Top 10 Percent Rule Killing Texas Universities
In a letter to alumni and donors, UTAustin President Bill Powers lays out the devastating effect of the legislative admissions policy. By next year, 100 percent of students will be automatically admitted under the rule. Powers spells out the consequences:
We will be a university with no place for the outstanding musician, actress, or dancer. Without international students who have so much to teach us from their home cultures. Without the student body presidents, newspaper editors, and gifted leaders who are in the 11th percentile of their classes.
Why can’t the Top 10 Rule be modified? Because Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland refuses to consider it. Which is another good reason to hope that indications he will be pulled from the podium in the next session are true.
Clarification: see here.
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One of the MANY good reasons he should be pulled from the podium.
Of course, they’ve got room for the football players who are in the 37th percentile…
This is the worst thing to happen to public universities. It is leaving so many wonderful students out of the best schools in Texas and forcing them to go out of state. I wish I could pull him down myself.
I went to UTAustin at a time when most State students with reasonable GPA and a good SAT were in. I found more education and life lessons, meeting foreign students, those with new ideas and being able to be an editor of the entertainment and weekend magazine of the Daily Texan.
Because of this short part of my life, long ago,I was able to work for a major newspaper, live in France and be my own freelance business person, all owed to the people of Texas. I was granted an opportunity by the people of this State. I wish more will be able to have this gift in the future.
I was 44 out of 442 in 1999. Thank you top 10% rule. Hook ‘Em Horns!
And how bad would it have sucked to be #47? Lots of #47s out there….
@louis: exactly.
@ CF: No matter how the system is set up, there are going to be wonderful students left out of Texas’ premiere institutions.
I’m confused more than anything. Hasn’t this only become an issue since the abandonment of public schools? And aren’t these public colleges we’re talking about? Why all of a sudden is everyone coming out of St. Mark’s, Greenhill, TCA, Jesuit, etc. interested in a public education? I guess their argument is that their students in the 11-20% are smarter or better-qualified or more college-ready or more likely to positively affect society after college than those in the 5-10% at a public high school or at some other school that, in their eyes, is inferior?
And if we don’t have a rule (10% or something lower?) that automatically requires a Texas state school to admit its own residents, as the school continues to flourish, won’t taxpayer dollars end up funding education for more and more out of state and international students than our very own? Weren’t these institutions originally chartered for the sake of our own residents? Otherwise, let’s cut ‘em off from state funding and let them set their own admission policies and become private institutions.
I don’t know the answer to the problem the University President raises, and I’m no fan of Craddick, but give me a break, folks. So your kid can’t get in to UT but was in the top 11% at some elite Dallas private school? Send ‘em to Vanderbilt or University of the South or Emory. They’re great schools, you’ve already demonstrated you can afford it, and I’m sure they’ll turn out okay.
37th percentile? maybe the quarterback or kicker…try 90th percentile.
Very hystrionic of you, Wick:
“Killing Texas Universities”
“. . . devestating effect . . .”
Sounds like the way the the DMN reports on the DISD . . .
perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences
“Why all of a sudden is everyone coming out of St. Mark’s, Greenhill, TCA, Jesuit, etc. interested in a public education?”
different type of public education. At least at the University level individuals can make a choice of what public university they can attend. Not like with primary and secondary education. If you live within the boundaries of DISD your only ‘choice’ for public education is DISD.
The 10% rule refers only to incoming freshmen. So, send your talented 11 percenter to UTA, UTD,UTSA, or other UT campus, then transfer into the mother ship as a sophomore if that is still what they want. The talent is still there but likely more motivated/focused, a proven student, and arriving with more of Mom and Dad’s precious tuition $ to spend after the relative bargain of year 1 spent someplace else. Sure UT has awesome freshman English, tremendous freshman History, stupendous freshman math, etc., but bottom line the degree will still say UT.
@LOC
Actually, the 10% rule closes out UT and A&M for most straight A students with high SAT scores in the RISD, PISD and any other competitive suburban school district.
