<p>Share your thoughts on the Texas's heated Top 10% rule for graduating seniors.</p>
<p>Don't know what I mean? : Is</a> The "Top 10" Plan Unfair? , Debate Over Texas Law That Grants Preference To Certain Students - CBS News</p>
<p>Personally, it is disgusting, unfair, prejudiced, and needs to be removed at once.</p>
<p>I think it's a fair reward for Texan students who do well in high school. What I don't like, however, is how many kids from competitive high schools who are in the top 11% get CAP-ed.</p>
<p>Although, I have to admit I like the idea behind it. It helps create diversity and doing well on the silly SAT doesn't make a difference. I'm not opposed to the idea behind it; I just think that kids in the top 11% shouldn't be penalized with CAP.</p>
<p>I like it......for personal reasons.
I'm a Texas Val hehehe</p>
<p>but no, I realize that it's a dumb rule :p</p>
<p>No the rule is absolutely amazing. It rewards ppl who work hard in their given situation. The truth of the matter is that it allows alot, ALOT of ppl who would never be able to gather the ECs or even SAT scores neccesary to get into UT otherwise an opportunity to get a world class education. The only ppl who don't like the rule are the ppl who aren't in the top ten percent. There are qualifications for college, when we started high school in Texas we knew we had to be in the top ten percent. If you weren't in that is your fault and no one else's. This dribble about being qualified is wrong. The point blank is that if there were an SAT cut off for admission and you missed it, then you don't get in. There was a rank cut off, you missed it you don't get in. Don't try to complain bc others worked, hard and did.</p>
<p>I apologize if my post was harsh, but really it is so annoying that ppl keep making this threads. Everyone in Texas knew about the rule and if you wanted to go to UT, you should have started freshman year, bc the ppl at the top started long before that.</p>
<p>Scenario (not me):</p>
<ul>
<li>A student can graduate from a very competitive public high school (high school A) in a wealthy neighborhood. He is in the top 15%.</li>
<li>The same student moves to a mediocre, minority-majority high school (high school B) in South Texas. He graduates as valedictorian.</li>
<li>The student attends UT the following fall. The student's friend who graduated in the top 12% at high school A gets rejected at UT and gets deferred to another UT campus.</li>
</ul>
<p>This is happening right now. Why do students have to be "punished" for their achievements and academic motivations? I say 1) the State overturn the rule completely, 2) make the top 10% rule more fair: only allow students graduating in the top 5% at under-performing schools and raise the bar for motivated students at reputable schools to 15%. Just a suggestion. No offense, but its so obvious the state is favoring Hispanics. Its ridiculous.</p>
<p>By the way, I am in the top 10% at a competitive public school. I don't plan on attending UT anyways unless its Plan II. </p>
<p>Sorry but many underachievers are dumbing down the academics and reputation of UT.</p>
<p>w00t, qwerty, for Plan II! As a val, UT-Austin is definitely my obvious safety choice, but if I get into Plan II honors, it would actually become a valid choice for me....great educational opportunities.</p>
<p>Oh, the poor kids at competitive high schools just out of the top 10! How will they ever get by having to compete for admission to UT? God forbid they'd have to...gasp...go to a private school or a different public Texas school.</p>
<p>There's nothing wrong with this rule. It does precisely what admissions is supposed to do: evaluate students in the context of their surroundings. Kids need to stop making excuses and whining about this.</p>
<p>Yeah, it's not like people choose to go to a "mediocre, minority-majority high school." People don't choose to be poor. Tell the wealthy student from high school A to live the (whole) life of a student at high school B and I'm sure he'll say, no thanks.</p>
<p>Okay, people. Stop implying that I'm affected by this lousy rule and that I'm whining - I'm not. In fact, I technically benefit under this rule. I just think its unfair. Just like you may think admitting predominately White and Asian under normal conditions is unfair. Everyone has a bias.</p>
<p>ANYWAYS.....</p>
<p>Does anyone know to what extent "Asian" is factored into the word "minority" in Texas admissions versus in UC admissions?</p>
<p>@ Hookem: are you in class of 08/09? if you're 09, good luck with Plan II. I'm sure you'll make it - a large percent is valedictorians! can you attend mccombs while attending Plan II?</p>
