Is UT Austin or WashU harder to get into for undergraduate admission?

WashU is harder to get into overall for undergraduate admission. For a typical applicant comparing the two at the university-wide level, WashU is viewed as the more selective school, while UT Austin’s overall numbers are shaped a lot by Texas residency rules and automatic admission policies for in-state students.

One big reason the comparison gets confusing is that UT Austin does not admit from a single national pool in the same way WashU does. Texas public university policy gives many in-state students automatic admission based on class rank, so UT Austin’s overall selectivity reflects a state-driven admissions structure that is very different from WashU’s private, fully holistic process. That makes UT Austin extremely competitive in practice, but not as straightforward to compare.

Another important difference is the applicant pool. WashU draws a national and international pool for a smaller undergraduate population, and it has a long-standing reputation for being very selective across the board. UT Austin is also highly selective, but its overall admission picture is split between in-state and out-of-state applicants, and those groups face very different odds.

If you are asking for the simplest big-picture answer, WashU is the tougher admit overall. The one caveat is that some UT Austin pathways, especially out-of-state admission or highly sought-after majors, can feel every bit as difficult or even more difficult than WashU for certain applicants.