^ “As a little side note, note that the best performing schools would NOT be pleased if the 10 percent raking would need to be confirmed by a 1300 SAT.”.
I assume neither would the lower performing schools.
^ “In addition, for many of the best performing students, the auto admission is a canard as the prize in Austin is an acceptance in the dedicated programs in business, engineering, and other that require a specific admission.”
True! That’s where high test scores/GPA win out, possibly at the expense of diversity…
@inspiration12 The personal achievement index used at UT is a factor not just in admission to the school but also admission to the major.
https://sp.austin.utexas.edu/sites/ut/rpt/Documents/IMA_S_EnrlColLvlRaceGen_2014_Fall.pdf
Overall undergraduate UT is about 46 percent white. College of business undergrad is 46 percent white and college of engineering undergrad is 45 percent white.
As a side note, I have not seen any school as transparent with data as UT. Maybe because it has been the subject of several affirmative action cases, it makes a tremendous amount of its data availableon its website.
gettingschooled - Yes, I am aware of UT’s admission index. The makeup of business/ engineering is still over represented by Asians and underrepresented by Hispanics and African Americans, especially if you look at the makeup of the state of Texas. I truly do believe, though, that UT, and others are really trying to bridge the gap, and I commend them. UT has some unique retention programs in place for URM’s. A&M does extensive outreach in the state to draw qualified URM’s to WANT to apply. Being a top notch university, they are caught between wanting to bring certain students in who maybe don’t have quite the scores on paper and remaining a premier university. It’s a tough one.
And yet so many from countries with more “merit based” systems want to go to school here.
Actually that’s not fair, I think a lot of countries with test-entry university systems have so little capacity at top schools that coming here to school is the second-best option for many. And then they get here and our system doesn’t make sense and seems corrupt.
We’re OK with our own “royalty” (celebs, major politician kids, etc) getting into the tough schools with slightly lower stats or whatever partly because smart kids want to be around them too, I think 
Some of those other countries have what is perceived as a very high level of corruption, so a test-only university admission system may be the way to give assurance that it is non-corrupt. While there is certainly corruption in the US, the level of such may not be high enough that the use of opaque holistic admission processes at highly selective universities would generate a big enough backlash in terms of causing the process to be generally seen as corrupt, although students from countries with very high levels of corruption may perceive opaque holistic admission processes as an open door for corruption to a greater extent than American students do.
That is true but one has to factor the very small number of students from lower performing school who end up using their “get in” card in Austin and College Station. As TexasPG wrote, many highly ranked student end up attending a school that is closer to home, closer to family, and financially affordable. Top students from those impoverished districts also tend to have better options at schools that offer more financial aid than Texas or Texas A$M.
The overwhelming majority of students who earn an automatic admission AND enroll come from better off districts that are not necessarily very high performing on a national basis. In so many words, Abigail Fisher could have been one of them but probably had the bad luck to attend a high school that was not mediocre enough to parlay her GPA or 1180 score into an admission. For the record, despite her ranking, all she had to do was to score higher than 1300, and she would have been in. White, black, yellow, or any part of the rainbow!
@OHMomof2, for sure, the American higher education system has many strengths (one of them is the immense diversity of options).
And some of those strengths can be attributed to an “unfair” admissions system.
An admissions sytem that is purely objective may certainly have drawbacks (though opacity isn’t one of them).
I personally don’t believe that there is a “perfect” admissions system, so diversity is good.
In the English-speaking world, there are top unis & colleges that use subjective criteria, and there are some who admit by objective criteria. There are those who care a lot about ECs and want kids who are great in several aspects, and there are some who only care about how terrific you are in one subject. If you have money, you have a lot of options.
While the top 10% law (or top 25% with a 1300 SAT) is not perfect, I do believe it is a net positive. At least students have an avenue open to them that may not have been before. It’s a known reward to work towards in high school. As far as financial constraints, family, etc. preventing them from attending, that’s another issue to explore for sure.
“The overwhelming majority of students who earn an automatic admission AND enroll come from better off districts that are not necessarily very high performing on a national basis.”
Not sure what point you are making here? If the overwhelming number of schools in Texas are “not necessarily very high performing on a national basis” then of course the majority who get in under this rule are not going to come from a high performing high school. Unlike California, Texans want Texas schools to be full of Texas kids.
“In so many words, Abigail Fisher could have been one of them but probably had the bad luck to attend a high school that was not mediocre enough to parlay her GPA or 1180 score into an admission. For the record, despite her ranking, all she had to do was to score higher than 1300, and she would have been in. White, black, yellow, or any part of the rainbow!”
Not sure this is true at UT. It is at A&M but was it true at UT at the time? Has UT stated that in its arguments somewhere? Taking a look at the UT forum this year and plenty of kids outside the top 7 percent with high SATs got "CAP"ed to a system school. If it was true in Fisher’s year, it does not seem to be the case now.