You have a top 10% GPA and awesome test scores, you are checking out Ivy league schools that offer full/partial scholarships, service academies etc. These students waste the handful of 10% rule spots afforded every school. The result is you get many, many, many incoming freshman who are academically poor entering UT. The non-credit remedial classes offered at UT has jumped 80% because so many of these “Top 10%” students lack basic algebra and English skills. UT is seeing students who are bringing 800-900 SAT scores with them.
It would be fine if the legislature would put more money into the second tier schools like SHSU, SFA and Texas State which could build on the brain trust we are losing to whore houses like OU and CU.
My kids will feed into one of the top high schools in the state – where the top 10% have an average of 97.1 and higher. So many incredibly bright and talented kids go out of state. A number of them will decide to stay out of state. The top 10% rule is hurting Texas’ future.
But Don, then prescious little Maggie won’t be able to rush as a freshman at UT and get into the right sorority!
I see what you’re saying, Bill, but overall, I can’t imagine that your math really works out. Yes, RISD and PISD have incredibly bright populations, but there are also a ton more students there, so the top 10% of a graduating senior class of 2,000 students is 200 headed off to UT. In more rural areas, a graduating class is lucky to have 100 students, meaning they are taking 10 seats. No matter how you slice it, the bottom line is that there just aren’t enough spots for every deserving kid, and in an effort to make sure UT is not only accessible to the Texas elite, you have to apply a rule of some sort. I’d be interested to see actual statistics – or the anticipated effect of changing it to a top 5% rule, or something else altogether. No matter what you do, there just aren’t enough seats in classrooms in Austin, and like Don said, someone’s gonna have to head over to UTA instead, or head to a private school or to some out of state school.
I’m sure Wick would prefer UT to be all-white like Highland Park.
LOC, where do you infer that it is the private schools that are complaining? Seems to me that your jaded eye just assumed that the comment “best schools” meant private schools. Axe to grind perhaps?????? Bill hits the bulls eye in his comments. UT is losing many gifted students who in the past would have gone there but are now forced to look elsewhere. Long term, this will affect UT’s standing in the academic world – it is already having an appreciable affect on UT’s incoming freshman SAT scores……………..
@LOC
I think you miss the point LOC. Those 10%’ers at competitive suburban high schools don’t even have a UT or an A&M on their radar. They are looking at the Stanford’s and Harvard’s. The 10% in a typical Texas suburban school is peppered with students who are in AP and Honors classes. These classes offer bonus points up to 10% tacked onto GPA’s. That’s why you always see kids on “Scholar Athlete of the Week” programs that have 4.3 GPA’s. You think some kid like that is going to UT? No.
What UT does get is the 10% who either went to a poor academic school or come from a district where many of the students do not place an importance on higher education. Craddick’s district is a great example. Blue collar, cotton/ag based, oil based. Many of those students want to follow in their parents foot steps on the Llano Estacado, not mixing it up with smelly hippies in Austin.
Craddick is doing this to cater to rural interests. Rick Perry does the same thing with many of his programs. He crushes urban and suburban areas with monster tax burdens while funneling most of the money out to rural Texas.
Wick, are you sure about that? I thought Craddick was opposed to an uncapped 10% rule. I also thought the House passed a version last year to cap the Top 10% to 67% of incoming students, while the Senate capped it at a different number. Don’t know if they worked it out before the session ended or not, but I seem to remember the House approving a cap, which is contrary to your argument. I will check on that.
@Don in Austin: The 11-percenters need to spend two years at UTA or elsewhere, then transfer — mighty UT will only accept transfer students with 30 hours of college credit under their belts.
Bill, you can use me as a source if you would like. I remember clearly that all 8 of us in the top 10% of my high school class up in the Panhandle were dying to land one of those nice sweet roughneck jobs or dream upon dream, we could work 14 hour days driving tractor. But alas, we ended up being forced into medicine, veterinarian medicine, book publishing, and finance. Some day though….I will get to feel the cold hard steel of the rig floor beneath my Allen Edmonds.
