<p>
Yep.Yep.Yep.</p>
<p>dt, I chuckled, too. All I can think of is kids of A+M prof’s and administrators.</p>
<p>All this points out is that Texas is hardly losing any of its “best and the brightest” because of failure to gain admission to UT. UT is not even a top 50 university, is in the high middle of publics, and if someone cannot become one of the 40-50,000 who get in (half of whom choose to go to schools they perceive are better elsewhere), it is no great academic loss to the state. Not to say those denied are not good people who will go on to become happy and successful, but UT, and to a yet greater extent other Texas publics (echoing Ag54 and others’ correct position), are not particulary difficult to which to gain admission. This myth is perpetrated by those who don’t get in and their parents. Top 10% rule or not, a great proportion of the UT class does not fall in this category but comes from the top quarter or even top half of the high school class.</p>
<p>ag and I have disagreed before on this one because we both have anecdotal information that conflicts. So I’ll point out I am only speaking of our own experiences at our suburban high school outside of Houston. Most of our kids outside the top ten percent but within the top 25% who applied to UT-Austin were ‘capped’ to UTSA or offered summer admissions. And the dirty little secret about being capped is (I believe) there is no guarantee you will be allowed to transfer to the UT-Austin…ever. The big complaints we are hearing two admissions cycles later goes like this…“I have a 3.5+ gpa at UTSA but they still declined my transfer.” And as I have mentioned, one of our more extreme cases involved a girl who was top 11%, who had 36 hours AP credit, graduated summa cum laude, was NM Commended and won state and national awards (with my d) at academic competitions, who was not offered fall admission.</p>
<p>I think, to be safe, one should qualify the argument about non top ten percent admissions to UT-Austin by saying ‘it depends on the h.s.’. If I remember correctly, ag’s kids attend one of the more academically prestigious public high schools in Houston (forgive me if I’ve confused you with another ag)…and certainly I would expect kids outside the top ten percent at a h.s. with a good academic reputation to not have a problem gaining admission to UT-Austin via holistic evaluation. Our h.s. does not enjoy that overall reputation and doesn’t really catch a break along these lines; but I’d put the top quartile up against the top ten percent at many a Texas school any day. These kids are ready, they did the work and they earned the chance. </p>
<p>And part of the problem lies in the many different methods of computing rank across the state. You may wonder how a kid graduates summa cum laude and still does not manage to crack the top ten percent. Well when your district doesn’t add weight to your AP and Honors classes, it makes it really easy to get squeezed out by students taking lighter, less strenuous courseloads. </p>
<p>Again, depends on the h.s.</p>
<p>(Sorry…haven’t read the whole thread…just had to get my two cents in on this particle facet of the argument.)</p>
<p>Are you sure that they aren’t talking about the branch schools? UT Cap program allows students that get over a certain GPA during the first year at lets say UT-Arlington or Dallas to transfer to UT Austin. I thought that A&M Consolidated fed into the College Station school that requires higher GPA and test scores for admission. eg A&M Corpus Christi is really easy to get into.</p>
<p>From the bealonghorn website:</p>
<p>Only Texas residents who apply for freshman admission to UT Austin may be offered participation in CAP. Students cannot apply directly to the Coordinated Admission Program. </p>
<p>Once offered participation in CAP, students choose from participating UT System institutions (UT Arlington, UT Brownsville, UT El Paso, UT Pan American, UT Permian Basin, UT San Antonio, and UT Tyler). Some participating institutions set their own admission standards for CAP participants. Each institution works with its CAP students to provide housing and financial aid as long as space is available. </p>
<p>CAP students are guaranteed admission to UT Austin for their sophomore year if they earn 30 hours of transferable coursework and achieve at least a 3.2 GPA. All 30 hours must be earned during the regular fall or spring semesters. Credit for courses taken during short semesters or mini-mesters cannot be used to fulfill the 30-hour requirement. </p>
<p>Returning CAP students are admitted as UT Austin transfer students into the College of Liberal Arts or the College of Natural Sciences. Students may request (but are not guaranteed) admission to other colleges without jeopardizing their admission to the university. </p>
<p>So it would appear that admission from CAP to UT is guaranteed, if you meet the criteria above.</p>
<p>UnivMom - A&M Consolidated is a high school in College Station.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification firefly - I believe the issue is for students wishing to transfer into McCombs, Communications or other highly desirable schools and degree programs. We’ve had a few capped posters here at CC who have hit the wall, especially with the undergrad business program. (Again anecdotally) the few I know of personally who have remained at their cap uni to pursue business were denied McCombs despite having the requisite GPA for overall admissions. The devil is in the details and I think this just gets by many students. Guaranteed transfer does not mean to the school of your choice. It can be quite a shock.</p>
<p>(And to be honest, COLA is massive. I can’t imagine coming out of there and hitting the job market. Wonderful if you are headed to grad or professional school though.)</p>
<p>firefly - thank you for the clarification. I thought that might be the name for the TAMU Cap. Silly me… Now if you asked me about the U of Mich system I could rank them all for you.</p>
<p>ldmom - The business school at UT- Austin is one of the most difficult programs to get into, and from what I hear takes a 4.0 at Austin to transfer into (AP score grades not included)its Business school. Students at the top 4% of Ds HS did not get in and they were NM Commended, AP Scholars of one kind or another. Often they would just throw up their hands and take the full scholarship from OU.</p>
