Should a student who may not be prepared for that level be given an automatic entrance? None of this is simple. I can think of plenty of folks who went from lousy high schools to one of the top Texas universities and had success, but that doesn't insure success for everyone under the 10% rule.
Dang. Graduated one year too early. But really, I think this is a good step. I graduated from a relatively well-known private school in Houston, and I knew lots of students that were waitlisted from UT, but most likely could have gotten straight acceptance had they gone to a public school.
My son just finished his first year of college and a couple of his best friends had to go to other schools instead of UT because of the 10% rule. These are a couple of kids from lower middle class/working class families. The father of one drives a taxi. Both live in Austin and are having to go out of town their first year. It's rediculous. They all went to the magnet high school in Austin and easily had over a semester's worth of college credit when they graduated. Had they gone to a "regular" high school, they would have sailed into UT, but they were penalized for going to an academically challenging school, taking long bus rides to get there, when they could have gone to a high school close to where they live. Where is the justice in that? My son wasn't affected by this (also, he went to school out of state), but I know these kids very well and they were just a couple of what was a large number of magnet high school graduates forced to attend another school their first year, instead of UT, a better school in their own community.
Your son's friends could have gone to Austin Community College, if they are both smart as you say they are, they could have easily gotten into UT after 1 year there. The current UT CAP system is a horrible deal IMO. If you get denied at UT, you have the option of going to another UT-system school like UTSA and if you get a 3.2 GPA you are guaranteed into UT for sophomore year. The only problem is that the tuition is the same as UT. UT should just scrap that and work with community colleges instead. Make it so if you have a 3.5 GPA at a CC you are automatically in. This is the way they do it in California, but the difference is that all of the UCs are comparable to UT in terms of academics, whereas UTSA etc. are not even close.
For crying out loud, I just went to a lot of trouble explaining how smart they are. They sure as hell weren't going to ACC when they could drive a long way and go to San Marcos. Which doesn't make any of it "fair." You're talking about a year out of their lives where they are going to a school they don't want to go to, when they were perfectly qualified for UT had the 10% rule not existed. You talk like going to another school is a minor inconvenience. It's not.
If you graduate top 20% but got a 2000-2100 on the SATs I'm sure they'd get in easy. Most people who complain are the bubble kids anyway. Not saying they don't deserve to get in, but to say that they would have sailed into UT... you would think they would have shown a load of promise in other ways to get in then.
Are you saying you know students with 2100 SAT score that could not get into UT? What are their GPA, btw?
there are far too many schools where top 10% is meaningless, yet they still get into UT. My sister went to HSPVA for example where the academic aspect of the school is a joke. She was top 10% without doing anything, so she left the school.
Because you said Yonkers did not know what he was talking about! What did you mean when you said that?
That's how I took it at first too. But now it seems that he's talking specifically about those two kids when he said 'in this case'.
If he only talks about 2 kids then: 1) I don't think you can use 2 isolated examples to trash a system. 2) Maybe if he shares the SAT score and GPA of those 2 kids he knows so well, may be we can judge if his assessment was valid?
The top 10% or 8% is great. It lets kids from crappy schools and school districts have a chance at a great education. If you can't get in that way, then you better have great SAT scores and resume.
