Also, send us by postal mail a copy of your high school transcript that is most recent. This should at least include eleventh grade. This must be an official transcript, stamped and signed by a school official. The transcript must include class rank even if it may be an estimate, unless it is the policy of your school not to reveal class rank.
Finally, ask two teachers, at least one of whom is a science or mathematics teacher, to complete the Faculty Reference forms. The forms, as well as your transcript, should be sent directly to:
Dean's Scholars Program College of Natural Sciences The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 78712-1199
Social Security Number:
Date of Birth:
Postal Address: City, State, and Zip:
Phone:
High School:
Most Recent Class Rank: out of
Date of Ranking:
SAT scores: Highest total at single testing: Verbal score (for that testing): Mathematical score (for that testing):
Expected major(s):
1. List each school or community activity in which you have been involved during the last three years in order of their importance to you. Include your period of involvement and any positions you have held. Please list no more than ten.
2. List part-time or summer jobs, volunteer positions, or internships you have held during the last three years in order of their importance to you. Include your position, period of involvement, and hours per week. Please list no more than four.
3. List in order of their importance to you any significant honors and scholarships received during the last three years. Include the award sponsor, basis for the award (e.g. leadership, scholarship, need, etc.), and date received.
4. Identify your educational and career goals.
Essay 2: Describe an incident in which you failed at something important to you. Why did you consider it a failure? How did you deal with it?
Essay 3: Belief systems, be they scientific, cultural, political, ethical, or otherwise, are built upon axioms and evidence. When the evidence is in opposition with the axioms, conflict may arise within the system. For example, prior to 200 BC, Aristarchus of Samos and Erasothenes of Cyrene had made not only observations of a sun-centered planetary model and a spherical earth rotating daily on its axis, but also measurements of the sizes of the earth, moon, and sun and the distances between them. These ideas were rejected by the Greeks not on the basis of faulty observation, but simply because they accepted the popular Eudoxian system and ""...found it difficult to rid themselves of the conception that the earth and heavens were entirely different in regard both to their material constitutions, and to the laws they obeyed. Such a [Eudoxian] conception entailed the view that the base earth was stationary at the center of the universe, whilst the more perfect heavenly bodies moved uniformly through the purer regions above."*" Thus the reaction was to deny the evidence. The modern scientific approach, however, requires that axioms must give way to incontrovertible evidence. Discuss (including examples) to what extent you believe the scientific approach should apply in such conflicts between axioms and evidence in belief systems other than scientific.
* Stephen F. Mason, A History of the Sciences, New York, 1962.
