcripts and the other application information cannot convey.”
Breaking down the question into sub-questions can help you draft your initial ideas and ensure your essay is headed in the right direction.
Here are the five or six questions that are essential to answer the transfer statement of purpose:
Address how you ended up at your current university
Why it isn’t working out
Why you want to transfer to UT in your particular major
Any relevant leadership, diversity, or major-specific experiences, and how UT can help you achieve your goals
You also have the option to share about any special circumstances relevant to your academic journey
2. Show and don’t tell
The transfer statement of purpose is your argument that provides examples and evidence that you’re a great fit for your chosen UT major. You must share about academics, extracurriculars, and life experiences to support your candidacy for your chosen major. Since transfers tend to be at least a year or two older than high school seniors, reviewers expect a greater nuance and clear vision of your short- and long-term goals.
One common mistake both transfer and high school senior applicants make is not supporting their assertions with examples. An applicant might claim that they are a leader or have a passion for business, yet they don’t back up those claims with specific experiences and examples that provide substance to their leadership or passion for business. You need to prove your arguments.
A similar mistake that most applicants make is not discussing any major-relevant experiences in their resumes. The statement of purpose complements and works together with the resume rather than being separate from it. The resume shares what you have done, and the essay is your opportunity to share how and why you’ve pursued your interests.
3. Your transfer essay requires a fundamentally different approach from high school senior applications
The distribution of possible responses to this question is much narrower than the old UT and current Texas A&M topic “tell us your story,” Main Essay, or first-time freshmen Common App questions. There isn’t enough word limit space for rhetorical flairs, attention-getting introductions, or lengthy stories on non-major specific topics, more appropriate for high school seniors. Try not to be cringey when using similes, like comparing your journey from ACC to Texas Tech to a flower blossoming in desert rains.
Instead, approach the transfer essay like a graduate or medical school admissions statement of purpose. Your tone is more neutral, mature, and “stick to the facts.” Some clients feel frustrated that intensive revisions make their essay “sound robotic,” but the approach works since it’s rare for my transfer clients not to gain admission.
4. It's okay to be critical when addressing why things aren’t working out at your current institution
It’s almost impossible to discuss your reasons for transferring to UT without sharing why you wish to leave. This isn’t like a job interview where the conventional wisdom isn’t to criticize former employers. Usually, when a student transfers, things aren’t going super well at their current school.
For example, a transfer client wrote, ‘I feel that my ceiling for growth is limited because there are few courses that match my major and my classmates often skip class. I struggle to find ways to supplement my coursework with active student organizations.’
On the other hand, you should try to balance your critical commentary with the positive aspects of your current school. For example, you could write, ‘I enjoy the small class sizes at my private university that allow me to form connections with my professors. My academic advisor always makes time for me, and its location in a major metropolitan area makes it easy to find internships or collaborate with nearby universities.’
It helps if you lead this section of your essay with the pros rather than starting with the cons.
5. Don’t dwell on your initial UT rejection - avoid overly emotional appeals
Another common mistake that transfer applicants make is spending many sentences detailing their heartbreak at their initial rejection or unsuccessful previous transfer attempts. The first reason is that it wastes valuable word limit space, and the second is that you don’t want to come off as immature. Save your sour feelings for an angry Instagram and Reddit post or a TikTok rant.
Since many applicants will do this, an easy way to stand out is not to spend unnecessary time and hyperbole about how you felt to not gain admission. I understand that the sting of rejection hurts, but it isn’t essential for your transfer essay. Instead, you can share in a single sentence something like, “It disappointed me to receive CAP, but since I don’t want a liberal arts major and have too many AP credits, I enrolled at A&M engineering so I have a pathway to earn my preferred degree.”
6. Transfer essays rarely benefit from conventional introductions and conclusions
One consequence of high school English classes teaching students to write in the five paragraph essay format, other than it’s never used in the real world, is that you don’t need an “let me overview what I’m about to tell you” introduction or “let me sum up everything I’ve just told you” conclusion. A single opening sentence that provides specific information about your reasons for enrolling at your current institution is all you need.
