@AggieMomAgain thank you for understanding my point. Right now I’m currently on pace for magma cum Laude and that is surly good and gpa should matter very much in college admission especially schools that are competitive where ranking is out of reach for students.
Sometimes I think every school in Texas must the the most competitive evah. Test scores have to underpin such claims. It is what it is. If students are in, say, the top 30%… all getting top test scores, then I suspect that is on the school profile for admissions to see.
@sma1234, I didn’t misunderstand your point at all. I just (greatly) disagree with it. Semantically, you’re correct. A student at a “very highly competitive” (wealthy, primarily white, upper SEC suburban) high school could most certainly be in the Top 10% of some other random high school, even if they were in the top 30% of their own. They could, for example, go to a “less competitive” school, and work harder than they did at their “more competitive” school. OR, they could take different classes, with more weight, and outperform their peers (just as they could have done in their “more competitive” school).
It is also true, that a poor(er) inner city kid, or a remote/small school rural kids in the top 10% at “less competitive” school, with far less opportunities could have been in the Top 10% of of the “more competitive” school, if only their parents could live within the enrollment boundaries of “very competitive school”. After all, they’re not ‘less intelligent’. They don’t ‘work less hard’. They are meeting the exact same college readiness standards that the State mandates as required for qualification in the Top 10%, as their counterparts in “very highly competitive” and “more competitive” schools.
It’s also just as likely that the student in the top 30% of “very highly competitive” school, would have only been in the top 30% of “less competitive school”. In those “less competitive” schools, there are those students who work hard, make sacrifices, and are dedicated to academics. They’re not “less smart” than the very smart students at “more competitive” schools. You’d be competing with the same caliber of driven, hard-working, high performing students. Only, these students don’t have the easy access to success that “more competitive” school has, and therefore probably work a lot harder, and probably have a lot more grit. I don’t think they’d be as easy to usurp as is commonly alleged here.
That’s great! Your hard work and GPA do matter, and will pay off. I promise you it will. Just as it mattered for students who earned Auto and Academic admit status. Just as it matters for every holistic admit. It matters for every student, at every school, not just the type of school that you attend, where you feel that your advantages should give you a leg up over students, exactly like yourself, at what you’re calling “less competitive” schools. Top 10% rank was not out of reach at your school, as presumably some students achieved it (unless your school doesn’t rank at all, and then TAMU would have ranked you). What you’re saying is that you worked hard, you achieved high, but (some) other kids, in your school and environment, achieved higher earning Top 10% rank. It wasn’t out of reach, it was just difficult to attain. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
@AggieMomAgain, GPA is a factor in holistic admissions. Not only is “Class Rank” is a direct reflection of GPA, but if you look at the common data set for TAMU, they check that Academic GPA is “very important” to their holistic admission decisions.
Exactly! This! The kids, in every environment, in each eligible school, did what it took, through hard work, and sacrifice, and dedication to take the most rigorous classes that were available, and to rise to the top of their cohorts who were in the same environment, with the same advantages and constraints. Not everyone will earn this distinction. That’s not to say that they didn’t work hard and sacrifice too. It’s not to say that they are not also deserving of recognition. They are! But, not everyone gets the trophy. Just as some very hardworking, amazing students are going to get squeezed out of being the Valedictorian, some very hardworking, amazing students are going to miss the cutoff of being in the Top 10%.
I want to comment on the competitive vs noncompetitive high schools. According to some, I go to a “non competitive” high school, because I live in a not too wealthy town, and I go to the “poorer” of the three public high schools in my city. But I do not go to this school because I wanted to game the system an ensure my admission to a Texas public school. I go to the school I go to because it is the MOST competitive school in my city. Being in the International Baccalaureate program means that at my school, grades aren’t given, they are earned. Its a completely different world than AP. In an AP Physics class sophomore year, I received an overall grade of 95, while I made a 3 on the exam. Our grades in I.B. corroborate directly to the scores we make on our exams. I have a 98 in my history class only because I am making 7’s on my practice exams and my internally graded research paper. Its not easy to be in the top 10% of my high school, because that requires having high pass rates on exams, as in consistently scoring 6’s and 7’s on practice exams and internal assignments. Many of my classmates are set to go into college with at least 24 credit hours, but are not even guaranteed acceptance to Texas public schools.
