Top 10 percent rule is unfair

GatorGuyDallas
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:38:51 +0000

I’m a parent of a kid that got denied at UT Austin. He had 1390 SAT, finished about 13% in his class in a good suburban school in Plano. He went through the IB program and ultimately tested out of 43 hours of college credit through IB, AP and CLEP exams. He was clearly well qualified for UT and likely would have gotten in if UT didn’t wind up filling up so many of the slots with top 10% applicants.

Even with his experience, I don’t have a problem with the rule. He could have worked harder and finished in the top 10%. He made that choice. He could have been involved in more ECs to make his resume look better. He had a reasonable chance to get admitted and didn’t do everything he could have to get admitted.

He wound up get a CAP offer. That is the conditional acceptance program where if you attend one fo the other UT system schools for a year and pass 30 hours with at least a 3.2, you are guaranteed transfer into UT. He did that and will head to Austin this fall to join his many friends from the IB program that got in last fall. Lesson well learned for him and he still gets to have the UT experience.

It is unfortunate that a kid that learned enough in high school to test out of a year and a half of college can’t get into UT. But, kids like that pretty much all get CAP offers and if they really want to go to UT they have a path to make it happen.

I now have a second son who will be a senior next year. He wants to go to Florida, also a bear to get in, and have UT as a fall back. He’s just a couple of spots out of top 10% right now and has a full AP load next year. He knows if he finishes strong in his senior year he’ll be in the top 10% and have his back up secured if he doesn’t get into Florida. So, we’re hoping we’re on the other end of the deal this go around. The security of knowing you’re in based on your work in high school and not having to stress over the letter coming. Well at least not the letter from UT. We’ll stress plenty on the Florida letter.

There is no perfect system. But, if you know what the system is at least you have a chance to tailor your performance to the system in play.