Likewise, you need only a single concluding sentence that also ideally provides some new information, like outlining long-term plans or a potential dream job or PhD program. You do not need to provide an attention-getting introduction that sets the scene like you might have written for your high school senior essays. The transfer statement of purpose is more like an essay you would write for graduate or medical school, rather than something that requires creative writing and storytelling.
7. Focus on more recent experiences and activities
A common mistake transfer applicants make is focusing too much on the distant past when it isn’t directly relevant to supporting their argument for deserving a transfer admissions space. For example, one of my transfer clients applying for business worked at their family’s grocery store in earlier childhood. They dedicated a significant amount of first draft space to the experience, and they said they preferred to keep this content in their essay. I responded that, although this is emotionally significant and central to your personal development, it’s less effective content compared with their impressive recent professional experiences that showed their fit for business. We preserved some of the grocery store content in the subsequent draft and dedicated more time to their recent experiences. For transfers, you’re a little too old to talk about playing with LEGOs or making games in Roblox.
If you are a recent high school graduate and wish to discuss high school experiences, it helps to choose and develop the one or two most meaningful and major-specific things. That way, you can free up space for your more recent experiences after high school and in college. Discussing high school experiences might also help develop a longer trend that connects your distant activities to your more recent ones, which is really effective content. Especially if you are in your third or fourth semester of university, your essay should largely feature your college experiences.
8. Discuss your identity, background, culture, or the environment in which you were raised if you feel it’s relevant
Since the transfer process only allows for a single essay, you have less space to discuss themes outside of your academics and resume. Especially if you’re a recent immigrant, first-generation college student, attended a low-resource high school, come from a single-parent or low-income household, or other indicators of structural adversity, it can be helpful to share about the opportunity or challenges you’ve confronted. That may help frame the discussion around your academics and extracurriculars, or if your personal experiences relate to your desired major. Many transfer applicants come from non-traditional backgrounds, so if you feel it is necessary, dedicate some space in your essay to provide context for your experiences.
9. If you are changing majors in addition to transferring universities, identify transferrable skills and experiences
Some transfer students opt to change their major in addition to leaving their university. Sometimes, a student discovers a new interest, and that major isn’t available at their current institution. One of the very first students I spoke with when I started at UT admissions in 2011 was a student at the University of Virginia. They wanted to transfer to UT after writing for the student-run newspaper, but UVA didn’t have a journalism program. The only way they could pursue their interests was to change environments.
Other students want to change to UT because it has a stronger program for their new major, or they don’t think they can get into competitive UT majors like business and computer science. They have concerns about whether their recent courses or resume experiences apply to their new major. The best practice is to look at the underlying skills acquired or your extracurricular roles and responsibilities and how they could relate to your new major.
For example, a transfer client of mine switched from Psychology to Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences in Moody Communications. They discussed how their courses on human behavior and perception match well with their new studies and a speech pathology career because this major helps make the world more accessible for the hearing impaired or students with different learning needs. Other examples include detailing how your computer science classes might relate to a major change to applied math or a new interest in climate change and sustainability relates to a new major in civil engineering from mechanical.
10. Contextualize your transcript and identify ways you might have overcome academic challenges
There is often more to your academic story than the letter grades in your courses. One straightforward way to contextualize your transcript is to discuss grades that aren’t A’s, especially if extenuating circumstances contribute to making a B or a C. If you experienced an illness or family and work obligations, share about them. It isn’t about making up excuses but sharing with your reviewer that there’s more to the story.
It could also be the case that you started with a B or a C in a course following the first midterms and finished with an A. You can frame those initial setbacks about how you might have modified your study or time management habits to make better grades on your exams. If you visited office hours or did better in a subsequent course on the same subject, like chemistry or calculus 2, discuss that upward trend within a course or in the sequence.
