If you want a study on the 10% rule, look at this one: I currently go to UT. President Powers sent out an email last week with that study as the subject. Say what you want, but it appears that UT wants the 10% rule abolished. Based on that study, it is only the top 5% of high school classes that have a statistically significant increase in GPA. The GPA difference between the 6-10% and the 11-15% brackets is microscopic, if nonexistent. Meanwhile, according to the linked study: "If current trends persist, in 2009 all Texas students enrolling in the fall will be Top 10% graduates and some Top 10% students will be forced to enroll in the summer. By 2013, UT will be forced to reject all graduates of Texas high schools who are not in the top 10%." UT is losing discretionary admissions - and quickly.
The problem is that most people assume the students who will benefit from this are the 11-15% students. This isn't likely. The benefits of abolishing the rule will likely be the art-centric students who may not have high grades but are needed for the art programs. It's not going to be those of you complaining because you finished in the top 15% with a 4.8 or whatever. It's going to be the art student who finished in the top 25% and didn't do so well on the SAT who, in my opinion, would most benefit from the rule's abolition. If you're not in the top ten percent you'll have to distinguish yourself in other places as you're not as attractive a candidate. That's just how it is.
And that's fine. A university is SUPPOSED to admit a student population that is diverse in its interests and talents. The problem is that UT is losing its ability to do this because it has to follow a state-instituted cut-off rule that admits students solely based on their academic performance.
Actually, the Robin Hood law still exists in Texas where taxes are pooled an distributed to lower tax base areas. Spring Branch who has one of the highest property tax collections in the state has a smaller budget for renovation, technology and teachers than Alief.
The issue is your first problem creates your second. Colleges does this 10% rule to allow more diversity. It adds to diversity to have more kids from rural and innercity being there with the kids from the surburbs that has all the addvantages. If you would find someway to have a minunmun on lowwer schools budgets and a max on higher revenue schools this would create more of an even ground and the rural and inner city school can afford to keep their better teachers instead of loosing them to schools who make more money. Also another problem is these poor lower revenue schools have to rely on testing for funding therefore there is more of a system that rely omn teaching student to past test and not to educate them on there weaknesses.
The "top 10% rule" is terrible. Something like 94% of incoming freshmen are admitted because of it this year. Think about that, and think about the fact that there is an enormous difference in the quality of the various high schools in Texas. UT is not being given the right to determine its own student mix. It cannot select the students it feels will be able to contribute and excel in ways the university desires to provide the environment wanted by the faculty and the administration. Some of the top 15% at the best high schools would clearly beat out the 10% in many of the others, yet they can't get in, even if UT wants them. Kids that go to magnet schools, where all the students are outstanding, are placed under the same 10% rule. Those students, if they decided to forego the more rigorous magnet program and attend a typical public high school, would easily be in the top 10%. More likely the top 5%, yet they can't get into UT without going to another school for a year and transferring. The system is completely screwed up. I understand the original rationale, but the reality is absurd. Not only absurd, but simply wrong, in my opinion.
I understand. I'm only saying that because most people who complain about the rule are people on the cusp who didn't get in thinking the rule is what kept them out. Those people aren't likely to benefit from the rule's abolition. The problem with the abolition of the top ten percent rule is what to do about the problems that the state faced prior to the rule. Do you ignore them? If not, how do you fix those problems while implementing a rule you deem more appropriate? The beauty of the top ten percent rule is that there's an unbiased metric in determining who gets in. If you do well in high school and graduate in the top ten percent, you're in. Any other system will suffer from not being as transparent. I suppose one way to do this would be to cap it at top 5% being guaranteed admission. Somehow, though, I have a feeling people would have a problem with that when they finish at 6% and complain that they would have been higher at another school.
You picked out the reason. The rule only applies to public colleges. Also, as far as I know, A&M isn't having the same problem. The problem is the demand for UT is much higher than the rule anticipated.
When I was applying, which was in 2006, UT allocated 75% of their admission to top 10 percent students. The rest was 11%-20%. I can tell you, there are so many deserving students from my high school in the top 11%-20% that did not get into UT because of that asinine rule. I barely made top 10 percent, and I feel like I would not have got in or CAPed if I was not in there.
same here due, I had friends with well above 4.0 gpas who were not considered because they were not top 10. A&M also has a different guaranteed admission thing, at least thats what my college counselor was always telling us last year. It was something like top 25% and a 1350/1600 on you SAT. This was in 2008
There's a huge problem with your school's grading policy if 10 percent of the student body has a 4.0 or higher. I understand AP classes give you a GPA boost but there should be harder grading and there's no way someone with a 4.0 shouldn't be in the top ten percent of a graduating class. That's the high school's fault.
I don't know if this is the case or not, but some schools operate on a different grading scale than 4.0. I don't remember how it works exactly but it's possible to have above a 4.0.
I graduated with above a 4.0 but the entire top ten percent of my graduating class did not. I had a 4.4 because our AP courses were graded on a 5.0 scale and our non-AP courses were graded on a 4.0. Also, if your school is one of the 5.0 or 6.0 scales, a 4.0 isn't that impressive, in my opinion, because it equates to a "B" average (if I'm correct in my understanding of the scale). It's not bad by any means but when you're saying "I know someone who had a 4.0 and didn't get in" it's stretching it, I think.
The 10% rule was created to solve a problem but it has caused another problem of its own. Abolition of the 10% rule is apparently not a good solution unless you try to solve the original problem by other means. There is simply a bigger demand than available supply. Is UT trying to expand its student's population? How is the drive to make another school a tier 1 school coming along?
When you say a school is "tier 1," how big of a tier are we talking about? Top 40? Top 100? I'm not sure exactly where the cutoffs are.
Lol. When my sister was in junior-high, she had one class where they watched Days of Our Lives every day. We were all enrolled in private school the next year.
I believe the definition of Tier 1 is $100 million in research funds in a given year. Only Texas, A&M, and Rice qualify as Tier 1 schools in Texas.
