On March 31st, 2025, the University of Austin, a recently founded private liberal arts college in Austin, Texas, criticized the current state of college admissions at elite institutions and detailed their novel admissions policy aimed at creating a class of undergraduates with strong qualities of “intelligence and courage.” In their statement, UATX called college admissions “not just biased. Not just broken. Unjust.” They argue that the current system of college admissions used by elite institutions “rewards manipulation, not merit” and “selects for conformity, not character.” They surmise that “Admissions at elite colleges now come down to who you know, your identity group, or how well you play the game,” ultimately molding prospective students to “spend high school anxiously stacking their résumés with hollow activities” and “then collect generic recommendation letters and outsource their essays to tutors or AI.”
Responding to higher education’s alleged loss of merit and character with action, the University of Austin unveiled a new admissions policy for upcoming classes of undergraduate students. Under their new system, “if you score 1460+ on the SAT, 33+ on the ACT, or 105+ on the CLT, you will be automatically admitted.” For students below these thresholds, “you’ll be evaluated on your test scores, AP/IB results, and three verifiable achievements, each described in a single sentence.” UATX claims that these policies will select for “intelligence to succeed in a rigorous intellectual environment” where “we don’t inflate grades.” They further claim that their admissions policy will create a student body possessing “courage to join the first ranks of our truth-oriented university.”
The University of Austin was founded in 2021 and admitted its first class of 100 undergraduate students in 2024, offering every student a full-tuition scholarship funded by private donation. Backed by more than 2,600 donors, the University has raised over 200 million dollars. UATX’s undergraduate program includes 15 courses based on a Great Books canon and a subsequent ability to specialize in interdisciplinary academic centers. UATX is certified by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, allowing it to award students a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Sciences degree. However, UATX is not currently an accredited university due to it not yet having a class of graduated students.