<p>I’ll give it a shot, xiggi.</p>
<p>A student with a GPA of 4.2 at LeDeeDa High falls in the 20th percentile and can’t gain automatic admission to UT under the Top 10% rule. He moves his junior year to Perfectly Acceptable High, and his 4.2 is now in the top 5% of his new graduating class. He’ll keep his grades up and graduate in the top 10%, gaining automatic admission to UT.</p>
<p>This happens with some regularity at my son’s high school.</p>
<p>I guess the idea would be that if you had good grades, but relative to the other students at your uber competitive high school, you did not rank at the top of the class, you could transfer to a “lesser” school, theoretically get higher grades in relation to your new fellow students, and graduate with a higher rank.</p>
<p>I’m sure that it has happened, but I doubt that it is a common practice. I mean, come on, who would move their kid from a great environment with unlimited educational opportunities (unless the kid was miserable) just for this.</p>
<p>I bet that if you could look at the college acceptances from these high competition schools, even kids that are barely in the top 1/2 are going to pretty good colleges based, in large part, on the reputation of their highschool with admissions counselors at colleges around the country.</p>
<p>And, UT and A&M are not the be all/end all of universities around the country.</p>
<p>Was it you xiggi who said that many people at the “good” highschools just want to get accepted so that they can turn it down for another uni, maybe one who offers the better deal, ie a full ride, or better perks, or maybe just a different experience from going to the state university (high school +)</p>
<p>Here’s how the jockeying works, Xig. </p>
<p>It does not apply to top students like the two you mentioned. </p>
<p>It applies to those who would be in the top 15% with lackluster credentials at BigMoney HS but stellar at CrossTracks HS. Assume parents are UT alums, with UT alums going back four generations, burnt orange colored blood, and “I’m Daddy’s Little Longhorn” baby clothes. People who would be devestated if Junior or Princess do not get into UT under the discretionary (not top 10%) rule. </p>
<p>So they move from BigMoney ISD to CrossTracks ISD when the kid starts junior year, and kid graduates top 10% from CrossTracks.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, we cross posted.</p>
<p>You say that this happens with some regularity at your son’s hs. Are people transferring in or out? Do the kids have any say as to if they want to move high schools? </p>
<p>I just think there is more to the high school experience than getting a rank, and I think it would be hugely short changing your kid’s experience by getting them to move after junior year. What a bummer…</p>
<p>dt123, well I feel hugely sorry for the child of that UT Alum. That would be a pathetic scenario if you ask me…</p>
<p>So you pull “Daddy’s Little Longhorn” away from his high school friends and activities, and put him in a completely new and educationally lesser environment so that he can gain admission to Texas, where he may be miserable; it’s not for everyone, and the UT of the 70’s is not the UT of 2007 and neither is Austin as a college town.</p>
<p>Parents need to quit trying to live out their own dreams through their children, but that is a different discussion ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I noticed that the examples are a bit different from the earlier reports of moves before the SENIOR year. In fact, it seems that a family needs to transfer their children before JUNIOR year to have an impact. </p>
<p>However, would a student who attends a “harder” school in the first two years not move to school with “weaker” grades? Or should we assume that a student in the 11% to 25% rank does in reality carry a transcript full with As, but just not enough to crack the top 10% because of fewer Honors and AP boosts?</p>
<p>I work with transfer requests for my school district. To my knowledge, I haven’t seen any transfers requested with the intent to increase class rank. The parents don’t seem to be looking that far ahead. I do see transfer requests for many other reasons - differences in scheduling (block v. traditional), size of school, newness of school, better band/theater programs, living closer to a school other than the one for which you are zoned, etc).</p>
<p>ag54, just because the parents want that for the kid doesn’t mean the kid doesn’t want it, too. By the time Daddy’s Little Longhorn goes to elementary school, he’s already bleeding burnt orange as well.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to why everyone who has left my son’s high school did it, but the common scenario is that, after a couple of years, they find themselves working hard, taking difficult classes, and with a good GPA (say, 4.2) and still in the 25h percentile without a lot of hope of moving up in the competitive environment. I can see how switching to another school can look attractive. Let me add that our school draws from all over the district, so when I talk about switching to another school, it’s usually the kid’s home school, where he’ll see old friends and the transition isn’t as drastic as it first sounds. Also, our HS offers the opportunity to take more weighted courses as underclassmen than most schools, so they have the opportunity to transfer in with a higher GPA than they could have gotten by starting at that school. I’m not saying that this whole plot is figured out in eighth grade. Kids just figure it out along the way.</p>
<p>I said junior year because that’s what I’ve been told. I haven’t investigated it myself. I have a good friend whose son is having some difficulty this year, his junior year. He told his mom, my friend, he wanted to transfer to another school so he could be in the top 10% and get into UT to study engineering. Now we know that just because he gets into UT doesn’t mean he’ll get into the engineering program, but he hadn’t thought that far out. He’d done some calling around to find out the top 10% at the other high schools to see where his GPA will fall. </p>
<p>For now, his mom has gotten him to stay put because she feels like the education he’s getting where he is now is more important than some number, be it GPA or rank. Our family feels the same way. Doubtful our son will make the top 10% cut. Well, he might, but we’re not counting on it. We could transfer him to his home school, where he’d make the cut quite easily, but I’m not too worried. Two years ago, every kid down to the 23rd percentile from his more rigorous school got accepted to UT. I hope that stat holds up!!</p>
<p>Agreed it would be pathetic. I don’t know anyone who has done this – I’m just explaining how and why it could be done. I’m sure there are instances where future class rank was at least a factor in deciding where to live. I know plenty in BigMoney districts who are devestated when their kid can’t get into UT and TAMU.</p>
<p>“UT-Austin has also been casting a bigger net to attract a broader economic and geographic pool of students. In 1999 the university identified 70 of the state’s rural and urban low-income-area high schools, previously underrepresented on campus, and began offering scholarships to their top-ten-percent graduates. The university measures its success in diversity partly by the number of Texas high schools its freshmen come from798 in 2005, compared with 616 in 1996, out of a statewide total of about 1,500.” </p>