It is not about the “competitiveness” of a high school. All high schools are competitive when you account for the accessibility to resources (or lack thereof) the school has in helping their students.
Some schools just have access to more resources than others. When you go to the so-called “non competitive schools” you will find a group of students who are fiercely working just as hard as everyone else to get into their dream schools, we didn’t choose to go to these schools because we wanted it “easy”.
The top 10% rule guarantees access to Texas public universities for high achieving, college ready students from all walks of life, but everyone who is automatically admitted, regardless of what high school they attended, earn their admission to college.
@“Aggie.Guard.23” you ‘get it’! Clearly you are focused, driven and I know you’ll do well, wherever you go to school! Your parents must be incredibly proud! Keep doing what you’re doing!
@“Aggie.Guard.23”, Yes. YES! And… YES!!!
All of it! But this…
…and this…
…in particular, demonstrate both the academic mettle and the character of not only high performing, high achieving, stand-out students, but of Aggies.
There are many, many outstanding students in Texas. But, being outstanding doesn’t entitle students to admission to Texas flagships. Being exceptional, however, by either rising to the Top 6/10%, by attaining the next tier of exceptional academic standing through both high academic rank and SAT/ACT, or by having an exceptional holistic profile is how you gain admission to Texas flagship universities. Entitlement was never a “thing” for these kids. They worked hard, they persevered, and they earned it… every last one of them!
Thank you @“Aggie.Guard.23”. I wish your response could be pinned at the top of this, and couple of other Texas forums!
@nomatter I know going to a uncompetitive school doesn’t mean you’re not as smart as kids going to a competitive school. In fact you may be even more smarter than those kids. But we all know even the admissions counselor I spoke to said that most kids that go to a less competitive school in where it is easy to be in the top 10 end up struggling in their first year at A&M due to not much exposure to ap classes in high school and college rigor classes. Ask there are plenty of kids in the top 10 who don’t even try on the sat and earn score such as 1100s and in the 1200s which his just sad. This a huge disadvantage to kids who go to a competitive high school do everything they can but their rank still isn’t where they want it to be but score high on the sat and still don’t get admitted. I also think that kids in the top 10 percent and auto admits should have required sat scores they need for admission so everyone gets in on fair chance. Uncompetitive schools don’t have much competition which is what makes it an uncompetitive school less competitive than others. For example at my school you have to take ap classes for you to be even in at least the top 30 percent as kids taking unweighted regular classes earning mainly a’s barely make the top 50! Competitive schools don’t have to be predominantly suburban, rich, white schools as my school is mainly Asian and guess who is in the top 10 percent in my school all hardworking asianas and they deserve to be there’s nothing wrong with that. There can be predominantly white kids at a less competitive smaller school no one knows in a small town in where it can be easy to get top grades. I think that A&M should definitely look at what high school they attend and the competitiveness of the schools as high competitiveness indicates high student knowledge and chances of greater success for the first year mainly and the student is more prepared than a students who is going to a less competitive school. It may be that someone going to a less competitive school is also prepared for college but that may not always be the case. And they don’t look at your gpa as the admissions counselor told me but who knows maybe they do not just that in detail. He even acknowledged the fact that they want to change the process but there’s nothing they can really do about it. And hell yeah life isn’t fair for everyone but it should be when it comes to college admissions.
Here’s a extreme example to illustrate the frustrations of the kids at the “competitive” schools.
Take two groups of 50 students. And assume by some sort of measure they are of equal intelligence/skills/capabilities. The first 50 attend a school with 500 students and all 50 finish in the top 50=top 10%. The second 50 attend a school with 100 students. Not all 50 can be top 10%.
At some point the competitive school pushes out the highly qualified students with a high concentration of more qualified students.
I don’t believe the top 10% rule is so only the top 10% in intelligence get in. What a boring student body that would be.
