Transfer Admission

Plan II Honors does not currently offer transfer admission and is not accepting transfer applications.

Unfortunately, over-enrollment issues have forced Plan II Honors to suspend transfer admissions for the last four semesters and onward.  Plan II does not currently accept transfer applications.   There is a very strong chance that Plan II Honors will NOT reinstate transfer admissions.  

If Plan II does reinstate transfer admission in the future, it's important for prospective transfer applicants to note that Plan II is, primarily a four-year freshman program.  Therefore we do not review transfer application from students who will have completed 45 or more (classroom) credit hours at the time they would begin Plan II if admitted. 

The 45-hour maximum is because Plan II Honors has a core curriculum which is front-loaded.  More Plan II requirements are scheduled in the the first two years of the program than the second two years.  Additionally, the core curriculum requirements progress from year to year and course to course.  We do not accept substitutes for our core courses.  Therefore, Plan II is not a suitable program for someone with more than two or three semesters of college under the belt.  Hence the 45-hour maximum.  That maximum applies to classroom hours, not to hours earned through testing.

Other Options and Opportunities:

Disappointed transfer applicants interested in the Liberal Arts might research the disciplinary honors tracks in the College of Liberal Arts departments.  All of the disciplines in the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) offer an honors track.  These tracks usually require additional courses, usually some kind of advanced junior or senior honors seminar(s) and a required thesis.  These honors tracks are coordinated through the departments and are not stand-along programs or majors, as is Plan II Honors. So, if there is a specific major in which you’re interested, this could very well be the best route.  With the exception of the Plan II Honors major and the Humanities major (which requires an application), all the majors in the College of Liberal Arts are open and accessible.

In the College of Natural Sciences, both the Dean's Scholars research-focused honors program and the Health Science Honors program (for those intested in medical careers) accept transfer applications for second and third semesters.

Double-major and dual-degree opportunities are avaiable to all students at the University of Texas at Austin.

Programs and majors to investigate include:

• First Year Interest Groups (FIGS):  provide first-semester students with a small community of 25 students who share thematic or academic interests and share two to four of the first semester classes.  The FIGS have special staff advising and peer mentors to guide first-year students.  This program was created with the Plan II Honors students’ first-year experience as the model.  FIGs give students who are not in an honors program a similar first-semester experience.

• The Humanities major offers students the opportunity to fashion his or her own course of study as a major for the B.A.  “Each course in the individual program of study must clearly contribute to a coherent major with a focus on a particular theme, idea, or question. As the model plans in this brochure show, that  interdisciplinary subject may be as specific as Health Care Policy, or as comprehensive as Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.”

• The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas is another terrific option.  This is a very new program that is receiving RAVE reviews.  The Center  offers the Program in Core Texts and Ideas, which provides an integrated path through UT's core curriculum based on a study of the great books for students in all colleges. In collaboration with the Liberal Arts Honors Humanities Program, the Center offers an interdisciplinary major in the great books.

• EUREKA (enhancing undergraduate research experience, knowledge and access)  Participation in undergraduate research can benefit you educationally,  professionally, and personally.  The University of Texas at Austin serves Texas and the nation as one  of the most highly rated public research universities in the United States.  Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin are leaders in a variety  of fields—from nanotechnology to musical composition to child welfare—that  touch our daily lives and shape our future. As an undergraduate at UT  Austin, you can become a part of this exciting community of discovery,  creativity, and innovation.

• UT Austin offers a really neat program (one of my favorites) through the School of Undergraduate Studies, which can enhance even an honors track in any College of Liberal Arts disciplinary study.  The Bridging Disciplines Programs offer ten interdisciplinary areas of study.  Those topics include a concentrations such as Human Rights & Social Justice; International Studies; Social Entrepreneurship & Non-profits; Social Inequality, Health & Policy; and Ethics & Leadership.

• The School of Undergraduate Studies offers a Strategic Advising Center that is extremely useful in helping students develop educational plans and goals.   The advising includes major exploration assistance to undecided and transitional students at the university.   A great new tool UGS offers is Wayfinder.

• The Business Foundations Program is a certificate program (rather than a degree) that provides (as the name indicates) the FOUNDATIONS of business, without having to gain admission to the McCombs School of Business.   You do not have to be admitted to the McCombs School to pursue the BFP certification.

Business Foundations is one of the best opportunities available at the University—especially for a Liberal Arts student.  Combining the BFP certificate could actually make you more employable and perhaps a little more flexible.  I hope you will explore this program.  

There is also a plan to complete the entire (excluding the pre-requisite classes) Business Foundations Program in one summer.  I think this would be a grueling summer, but a great way to complete a very valuable component and still leave yourself lots of long-semester time for foreign language study.

• Finally (and please remember that this is not an exhaustive list) there is the Junior Fellows program.  Junior Fellows are involved in undergraduate, independent research projects.  They meet to discuss research, present their projects, participate in field trips and attend presentations and lectures given by scholars on and off campus.  Many of the Junior Fellows are Plan II students and students in the CoLA disciplinary honors programs however Junior Fellows is open to all students on campus—in any major or college.

They are all excellent programs and most have some degree of flexibility that could make them, sometimes, better fits for a student interested in a program such as Plan II Honors.  They should all blend well with the Liberal Arts Honors Programs and most will work with any majors.

We hope you will take a look at some of these great options.  A student a UT Austin will never lack of resources, top-flight faculty, undergraduate research opportunities; an almost endless choice of majors, minors and programs; great advising and then, to top it all off, it’s in Austin Texas.