My child was admitted to Mays on October 11 as a review applicant with a 1340 SAT and class rank of top 15%. I think that my child was admitted due to the holistic factors including a really great essay and participation in extracurricular and work activities that showed both depth of commitment and leadership.
Maybe I'm off here, but I don't think that admission to Mays is necessarily more difficult than say Liberal Arts. As I understand it, A&M admits freshman applicants to the University first and then they are assigned to their first-choice major based on whether it is available (with the exception of Engineering). The biggest hurdle for review applicants has been that because admission is normally offered on a first come basis, by the time A&M has conducted holistic review of a review applicant, Mays has already been filled because review applicants normally don't get a decision back until late November at the earliest.
Based on the preceding info, my child prioritized the application to A&M and had everything done so that the app was complete and in review by the end of August. We had heard at an admissions event at A&M that in one of the prior cycles, Mays had filled up by sometime by end of October or early November. In any event, my child worked on the essay all summer long and had the test scores taken and lined up as well. The only thing we had to wait on was for school to start so that they could send in his transcript with the updated ranking through the end of the junior year.
A couple of weeks ago, the Howdy portal updated to six tabs and the next day the admission to Mays was in AIS and about a week later we got the official packet in the mail as well. It can be done as a review applicant, but the applicant needs to apply as soon as the ApplyTexas app is open, and they have to have outstanding holistic factors for admission.