Looking at UT’s admission policy, it is just the top 10% (or less). I don’t think it ever was 1300 SAT/top 25% like A&M. Reading Fisher’s case, during her admission cycle, UT had 92% of their admits from the top 10%. So only 8% of slots left (today, it is 25% slots left for review). With a 1180 SAT, and plenty of URM’s not being admitted - with better stats, it is hard to believe she had a case. I guess there’s a push to have the Supreme Court rule that in no circumstance can race be used, no matter the circumstances of the day.
^^ In the year of Fisher and prior years, a 1300 SAT was a guaranteed admission at Texas A$M, and as close as a guarantee one could expect in Austin, and especially when offered to start in the summer. A 1300 SAT score in those years would have been marked as “high test score” and moved with success during the holistic review time … or as soon as the Fall in both Austin and College Station. This is based on a number of real life cases. For the record, there are a substantial number of student who cannot claim a ranking (private schools that do not release rankings before graduation) but have grades and scores that are directly comparable to the best “ten percenters.” Some students are moved to a category of applicants who are candidates for special merit aid, and are good candidates for programs such as BHP. This a grey area in Austin.
Fisher did not offer any compelling reason to be offered a spot between auto-admission and the CAP she was offered.
A little side note, but has the potential to address URM’s who cannot go to the state flagships due to various reason:
“Chevron is excited to be able to continue our longstanding relationship with Texas A&M through support of the Engineering Academy initiative, which will help provide opportunities in the field of engineering for many underrepresented and first generation college students,” said Shariq Yosufzai, Chevron vice president of ombuds, diversity & inclusion and university & association relations. “Partnering with Texas A&M, a top source of engineering hires for Chevron, to help provide opportunities in the field of engineering will support our efforts to help build the diverse workforce of tomorrow that will be required to meet the energy needs of the future.”
Texas A&M Engineering Vice Chancellor and Dean M. Katherine Banks said the academies have the potential to reach beyond the typical pathways for access to a top-ranked engineering program.
“We are excited about this program because our goal is to attract the very best students to Texas A&M Engineering, even if circumstances require them to stay close to home for the first two years of college,” said Banks. “This is not a traditional transfer program. The Academy students are enrolled in the engineering college at Texas A&M from day one. We are committed to supporting these students throughout their academic program, which will result in a degree from one of the premier engineering colleges in the nation.”
UMich has holistic admissions but not affirmative action. The school seems to be doing just fine.
Okay… The point of having holistic admissions is so they can take into account other factors. How many White students with scores equal or better than Fisher’s were rejected? That’s what the appropriate comparison would be, why didn’t they state it?
They’re trying to mislead the reader with these selective statistics. I imagine if there was actually something to this, they wouldn’t have to try to mislead the reader.
The issue in the second go round with Fisher is whether the University of Texas is basically ignoring the first Supreme Court decision, which was a 7-1 win for Fisher. The appellants are arguing that UT is still using racial preferences when racial preferences were to be used only if there was no other way to achieve a diverse class, under the strict scrutiny standard. The appellants are now arguing that if the door is partly ajar to racial preferences, colleges will find a way to get around them. So they are saying that a bright line has to be drawn not allowing any sort of racial bias in school admissions or the court’s rulings are meaningless.
What do you think are the numbers that would MEAN something in this context that were OBFUSCATED? The plaintiff alleged she was turned down for being white. Would her case or the defendant’s be bolstered by adding statistics of students who had better statistics and were accepted? What would be added to her case if UT accepted 400 white students (with better stats) for the 841 spots made available to the 16,000 thousands who did not make the automatic cut?
Here are a few numbers:
There are plenty of numbers available to adequately describe the dynamics of applications at UT Austin:
https://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/admission_reports.html
and perhaps a CDS from around the Fisher days:
https://www.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/files/IMA_PUB_CDS_2008_AY.pdf
I happen to think that, compared to many schools around the country, UT at Austin hardly engages in misleading interested readers. Should we look at UT’s peers and check how transparent they have been in the past 15 years?
These percentages beg the question: what is the definition of “critical mass”? The argument at other schools in the US is that a school’s demographics should be reflective of the overall US population. To apply that standard at UT would result in the conclusion that not only are asians over-represented at UT, but hispanics are too.
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The issue in the second go round with Fisher is whether the University of Texas is basically ignoring the first Supreme Court decision, which was a 7-1 win for Fisher. <<<
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That is factually incorrect. I’d like to suggest to read up a bit about what the decision of the SCOTUS meant and what the lower court ruled in an answer. Hint? A victory for Fisher would not require another trip to the SCOTUS.