Only in Texas! One of the highly touted stats at any University/College is how many of their students were in the top 10% of their graduating class. In Texas, however, that’s a bad thing?
Sorry folks, but I’m still confused. Like I said before, though, I’d like to see some hard statistics on all of it. From my limited research, the total # of high school seniors in 2008 was roughly 274,000. That makes the # actually being admitted based on the top 10% rule 27,400. UT and A&M together have an entering freshman population of about 25,000. That doesn’t include Tech or any of the other state schools. What # of them are actually going? Not sure, but I’m guessing it’s not all of them.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect system. I’m also not saying it shouldn’t be changed. I think the top ___% rule capped at ___% of the overall student population makes sense, at least at first blush, since it balances the concept of a public education available to all segments of our state with wanting a top-tier university that retains talent (although that argument is pretty weak, given the population boom Texas is on track to experience over the next 20 years).
I just get a little bothered when some refuse to admit the true reason for why they oppose the rule in the first place – and it’s not from an axe to grind, Tom. Let’s all admit to that – that concerns about the top 10% rule have more to do with whether little John IV also gets to attend UT, where John I – III attended, than it does about Texas’ top talent looking elsewhere for higher education. Then we can have a real discussion about it.
Renee: 30 hours of college credit is two typical semesters. So kids can still transfer in after one year.
An even more telling statistic from the UT website itself:
In fall 2006, outside of those admitted under the top 10% rule, a total of 27,315 applications were received and 13,305 were admitted. In fall 2007, 27,232 applications and 13,781 students were admitted. That’s almost a 50% acceptance rate, and improving from 2006 to 2007.
UT also admits non 10 percenters to summer school on probation. My suburban teen and 10 percenter didn’t want to go to UT because its gi-normous. Even regional U is pretty damn expensive…payback I reckon for the $4 a semester hour tuition I had to pay. Attending HS just east of Craddick’s district, and representing the 6-10% of my class, we just wanted to get the heck out of the area, tyvm.
@Don in Austin –
Quick correction on the summer freshman – they are not on probation but are admitted students in certain schools (Liberal Arts, Education, Natural Science – basically all schools but undergraduate business) who take no more than 10 hours during the summer term.
Admissions told me that most students would rather start in the fall but some students don’t have that option.
My son (not in his class top 10%) started Texas as a summer freshman and he said he wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. Three classes and being in Austin in the summer. It gave him the opportunity to go to Austin and get settled without all the craziness of the first couple of weeks of the fall semester.
The past two years the students entering under the 10% rule were approximately 75% and 81% of the class.
I will have to say I was glad to fall on the fortunate side of the 10% rule, but that did mean my resume going into college was irrelevant to UT Admissions. All those hours on the vball and soccer team, Student Council Secretary, Key Club, NHS, Mu Alpha Theta, etc. were “pointless” as far as admissions were concerned. I also knew that my SAT score did not matter one bit because I was already in. If the 10% must stand, resumes, community involvement, and a minimum SAT should be held to a higher standard. Maybe then UT could weed out some of the top 10%ers that don’t deserve their place as much as others.
First off, I think LOC is right that this argument is more about family traditions of attending UT and going through rush during that freshman year. It wasn’t a big deal to me, and I went out of state for college, but I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing to be upset about. I attended a very strong Metroplex high school, and I’ve even taught in one of the worst high schools in the Metroplex, and I assure you there is a HUGE difference in the student bodies. As a taxpayer supporting UT, and with no axe to grind, I do think that the Legislature is wasting the outstanding UT resource with this policy. But maybe we are not thinking of this properly, since the rule basically was created in response to the Hopwood case that overturned the prior use of ethnicity as a UT admission tool. It’s basically “affirmative action” to boost urban and rural students at the expense of suburban students. So maybe we have to consider the merits of “affirmative action” as part of this discussion. Can of worms now opened…
Can anyone post a link that supports Wick’s statement that Craddick refuses to consider changing the Top 10% rule?