<p>I am indeed. By Spring next year, my fate shall be revealed in the form of thick and thin envelopes lol</p>
<p>lol at "I'm sure you'll make it." It's super competitive, dude. There are no guarantees. The fact that "a large percentage" of Plan II applicants are also Vals doesn't help lol</p>
<p>I'm not sure about McCombs. I highly doubt it. Plan II might as well be it's own separate college lol. It's a total liberal arts-intensive experience within a ginormous state school.</p>
<p>I just graduated in the top 10% from a Texas high school and I think that the rule is pretty bogus. From what I understand, it's designed to prevent discrimination and reward high achievers, but even taken as a percentage this rule is applied unfairly. The example you provided about disparities in competition hits the nail on the head and is the main reason that I oppose it. As unreliable as they may be, standardized test scores remain the easiest, fairest way to evaluate the performance of students from a variety of backgrounds.</p>
<p>if the student is in the top 12% at a competative Texas school and actually deserves to get into the school, then they can apply like a top 12% student in Missouri that wants to go to Mizzou would. </p>
<p>this is on of the better forms of affirmative action, because it isn't based on race in any way. it helps those that make the cut. if those are hispanics, then the hispanics deserve it.</p>
<p>@ hookem and qwerty
My brother is going to do Plan II (not val haha) and Business Honors at UT Austin =).
And my school- everyone who deserves to be in the top ten pretty much is in the top ten since we have about 1000 people in our class.
But I see your point, especially since more and more people are trying to go to UT because of financial situations and so a lot of the spots are taken, leaving almost none for the 11%/12% etc in a good school.
But it really isn't the 'only' choice for those kids and I'm probably going to find a safety other than UT just because if I don't get into Plan II (yeah, another one of those) than it's just a completely different school than I would want.</p>
<p>Yeah, I applied last year (07-08) as out-of-state applicant and was accepted into Plan II and McCombs Business School. So you can definitely do both at the same time, even BHP as well.</p>
<p>I definitely was not valedictorian but top 10% (I think); my school/county doesn't rank, however.</p>
<p>Not coming from texas nor having applied to any schools in texas, my opinion may be relatively unbiased, I think the rule does have some merit as it helps out those in worse backgrounds, however that said it does hurt those in competitive school districts and probably brings down the average level of achievement of UT Austins student body, since lower achieving students at less competitive schools get in over higher achieving students at more competitive schools.</p>
<p>The main problem with the current rule is probably that as populations increase 10% is more and more people and in recent years has taken up such a large percentage of Austins and A&Ms student body leaving so few spots left for general competition. This could be solved by instead of having it always be 10% they could vary the percent so the same number of students fall under the rule from year to year, and so that it is a good deal less students than it has been the past few years. This way the top students at poorer high schools will still get the opportunity to go to an excellent school, but more spots will be open for general competition so they can take more good out of state students and high achieving in staters.</p>
<p>Why don't they just legalize AA again, then?</p>
<p>you must remember 2 things: 1) UT's percentage of top 10% students in its student body is only about 45% (including out of state kids). This means that a whole bunch of 11th - 15th percentile kids inside and outside Texas are still getting despite the rule. It doesn't rule anyone out, it simply helps poorer kids. 2) This was mentioned before, but it is a more effective form of Affirmative Action in that it helps lower income people, and not necessarily any certain racial group.</p>
<p>t-san, if you're OOS, the top 10% rule does not apply whatsoever. You have to be a texas resident attending a texas public school university.</p>
<p>as for "a bunch of other kids getting in," you're wrong.
the top 10% rule has made UT-Austin the most selective school in the state for non-top 10%ers. </p>
<p>Because of the rule, it's somehow my safety, while formy friend with very similar stats except for class rank, it's much more up in the air</p>
<p>Any Texas student who is not in the top 10% can no longer consider UT as a safety school no matter how qualified they are.</p>