<p>Same experience here UnivMom. McCombs can admit students based on a holistic process but they still seem to fall back on rank as a primary parameter. Similar thing with Communications. Just a tad unimaginative in my book. </p>
<p>I can’t even go down the rank road though because it gives me heartburn. Suffice it to say, I believe appropriate consideration of minority and rural students can be given without the legislature sticking their noses into the college admissions process. But that’s just me. ;)</p>
<p>There are a lot of qualified minority and rural students. But, I also know of rural, heavy minority school students whose parents own more than the family farm or that buy a small house or rent an apartment in the area and who transfer their kids in from a city HS at the begining of their Sr year w excellent stats and walk off as Val or Sal for the sole purpose of geting their kid into UT- Business school or UT or TAMU. The ethics make me nutty, but this is one of the ways that more well heeled people are skinning the cat.</p>
<p>
UM, do you “know” or do you “know of”? Most of those stories are urban legend. If you give me a specific high school in Texas where that happened, and the year of graduation, and I’ll be more than happy to check out it out and report back.</p>
<p>And anyway, how stupid would the McCombs folks have to be not to see that scam coming ? IMO They’d reject that gamesmanship in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>Some school districts are catching on to that trick and are putting in “residency” requirements in order to be named valedictorian.</p>
<p>lol…I know intimate details of similar happening with athletes within our school district. Parent is ticked off little Johnny Senior is gonna sit bench while a talented sophomore plays his position first string, so they buy a house within the attendance boundary of another of our high schools so their kid can play. Only family never actually moves into the new house. And even weirder…little Susie Cheerleader fails to make the squad her senior year after being a cheerleader all previous years. So Mom and Dad ‘split’ and Mom moves with Susie into an apartment within the attendance boundary of another high school that has a less competitive cheer squad, so she can cheer her senior year. Added bonus, she ranks higher at her new h.s. than her old securing her top ten percent spot.</p>
<p>We have so much of that in our district, they actual send detectives to sit outside homes to watch these families and verify they are residing where they claim.</p>
<p>I know this for a fact- you can not simply rent an apartment or house in Highland or University Park (Dallas) to get into the HP/UP schools. They actually come by and check to make sure you are living in it. You have to have utility bills and be there in the evenings. I was actually considering doing this…</p>
<p>Just a couple of questions regarding the stories of transferring for the sole purpose of becoming the valedictorian:</p>
<p>How does that help for admissions that are based on junior grades and ranking? </p>
<p>Aren’t all grading policies among public schools in Texas supposed to be uniform? </p>
<p>Does one play the game by transferring from an easier school to a difficult one, or vice versa? </p>
<p>It seems to me that a transfer from Bubba High to Highland Park would come in with high grades but would quickly lose it in the fall and spring of his or her senior year, and lose the possible val scholarship. In reverse, the student would take hard earned grades into a weaker school and lose on the holistic review. As far as gaming the ranking, a weaker school might have fewer options of weighed grades. </p>
<p>Does this all mean that finding a watered down IB program at a weak school no longer is the best gamesmanship? I thought there were still schools that couldn’t crack 900 on the old SAT but converted to a full IB program … you know that great Lake Wobegon-like program where every class is magically worth extra points!</p>
<p>“Aren’t all grading policies among public schools in Texas supposed to be uniform?”</p>
<p>No. That’s the rub imho. Top ten percent law MIGHT begin to make sense if we had uniform grading, weighting and therefore ranking in the state of Texas. But if they were to address that issue, then legislators would have to answer to their constituents for lack of proper instruction, failure to provide advanced and AP coursework, failure to provide adequate funding for learning materials, etc… in quite a few of our school districts. Better to grant automatic admission to their top ten percent and shut them up instead I suppose.</p>
<p>
It is certainly cheaper, and it gives the rich (I know that is a relative term) district parents something to gripe about. </p>
<p>In a public system, for admission to a public college, to allow schools with better funding to offer non-standard courses and then give those courses their “bonus points” to tilt the playing field even more in the favor of their students - well, that just doesn’t seem real fair to me. </p>
<p>Why should a kid in Coppell get a break the kid in Kopperl doesn’t get? Remember- this UT admission is a public benefit of being a Texan, not a benefit of going to a well-funded school in Texas. Even Steven. Same rules for everybody. </p>
<p>I think the fallacy people get caught up in is when they take a state-wide policy and try to apply it to two kids , one from Podunk and one from Dollartown and have it make sense to them. **It’s not designed to select between two kids. Never was. It was never designed to pinpoint the best Texas students. ** They see the Dollartown kid has a higher GPA because of AP courses, they see more AP courses on D’towns transcript because Podunk has none, or 3 . And heaven forbid that the Podunk kid has a lower SAT. </p>
<p>So they say “He’s better qualified.” Better qualified to do what? Be an astronaut? Go to med school? Get a Phd.? Win a Nobel prize? Number one, how can you be so sure? Give him a shot at the big time. Number two, is he automatically better qualified to be a hard-working taxpaying citizen of our state? Maybe something less fancy. A HR director, a newspaper reporter, a school teacher. That’s not as clear, now is it? This is a public program to serve Texas students. </p>
<p>Is the goal of public education in Texas to give our best prof’s and finest facilities to our kids that have had the finest teachers and facilities K-12? If so, I’m sure Top 10% will fall. But I don’t think so. </p>
<p>I think you had it right the first time.