LOC,
The top 10% rule applies only to students graduating from Texas Public schools – not private school students. The kids at our private schools are competing with everyone else for the handful of slots available to students who are not in the top 10% of public schools. I personally know of several smart, talented kids (from both public and private schools) who are now in college out of state due to our top 10% rule. Several universities (U of Arizona, U of Oklahoma, etc.) now offer ‘in-state’ tuition rates to qualified Texas students. Those smart kids are being lured to other states because last year UT accepted more than 95% of their incoming freshmen based solely on the 10% rule. What a shame when every public university in the southwest will accept your kid and UT won’t.
Fortunately, my child was one of the luck ones who got in last year without being in the top 10% (because he graduated from a Dallas private school). Some would call the top 10% rule, reverse discrimination. It discriminates against private school students.
The top 10% rule does not only hurt private school students, FYI. I am top 12% of my senior class, 62 out of 496 with a 4.56 GPA….. I go to an INNER CITY high school that is known around the nation for being academically challenging and offering programs that only our school offers. My hope is to attend the University of Texas at AUSTIN for Fall 2009 and being in the graduating class of 2013. In order to be in the top 10% of my high school, you basically have had to test out of any 4-point class you have to take as a course to graduate. That leaves only honors and AP courses left because you must have classes to fill up your schedule. So while some students at not as challenging high schools relax in non-honors classes and are in the top 10%….. students, like myself, in ALL AP courses, making As… are NOT in the top 10%. Yes, I go to a public school, but it does not mean it is inferior to the so-called “elite Dallas Prep schools.” We try just as hard and are screwed just as much, I’m sorry Craddick is too lazy to actually weed out the “good” students from the “bad,” because these kids suffering from the rule feel inferior because they are not apart of the “top ten elite.”
LOC…. kids probably want to go to the university because they love Austin and UT, not to get into a fraternity or sorority. Considering only 17% of the entire student body (undergraduate and graduate) are apart of Greek life…
I don’t know…maybe it’s the “freshman experience” that draws them to not going to a feeder school for the CAP program… good try though.
I agree with PublicHSstudent. Our Texas public universities aren’t judging applicants for their abilities, intelligence or talent any more. Just their GPA.
Too bad this kid is competing against thousands of other students for less than 5% of the available slots in the UT freshman class.
But take heart PublicHSstudent – if your SAT scores are decent, you can get into plently of other great state universities (outside of Texas) and they’ll give you in-state tution. You may like it enough to stay there afer graduation and settle down with a good job. And then you can buy property and spend your paycheck in that state.
Meanwhile, we’ll will attract the down-and-out from across the country and Mexico to Texas because we’ve got ‘job growth’ and one of the best economies in the free world.
I hope you’ve already applied early to UT and that you’ve got lots of other applications in to other public universities. I hope one of them will recognize your abilities.
Folks, if you believe the rule/law is harmful to the hardworking folks who stretch financially to buy a $110,000 home in a great school district just to give their kids a public school education are being punished, please join our facebook group to get this law repealed or modified. Thanks!
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/169205?m=7d6fff67
I like the law. My son is in the top 5% at a public high school and will be attending UT soon enough.
I would also like the law if I were in the top ten percent. It’s great that your kid is going to UT. LOTS of kids want to go there. It also depends on the high school your kid goes to. I’m not saying he does to an easy school or an extremely difficult school, but that does play a huge factor in the “fairness” of this rule.
I have a higher GPA and a better SAT score than kids I know from a high school in my town and they are in the top ten percent of their senior class. With a 4.57 GPA, I’m not in the top ten. At our rival school, you can have a 3.95 and be in the top ten. Fair? I think not. Now for these students, their SAT scores don’t matter and neither do their resumes or extracurricular activities because the are top ten.
I’m not saying your son doesn’t deserve to be at UT, but the law should be changed because it is hurting the university.