The answer to the frustrations is to make more schools like A&M!
No, we don’t all know that. And, neither does your admissions counselor. That’s just a story that people console themselves with, wanting to believe that all of these poor misguided kids who wrongly aspire to (and achieve) admission at the State flagships (in essence, stealing spots from “competitive school kids” who clearly earned the spots by virtue of birth and socioeconomic status) really aren’t qualified, and are going to struggle and suffer for it. The actual outcomes tell a very different story.
1100 & 1200 SATS are above both the national and state averages. Why would it be sad that kids who score above average on these exams are admitted to State flagships? Above average is a good thing, after all. Also, 1100s & 1200s (depending on the subscores) indicate that they’ve met the State’s benchmarks for college readiness. What more could be asked of them…? On a single exam (that some kids, but not all, can afford to take multiple times to up their score), do you really think that an 1100 vs. a 1200 means “more college ready”? It doesn’t. It means “less answers wrong on this single test”. The real barometer (and only accurate predictor) of college success is long-term performance, measured by GPA.
Did you know that College Board publishes an annual report about SAT statistics. You can see the same for ACT as well. Did you know that there is a direct co-relation between socioeconomic status and performance on these two standardized tests? The more education that I have, and the more money I make, there is an across the board (that even transcends race) rise in testing scores. A significant rise. Interestingly, the College Board maintains that test scores do not predict college outcomes. Amazingly, they do predict, nearly flawlessly, what the socioeconomic status of the student is. The College Board also maintains that there is no co-relation between test scores and GPA. In other words, comparing the long-term classroom performance of a student, to the number of correct answers to a test that measures how well they take that insular test, is comparing apples to… fibers in the lint filter of a dryer. That’s one of the reasons why the State Legislature baked in readiness benchmarks vs. absolute score into the rule. The goal was to level the playing field, not give yet another unfair advantage to the already advantaged.
Every school, unless Texas truly does have a village of idiots somewhere (which would be totally hilarious) has hard-working, dedicated students. Period. They are smart. They are able. They work hard. They persevere. They are college ready, and they can swim in every pool, just like ‘competitive school’ kids.
This is how it is at the vast majority of schools. There are actually not a lot of schools that don’t have (at least) honors classes. It is most typical that, for the purposes of ranking, the weighted GPA is considered. Even schools that don’t have IB or AP classes, those students take the most rigorous classes available to them to compete for the Top 10%, AND they meet the State’s college readiness standards. Most importantly, the demonstrate the perseverance to maintain high grades over time. More importantly, if 50% of a high school’s students (the exception, perhaps, being a magnet school for profoundly gifted/talented students) has “All As” at any level of coursework, that school most likely isn’t reflecting rigor, but grade inflation.
Again, this is a myth. But, let’s just go with it for a moment… If it’s easy to get top grades, then the Top 10% still had to be craftier than the bottom 90, so it all worked out as it should. The top 10% still had to, somehow, rise to top of their peers, did they not?
The State of Texas sets the requirements for the Top 10% rule- this is law. Texas A&M is a State university, it is bound by the law. Again, “competitiveness” is in the eye of the beholder, and here on CC is a code word for the entitlement of higher SEC, white, suburbanites. There are a lot of “maybes” and “maybe nots” with regard to any individual student’s readiness for college. Just as your hypothetical “less competitive school” kid might not be college ready, so may be the case that your “competitive school” may not be college ready. Still, they each meet the college readiness standards (as outlined by the legislative authority who actually gets to determine), so we let the chips fall where they may. After all, if they achieved “Top 10%” designation, they have met ALL of the benchmarks for college readiness, not just GPA.
Texas A&M considers GPA to be “very important” in holistic admission review. You can go look at the common data set to see what Texas A&M says, directly.