<h2>“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.”</h2>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression the top ten percent law was enacted in response to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, which Texas officials interpreted as banning the use of race in academic admissions. And that racial diversity was the expressed goal and geographic diversity was an unintended side benefit. </p>
<p>So the question is…How’s the law done over the last 10 years with regard to racial diversity? After all, I’d like not to think our legislators are perpetrating a ‘bait and switch’ on us all. ;)</p>
<p>I don’t know if the transfer scenario works all that well. I know at D’s high school there is no way that AP Courses taken at another school (that weren’t available to a kid who did K-12 at Podunk High) would be given additional weighting. That would stop that in a hurry.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay,
</p>
<p>I think/hope most families feel as you do. </p>
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<p>That’s my point too about most (NOT all) really competitive schools; the reputation of the school means a lot to the admissions counselors, and not just at UT or A&M, but at Ivy’s, good privates, and other state flagship uni’s.</p>
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<p>I do too, but they got over it. </p>
<p>I know one in particular - 3rd generation, big UT donors, season ticket holders, etc., first daughter couldn’t get in, so she went to LSU, where she thrived (now she is at law school at UT), then second son went to LSU and is having the time of his life. I know that the whole family believed the kids would go to UT. It just didn’t work out that way. Now, in the Xmas cards they have 2 in organge (mom and dad) and two in purple. But, I cannot in any way see them taking the kids out of our highschool and sending them to the one “across the tracks” for a rank. </p>
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<p>We have kids transfer to our school for those reasons (not newness, that’s for sure), but people transfer in because the school has a great reputation for having a great educational program, a great theater program and a great evironment. I don’t know of anyone who transferred OUT to go somewhere less competitive.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it doesn’t happen at all, anywhere, I just think it has maybe become an “urban myth” type thing.</p>
<p>ldmom, I was just quoting the article, they were speaking about diversifying the areas where they got the bulk of their students.
. </p>
<p>You’re absolutely right that the 10% rule was instuted as a reaction to the legal ruling regarding using race as a determining factor in admissions. </p>
<p>Interestingly, while it has helped with diversity in terms of location/socioeconomics, statistically it really hasn’t changed the minority enrollment percentages that much. The article went on to state that they are implementing plans to go after more high performing minority students with $$$$ </p>
<p>There was an article in the chronicle recently about the fact that no matter how hard A&M tries to increase minority enrollment, it just hasn’t happened, and they’re going to start throwing money towards scholarships too.</p>
<p>Responding to ldmom, top 10% was enacted in response to Hopwood. Hopwood was then reversed by the US Supreme Court a few years later, so the system could have reverted to the old way of explicit consideration of race. But by then top-10% was so popular that it could not be killed politically. The beneficiaries of racial consideration are happier with what they get under top-10%, plus you have the rural constituencies who benefit from top-10%.</p>
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<p>That is why I was inquiring about the “mechanics” of the planned transfers. </p>
<p>It seems to me that there are as many drawbacks as potential benefits. If the weaker school is “that” attractive why not start in 9th grade? One could make a case for attending a very competitive middle school (even private) and then starting at a less selective public high school with a great preparation for all the advanced classes. This would, however, be totally legitimate, and not different from a homeschooled kid starting to attend a public HS in 9th grade. </p>
<p>I happen to think that most shenanigans happen within the school itself where maximizing the final junior GPA and rank is vital.</p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Research: Perceptions of Entering Freshmen - UT Austin](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588survey.html]Admissions”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588survey.html)</p>
<p>Perceptions and Opinions of University of Texas Entering Freshmen:
The Impact of The Texas Top 10% Automatic Admissions Law</p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Research: Diversity of Feeder Schools - UT Austin](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/montejanopaper.html]Admissions”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/montejanopaper.html)</p>
<p>Access to the University of Texas at Austin and the Ten Percent Plan:
A Three-year Assessment</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course, the question remains if the numbers of 1997-2000 are still the same as in 2007. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/2007TexasFeeders.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/2007TexasFeeders.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t think it’s really widespread.</p>
<p>The one thing it’s done is make UT look so damn desirable. You feel so lucky if you’re not top 10% and get in. I mean, people don’t even feel like it can be counted as a safety. My friends who went there are amazed how, back in our day, anyone could get in, and now it feels so unattainable.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, I know all about “back in the day.” It’s true. Anybody in the top half of their class could easily get into UT. And most of the folks from the bottom half of the class could be admitted in for the summer program!</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a competitive suburban high school. We’re African American. She won’t be in the top 10 percent. Probably will be in the top 12 percent. So you can guess how I feel about the 10-percent rule. However, from what I’ve read on this thread, I’m not worrying any more about her getting it. Sounds like it won’t be that hard.
The most interesting thing is that the incoming class has gone from 4 percent African American in the early 1980s to 5 percent today. How can we consider that a success? I do believe the results have been much better for Hispanics.</p>
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<p>I tend to agree with you there. I know that many a teacher is relieved when school lets out, not only because of the freedom of summer, but because they don’t have to listen to pesky students (& moms ;)) begging for grades.</p>
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<p>I know, isn’t it just crazy! All you used to have was a pulse! :)</p>