Acceptance Rates for Popular Texas Colleges

What are your chances of getting into different Texas colleges? While a handful of colleges admit every applicant, the most selective college accepts less than one in ten.

Every college in Texas publishes their acceptance rate, which represents the percentage of applicants who receive an admission offer. A lower acceptance rate means more competitive admissions, while a higher acceptance rate means it’s easier to get in.

How does the University of Texas at Austin acceptance rate compare to the Texas A&M acceptance rate? Which colleges send admission letters to more than half of applicants? Keep reading for the latest data on acceptance rates at Texas colleges.

Texas has dozens of popular colleges. But what are the acceptance rates for schools like UT Austin and Texas A&M?

Texas’s public university system enrolls over 250,000 college students. But the acceptance rates for UT schools vary widely.

The University of Texas at Austin has the lowest acceptance rate in the UT system. Out of over 60,000 applications in 2022, the flagship public university admitted 31%. In contrast, the University of Texas at Arlington admitted 81% of applicants, while UT Dallas accepted 85%. All the other UT campuses admitted more than 85% of applicants, with UTEP admitting 100% of applicants.

The Texas A&M system has a higher acceptance rate than the UT system. Texas A&M University-College Station admits 63% of the more than 43,000 students who apply, while TAMIU admits 48% of applicants. The other Texas A&M campuses admit more than 85% of applicants.

From its Lubbock campus, Texas Tech University admits 67% of the more than 35,000 applications it receives. The public university reported a median SAT score of 1190 and an ACT score of 25 for its admitted students.

Rice University is the most selective college in Texas. In 2022, Rice reported an acceptance rate of 9%, meaning fewer than one in ten applicants received an admission letter. The private university also reported that more than 31,000 students applied.

The University of Houston system enrolls more than 70,000 students. Its four campuses admit a majority of students who apply.

At the main campus, 66% of applicants receive an admission offer. University of Houston-Clear Lake accepts 69% of applicants. The other two campuses in Downtown and Victoria accept more than 80% of applicants.

We’ve created a complete list of all four-year nonprofit universities in Texas. You can use the table below to compare data on student population, average net cost, acceptance rate, and number of applicants.

The following school data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). All data is from 2022. Schools with fewer than 500 undergraduates were not included in this list.

Rice University is the hardest college to get into in Texas. The private university accepts just 9% of applicants. It also reports a median SAT score of 1540 and a median ACT score of 35.

Other Texas colleges with low acceptance rates include UT Austin and Trinity University, a liberal arts college. Both accept 31% of applicants.

UT Austin and A&M are both great Texas universities. The University of Texas at Austin acceptance rate is lower than A&M. UT Austin admits 31% of applicants, making it harder to get into. The Texas A&M admission rate is 63%. That means you’re about twice as likely to get into Texas A&M compared to UT Austin.

Several colleges in Texas admit nearly every applicant. For example, the University of Texas at El Paso reported a 100% acceptance rate in 2022, as did Wiley College.

Many public universities in Texas admit a majority of applicants, including most schools in the UT, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and University of Houston systems.

The University of Texas at El Paso is the easiest large university in Texas to get into. In 2022, UTEP admitted all applicants.

Many other public universities admit most applicants. Texas A&M University-College Station accepts 63% of applicants, while Texas Tech admits 67%. The University of Houston has a 66% acceptance rate.

The best colleges in Texas include UT Austin, the flagship public university, and Rice University, a leading private research university. Other top colleges include Trinity University, a liberal arts college, and Texas A&M, a public university.