This is just easier than dealing with the real problems and right now the small schools and the city schools have got the votes.</p>
<p>ah but curm…why is okay for Texans to accept the prime directive for admissions to public universities in our state falls somewhat under the category of ‘social experiment’ while other states (North Carolina comes to mind 
) fill their top public institutions with students who have demonstrated they are most prepared via their coursework and performance in high school?</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I graduated from Podunk High School, Texas. But I also remember being pulled out of class with 4 other kids who had abnormally (another relative term) high SAT scores for a meeting with the principal and counselor. They basically scratched their heads and said congrats, and otherwise did not know what to do with us. No encouragement to try for an Ivy; heck…no encouragement to try for ANYthing other than a job or junior college.</p>
<p>Ours was a rural district with a tax base comprised basically of a lot of farmland, so we had no money, no AP or honors programs, no great lab equipment. It was a necessity that teachers multi-task, so coaches taught most classes…and yes, the top ten percent law would have guaranteed at least some of the kids in my graduating class a chance to grasp at the brass ring. But…if this law means legislators can avoid addressing the educational inequities at the high school level, then is it really a good thing?</p>
<p>And I don’t want to hear about the Robin Hood law. I might not choke on that one so badly if the top ten percent law weren’t in place. Don’t take my money AND deny my kid in other words. (Speaking generally of course, ldgirl was accepted to UT Honors.) In fact, I’d gladly support a Robin Hood law if the legislature would repeal the top ten percent law.</p>
<p>To add fuel to the discussion: From an article from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>which was the goal of the top 10% rule. As the earlier post showed, the majority of kids are still coming from the traditional “feeder schools”, but the net has been cast wider with the 10% law.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And, to refute those who say that “ill equipped” students are taking the spots of “better” equipped students:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with this wholeheartedly. Any kid who works their butt off to be at the top of the class, regardless of the school, has the tool - the work ethic, to do well at our public flagship universities. They flat out know how to study and they value what education brings. </p>
<p>A hardworking student is a hardworking student, no matter where they come from. Conversely, a slacker is a slacker, even at a great high school.</p>
<p>ldmom is correct in that my kids were/are fortunate enough to go to a great high school, but they still have to work their butts off to get to the top. I know many smart kids who lolled away their highschool years, many of my kids’ friends, who could have, and should have, worked harder, but now find themselves LSU Tigers and Tech Raiders (and loving every moment of it BTW)</p>
<p>When it comes to the 10% rule, I think you’ll find plenty of contradictory article and research. After all, this issue has been divisive among scholars, politicians, and … families. However, the real problem of the 10% rule would only start when (or if) all the qualified (by the top 10%) students decided that UT-Austin is both a welcoming and affordable place. The reality is that our flagship schools are far from offering a correct reflection of our demographics, as minorities and rural students do not decide on UT-Austin or TAMU as their primary choices, a fact that both schools has tried to correct. </p>
<p>I’d like, however, to revert to the discussion about gaming. Like many, I have heard the stories, but I still fail to understand how it would work. Are there really families moving from one public HS to another for bettering their chances at UT and TAMU? </p>
<p>Let’s look at examples from people who have generously shared the stories of their children. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>CurDaughter: top student in a rural school between Dallas and Austin, great scores, gets accepted at Yale but attends Rhodes on a full scholarship (Bellingrath) that comes with many bells and whistles. Never considered UT-Austin, despite attending a school that does rank?</p></li>
<li><p>Eadadson: top student at arguably the best private HS in Dallas and Texas, great scores, gets accepted at Yale but attends UNC on a full scholarship (Morehead-Cain) that comes with many bells and whistles. I doubt that UT was ever a consideration. In addition, St Mark’s does not rank its students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So my question is: What could have those parents and students REALLY done to increase their chances at “better schools” or simply at UT. </p>
<p>Would CurDaughter have been better off at a larger non-rural school (say in Austin) and Eadadson at Highland Park or W.T. White?</p>
<p>Does a competitive student moves TO or FROM Highland Park/W.T. White? To or from Plano/Southlake? Or to or from Sunset/Duncanville?</p>
<p>I am simply trying to understand how this supposed jockeying for a better position really works.</p>