It would be nice if it was fair. Fairness would indicate a truly level playing field, where all students had access to the exact same opportunities and resources without regard to socioeconomic status. Classism, racism, sexism, and every other ‘ist’ & ‘ism’ would be eradicated from our society, making education and experience equally accessible to those who work hard. Yep, sign us up for that! I sincerely hope you get to see that in your lifetime 
The Top 10% rule doesn’t even address intelligence. It addresses performance. The highest performing students, in a school will rise to the top of their class. It probably goes to reason that they’re not unintelligent. There are a lot of highly intelligent kids who go so far as to fail classes, because they fail to perform. It’s not about intelligence at all. It’s about the kids who, over the course of years, demonstrate the highest level of performance in their environment.
That happens at every school. Some of the highly qualified students will not have out-performed their other highly qualified peers. Every competitor does not get the trophy.
I was at a National (invitational) sporting event with my kid about a month ago. The kids who get the nod are ALL exceptional performers. Still, it’s competition. Some are going to out-perform other great performances to gain a coveted spot on a podium. The kids who didn’t place were, simply put, amazing. If they weren’t amazing, they wouldn’t have even gotten the invitation. But, like the majority of competitors (my kid amongst them), they were on the outside looking in at podium time. It’s humbling, and awe-inspiring. To know that you’re one of the best in the world, in some cases, you’re the best in your sphere (state, region, country), but to realize that YES, sometimes you do everything right, you work hard, you do your best, you rise to the top, and there is still someone(s) ahead of you. That is competition. The Top 10% rule is competition too. You work hard, you make the sacrifices, and you take your best shot. If you don’t make it, all is not lost. You’re not diminished. You dust yourself off, and get back into the game. Students who don’t gain admission to TAMU College Station or UT Austin are going to be just as great as they would have been. They will bloom where they plant themselves. They will use their education, their perseverance and their competitive spirit to blossom fully. It’s okay to not win every match. It’s okay to not always get the trophy. Life is a marathon, not a 40yd dash. There are a lot of opportunities for learning and victories along the way.
I’m going to chime in here…my kids’ school district in a Dallas area suburb is quite large and spread out. The district has 5 high schools that draw from 13 different cities. The demographics are quite varied…from super affluent and not as racially diverse to extremely diverse and Title 1. The high school my S21 attends is a fabulous school but not as desirable to most since it’s Title 1 and has a large number of economically disadvantaged students. It’s also the school many try to transfer into from elsewhere in the district because it’s looked at “easy” to make top 10%. Nothing could be further from the truth lol. My son (and we are not economically disadvantaged) has a weighted GPA of 4.1…has only taken PreAp or AP courses since 9th grade and has never ever had a grade lower than a B in his entire school career…and yet his class rank is 254/1146.
In the class of 2018, the valedictorian (/ Hispanic male) went to Harvard and got 100% need based merit aid…2 others in the top 10 went to Cornell and the rest evenely divided between UT and A&M. These are hard working and smart, smart kids. Most of them are the first in their family to attend college. Without the 6%/10% rule there is no way they would be able to compete against kids whose parents can afford EC’s, enrichment activities, travel, elite select club sports etc. My sons high school has only 2 NMS this year while the 2 affluent high schools in our district only 5-6 miles away have like 20+ each.
I’ve always wondered what defines “competitive”…our Title 1 school has the same AP courses offered as the other high schools in the district (except AP Seminar…that’s only at one school in the district). My husband and I made the conscious decision to live where we do because we wanted our boys to have a more diverse and real world experience in the hallways of their school. We can well afford to live in the more affluent part of our town and send our kids to the high school that is considered “the best and most competitive” but we didn’t…not because we wanted to give them a leg up on cracking top 10%, but because we believe that a good kid who has the love of learning will excel in any environment. I’m proud of my son, this year alone he moved up his class rank 50 spots and is firmly in 1Q…he’s taking rigorous classes and balancing them beautifully while being in marching band. If this upward trajectory continues through junior year I think he’ll be somewhere around top 15% which is not too shabby in my book.
I feel like several people have hijacked my suggestion (adding a 3.5 unweighted gpa at any school as a factor to be considered for holistic review, along with class rank and standardized test scores) and have decided that I am dismissing the efforts of the Top 10%, I am not, this has noting to do with the Top 10%. My suggestion would in no way affect the Top 10% anywhere.
