and i don't like you. I thought this thread was going to be about how you do 10% of something 90% of the time. For example, you wear 10% of your clothes 90% of the time.
Just do wat all the p*****s do...transfer to the dumb schools to get into top 10%...plenty of ppl transferred from my school because it was too competitive as well (clements) 5-7 years ago..
Where did this "Belliare kids are smarter" thing come from? Belliare is no different from any other high school in Houston with a magnet program. The majority of the kids in the advanced/magnet program graduate and go to college (or shall I say "better colleges"). The other kids don't have it as easy. I will somewhat agree with original poster about the Bellaire kids vs the Madison, Big Ike kids...but I won't say the Bellaire kids are "smarter". They just go to a better school and care about education more, which isn't suprising considering their parents probably cared about education more and have more $$$ (sorry...don't see too many broke folks in Bellaire and it's kinda hard to be paid these days without an education unless you are in the entartainment industry).
I live in the Cy-Fair district, and my school is huge (nearly 900 students in my class) and is very smart. However, I have a 4.0+ GPA and 1300+ on the SATs, but I'm not in the top 10%. Some of my friends in other parts of the state have much lower GPAs than me and worse SAT scores, but they're in the top 10% in their class. I found it very unfair that I must be penalized for going to a good school, where the competition is bigger and better, rather than my friends' schools which are all ghetto. I think the college admission process should be based more on merits and character, instead of a class rankings in your school. I also do a lot for the community, but it may get overlooked because I'm not top 10%.
So what's the point. I failed multiple classes in college yet my determination still allowed me to graduate Magna c*m Laude. Failing a class isn't the be all to end all of an academic career. And I take exception to you using Westbury as an example; I gratuated in the top 10 from Westbury and was damn proud of my accomplishment. I appreciated the opportunities (admisssions and scholarships) it allowed me. Granted this was seven years ago and the school has drastically gone downhill since, but when I was there, it was still a decent school. I'll also say I elected to go to UH, because UT is NOT the only school in Texas. There are plenty of fine institutions in this state that I'm sure you can find one to get into if you didn't get in the top 10.
I didnt just randomly pick westbury, i knew a true story so presented it, get over it. and if ud read what i wrote ive said i personally think bellaires overrated anyways
You're not penalized. Your going to a good school will make you vastly more attractive to colleges and universities around the country, including the University of Texas. Part of your sense of injustice is the school's fault for handing out vastly inflated grades. I'm sorry, but if we're talking about a 4.0 scale, 10% plus of the school's population should not be "above perfect" at 4.0+.
Clearly you didnt understand what I said, failing a class in high school is the subject at hand here, not your college career,
What a completely shortshighted statement. All standardized tests do is measure how well a kid can regurgitate factual information and knowledge from memory. And the educational system has placed way too much emphasis in teaching to these tests. The real test is how well kids can APPLY the knowledge they've learned; and you can't find that out from taking the TAKS, the SATs, the ACTs, etc.
And clearly you didn't understand my point; failing a class, whether in college or high school, can be overcome in the course of one's academic career. You telling me that you can't maintain a high GPA if you fail one class out of the four years you're in high school (that's about 60 classes). I took Cal in high school and I'll tell ya wat, I didn't fail but I was damn close...but I still maintained a very respectable GPA. What's sad is being an environment that places so much emphasis on being absolutely perfect, that one screw up can ruin you.
To be in top 10% at the top schools, no you cant overcome an F, or even a C, clearly you didnt do very well in Calculus or basic math to figure that out, most of the kids in top 10 had all A's and a few B's
I talked to many Texas universities and they all told me the same things about how the top 10% get first admissions into their repective schools. They also seem to turn a blind eye when it comes to what high school I came from. As for my GPA being 4.0+, I take lots of honors and A.P. classes which add extra grade points to each class I take them in. It seems that we have lots of honors students in our school with me being on the "lower" end of that spectrum. Our school is just so huge and smart, that even getting a 'B' in a class for a semester will drop you 10-15 spots instantly.
You're right that 10% do get first admission, but only a small portion of those 10% actually attend, like I said the very top % go to elite schools, out of state etc. After that I believe the spots are handed out "at large" to qualified candidates regardless of the 10% rule. I just have a problem with all the over 4.0 bonuses taht are handed out - they seem excessive. Though I went to a private school, and while we got little "boosts" for honors/AP, they weren't that big, and from what I recall that only a handful of kids (maybe the top 3% or so) had GPA's in excess of the maximum. The rest of us were "less than perfect". That seems a lot more sensible to me than an inflated curve in which you can be in the second decile yet still "more than perfect"
As I wrote earlier, using a basic 6 course per year example, you can fail one course and make As in the other 23 which gives you around a 96% average. That SHOULD be good enough to put one in the top 10 percent of their class. It is a bit ridiculous these days that schools have 10+ valedictorians because so many of them have 4.0+ grade averages. Incidentally, using the same 24 course average, 20 As and 4 Bs gives one the same GPA as 23 As and one F, so why is it acceptable that someone with "a few Bs" can be in the top 10 but not 1 F?