Another way to frame your transcript is if you’ve done extremely well in a course. Many colleges and universities do not indicate A-plusses, so if you earned a perfect grade, you can share that context, especially if you were one of the top students in the class. High-achieving students also sometimes assist the teacher or tutor their classmates, so if this is relevant, then include that information.
11. Contextualize your transcript by identifying and developing content about your favorite classes or professors
Some of the most powerful essay content is about discussing an influential teacher. Favorite teachers are always unique to you, and they help make concrete specific themes you’ve explored in class or projects you’ve completed. If you’ve conducted research with the same professor you’ve taken a class with, especially if it relates to your first-choice major or long-term goals, then share them by name in a few sentences. Identifying specific aspects of classes you’ve enjoyed can help frame your major interests by identifying particular aspects of your studies that appeal to you beyond the generic course titles like physics or government.
12. Write concisely and economically
Before Fall 2024, UT required two essays, the statement of purpose and one of your choice between an “issue of importance” or “share about special circumstances. The old Apply Texas portal used to permit a lot more words per essay than today’s Common App. That allowed for a lot more flexibility since you could submit around 1,500 words of content between the two essays.
Nowadays, since the transfer application only allows for a single statement of purpose of 700 words, and since you need to address five or six questions, there is no room for fluff, abstraction, or impersonal content. Every sentence must count. Your goal is to write an essay that’s as information-dense as possible. This requires significant rewriting and editing.
13. Transition sentences usually aren’t necessary or helpful
When you conclude a paragraph by summing up what you’ve already said and then introduce the next paragraph with an overview, you’ve wasted two sentences better spent illustrating your experiences or supplying concrete details. It’s not uncommon for transitions to account for more than half of the word limit space on first drafts. Transitions, introductions, and conclusions are the first cuts I make because they are not word economical or information dense. They only help when they play a dual role of providing new information while setting up the following experience or example. Occasionally, transitions play a rhetorical purpose that extends a metaphor or symbol.
In almost all instances, especially in supplements or transfer statements of purpose, you need only a single word or phrase to indicate a shift, change, or continuation to your reader. Words like moreover, nevertheless, however, and finally are typically all you need.
14. Use near-term forecasting where necessary
Near-term forecasting is a technique that allows you to anticipate an achievement, internship, officer position, or some other development that you reasonably believe will happen or will have happened by the time reviewers assess your application. It isn’t strictly necessary for something to have occurred for it to be valid content for you to write about. Both first-time freshmen and transfer applicants can use this technique, but it’s especially helpful for transfers since you’re applying in a condensed timeline.
Since transfers submit their application at the beginning of their semester, and it might only be their second semester of college after high school, it can be helpful in the essay and resume to identify activities you have in progress and potential short-term goals. Some examples include a potential research publication, hosting an event, or receiving an officer position. You can frame this in an essay by writing, “I expect to become the treasurer in March,” or “We have submitted a paper for publication, and we intend to present at the conference in April.”
If an opportunity falls through, you also don’t need to worry about updating your application or telling admissions. Nobody fact checks your inputs, but that also doesn’t mean you should lie or mislead.
15. Cite specific UT resources and opportunities that appeal to you
In the final paragraph or two of your essay, you should cite particular courses, labs, professors, student organizations, student abroad programs, minors, or career resources that match your interests. You can also pair these resources with the content about your current experiences to show how you see yourself on campus.
Many applicants make the mistake of neglecting to share any reasons why UT appeals to them, or they write vaguely about UT being a top-ranked school and great for their future career. Since reviewers expect a somewhat higher level of sophistication and maturity from transfer students, they want to learn how your previous and current experiences could connect with UT on-campus opportunities. That can also help set up a summary of your long-term professional or academic goals after receiving your UT degree.
For some students, you might be able to identify a professor, course, or research opportunity not currently provided by your institution. For instance, UT-Austin has a unique program called Bridging Disciplines that helps connect coursework outside of your major with internships or research. Few universities offer a similar program. UT also has many certificates and specializations that may not be available at your current four-year university, so it can help to identify ways that UT can uniquely help prepare you for the future.