"TAMU Holistic Review admits:
If you do not qualify for top 10% or academic admission, but meet the State of Texas Uniform Admission Policy, you will be reviewed based on:
your application and essay
class rank and SAT and/or ACT scores
extracurricular activities, community service, leadership, employment and summer activities
talents, awards and honors"
No where on here do they mention gpa. If an applicant isn’t in the Top 10% Automatic or an Academic Admit in the Top 25% with the required SAT/ACT score, they go into review with the factors listed above. GPA is only considered as a function of the class rank. And the competitiveness of a High School is also not included as a factor in review. The reviewers see the gpa and perhaps they note that someone has a high gpa but a lower class rank and realize that it is because they are at a highly competitive school, but who know for sure?
Allowing students earning a 3.5 unweighted gpa as a factor to be considered for review admission would benefit everyone, as it would be across the board and give no favor to students from schools which have access to Honors/AP/IB/DC etc. classes. It would give recognition to students in schools where the majority of the Sr. class works hard and earns a gpa that includes mainly As and Bs. I am not saying to abolish including a weighted gpa, just allow a student who earns the distinction of a 3.5 unweighted gpa to know that is a factor that is considered.
This is not a “participation trophy” given out to everyone who shows up, even if they are sitting down and picking their nose instead of actively engaging in the sport/class/activity. To suggest such is offensive to me. Any student who earns a 3.5 has worked hard in whatever classes they take at whatever level in their school, no matter how competitive the school itself is. These students have earned mainly As and Bs in all of their classes. They aren’t just showing up, they are working hard and have made sacrifices.
Some of you on CC dismiss the idea of an unweighted 3.5 from HS as not as deserving of recognition as a 3.5 Cum Laude from TAMU because not all HS grade on the same system. I think noting that it IS unweighted actually does make it equal from HS to HS. The students are showing how hard they are working by the grades they are earning in whatever classes are available at that particular school. It shows their effort, which they control, without influence of their cohort students, as that is shown in the class rank.
But it will also show that at some schools, more than half of the graduating class has earned that distinction, and at some schools, 3.5 will be their Top 25% or higher. But why not recognize students who attend a school where more than half make an effort to earn good grades?
When there are more students earning National Merit in a school than the number of students in the Top 10%, (many dozens of students), those students also make great grades, They haven’t just twiddled their thumbs expecting to coast into college on a great score. They are actively working HARD. And the rest of the students are also working hard to keep their rank, it is exceedingly rare to have much movement in class rank at many schools. At some schools, there is no movement to a higher class rank as every student above them is just as focused on their grades. I don’t mean just unlikely, I mean impossible.
I simply think that including the unweighted gpa with a benchmark of 3.5 unweighted gpa as a factor in review would at least give an acknowledgement that a student who earns a 3.5 unweighted gpa in any HS is probably capable of thriving in college. At the same time, it would show that some schools have a large population of students who are actively earning good grades. And it would hurt no one.
But this will all be moot as the rumor is that TAMU will do away with or probably at least modify the Academic Admissions category before too long.
And many schools are going to a system of 100 points where each numerical grade earned will follow the students Instead of an A is an A, the difference between a low A and a high A will be a calculated. I think this will just add stress to the adolescent mind. I am glad that my daughters are past the process of applying for college.
I worry about the students who are HS underclassmen or younger. This past year was absolutely brutal, I can’t imagine where this will lead or what the process will entail when my (future) grandchildren are applying for college.
My tow cents, not an argument just a levee view/perspective.
At my children’s HS an A is not calculated as a 4.0 unless you get a 100. A 90 is a 3.0. A 95 is a 3.5 etc. until all schools offer the same rigor, gpa calculation and weighted scale, there is no way to compare students from different districts based on GPA. My sons dual credit wasn’t weighted at all. Where a school in the next town is a 6.0 class. Go figure. Also a 3.5 for all on level classes is not the same as a 3.5 for all advanced classes. If you make that equal then you will have a system of complete underachievers.
