Is UT Austin harder to get into than Penn?

Penn is harder to get into than UT Austin for most applicants. Penn is one of the most selective private universities in the country, while UT Austin is highly selective but also admits a large in-state cohort through Texas policies that shape its process very differently. The two schools can feel hard to compare because UT Austin may be especially tough for certain out-of-state students or for very competitive majors, but in broad terms Penn is the more difficult admit.

For a student applying from anywhere with strong grades, testing, and activities, Penn is the school where the bar is typically higher across the board. It is looking at a much smaller share of applicants through a holistic process, and there is no in-state advantage that opens a large portion of the class the way UT Austin has for Texas residents. If your question is simply which school is more selective overall, Penn is the clearer answer.

UT Austin becomes a different kind of challenge depending on who you are. Texas residents, especially those who qualify under the state’s automatic admission framework, may find UT Austin more accessible to the university overall, though not necessarily to their first-choice major. Out-of-state applicants do not get that benefit, and some programs at UT, especially business, engineering, and computer science, can be extremely difficult to enter even for strong students.

So for comparing your chances, it helps to separate university admission from major-specific admission. A Texas applicant applying to a less capacity-constrained major may view UT Austin very differently from an out-of-state applicant aiming for McCombs or Cockrell. Penn, though, is the tougher school in the overall head-to-head comparison.