@AggieMomhelp agree! Our district is old school-your gpa is based off the grades you earn. A 90/A has less weight than someone who earns a 98/A in the same class. At graduation, the true Top 10 kids from every high school have their gpa’s shown-and they are sometimes 8-10 digits long
(Ex 4.72384).
In a neighboring district, an A is an A, and students who make ‘all A’s’ in AP classes & others, are given the title Valedictorian. Two high schools in that district will easily have 30-50 ‘Valedictorians’ every year. Yep, all earning $1000 towards tuition in a Texas public university, all gaining Automatic Admisson into UT, A&M.
It is absolutely unfair, but this district gets away with it.
There is no way to determine which schools are ‘more competitive’ or ‘less competitive’, as someone has suggested. There’s also no way to look at gpa’s the same, when so many districts have their own rules & scales.
For the time being, I think UT and A&M are doing the best they can.
I live OOS and unsure if my opinion should even count, but here it is. I agree with @AggieMomhelp & @52AG82 I don’t think an UW 3.5 makes things equal. But, I do think certain majors should have minimum requirements as well as a holistic review similar to the Engineering program.
To further complicate this discussion, my son’s school doesn’t even use the 4.0 scale. My son’s uw GPA is listed as 99.78. His actual cumulative grade average.
We have kids who attend half day at our CTC (vo-tech) in NHS. They have the grades and GPA to prove they belong in NHS, but not necessarily the same rigor as the academic path if you were to use 3.5 GPA as your basis for college admission. This is one reason why I don’t feel you can use the argument of a HS gpa being across the board equal. There is merit to the statement regarding an equal playing field when you mention a GPA from TAMU or any other top tier university.
Again, I am an out of stater looking in and freely admit I do not understand all the idiosyncrasies of Texas’s education system.
“Also a 3.5 for all on level classes is not the same as a 3.5 for all advanced classes. If you make that equal, you will have a system of underachievers”.
Not sure how As and Bs equals a system of underachievers.
I didn’t say throw out the weighted gpa. That is how the class rank is determined. The weighted gpa rewards the students who take advanced/honors/AP/IB/DC classes. That is a great thing, I’m not advocating doing away with either the weighted gpa OR the class ranks or the Top 10% rule. I am advocating adding the benchmark of 3.5 unweighted gpa to the holistic review. Showing the unweighted gpa across the board shows that a student is earning mainly As and Bs in whatever courses they take, at whatever level at whatever school.
Should only students who take only advanced/honors/AP/DC/IB classes and earn all As be the only ones to attend college? Are we going toward “only perfect people need apply”?
And what about students who are “gifted” or at least highly interested in one area and not another? Some students excel at Math, or Science or English, etc but may not perform as well or be as interested in one or more of the other areas. They are still adolescents. Their brains are still developing.
And as I said, this is all moot anyway. It will be interesting to see which direction TAMU goes if they do away with the Academic Admit category. So very glad I don’t still have a child in HS.
Refusing to jump in on this topic but not without opinion ?. We are moving on since there is nothing we can do to change it for our kiddos now. So now focusing on what we can do…shop for her new apartment ?
I have a less contriversal question…anyone know when dorm move in’s start? My DD is moving into an apartment and I am hoping it is before the mass move-on process starts. Haven’t been able to find it on Google.
The big dorm move-in day is August 18 but some pay to move in a day early. Good luck with the apartment hunting!
@AggieDreamin Apartments in CStat have different move in dates and most don’t have move in until AFTER Howdy week has already begun, usually a Wednesday. They don’t like to tell people this.
Most leases are up on July 31 and they have to be out within 3 days. Then, the apartments do all the repairs to get ready for new move ins in 21 days or so. They will tell you that you might be able to move in early if you call to see if your unit is ready, but that is just to get you to think it will happen. It won’t.
Dorms start the 18th of August. So, you will miss the dorm move in rush but not the apartment, which wasn’t too bad anyway except it will be H-O-T Hot.
@Thelma2 @eggscapgoats Thank you! She already has a signed lease and move in is Aug 16th so we can get in and out before the rush! Oh and I need to clarify that I know how to spell controversial deapite the bad typo…LOL!