<p>OSUCowboys-- you do realize that something like 50 high schools of the 1500 in the system represented over 50% of the UT student body before the law was enacted? I think you missed the boat entirely on affirmative action if you think the problem was women, blacks, and Hispanics in the 60s.</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/06/texas[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/06/texas</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Moving from an unfair situation to another unfair situation isn’t my idea of fairness.</p>
<p>Obviously class rank allows state politicians to cast a blind eye to fairness while:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Allow each district to get a share of placements at UT-Austin regardless of how awful their schools are.</p></li>
<li><p>Get this accomplished without drawing attention to how awful their schools are. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>When the state has a small but important subset of terrific public high schools and a much larger number of mediocre schools (or worse) it’s not hard to figure out how the majority of state representatives are going to vote on this. ‘Let’s get ours’ and the heck with fairness.</p>
<p>When a minority candidate (for example) who is just out of the top 10 percent at his terrific high school and whose parents don’t have the money for private school is better off renting an apartment in an awful school district during that student’s senior year (transferring his honor and AP courses and grades with him or her) just so he can get in the flagship state schools - you know something is wrong.</p>
<p>I think what the poster meant about affirmative action is that the top ten percent law was put into effect in order to try to increase the number of minority students after the university was prevented legally from using race as an admissions factor. While it has increased the number of high schools represented at UT, that was not its primary purpose.</p>
<p>The U of A offers an award program for Texas students called the Non-resident tuition award. It is awarded based on a student’s test scores and GPA. If a student qualifies, the award is automatic once they apply for admission. It’s also renewable for four years if they meet the renewal criteria each year on campus. Based on 30 credit hours/year, the award is valued around $9000 year, allowing Texas students to pay the in-state tuition rates instead of out-of-state. The requirements for the award for incoming students for fall 2009, 2010, and 2011 are a 3.25 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) and either a 24 ACT (or 1090 SAT combined critical reading and math only). It’s a wonderful opportunity for students to be able to afford to go out-of-state. Almost 20% of the freshman class at the U of A is from the state of Texas!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Alabama?
Alaska?
Arizona?
Arkansas?</p>
<p>(I’m assuming Arkansas by your screen name.)</p>
<p>missypie, the title above his/her post makes it clear. It states: Non-resident tuition award at the University of Arkansas.</p>
<p>It still doesn’t explain why he fails to accept responsibility for not working hard enough to meet the set criteria. “The system” has nothing to do with what he did (or didn’t do) in high school. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I makes absolutely no sense why he “chose not to squander the $60” to apply to UT, but would spend money applying to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>osucowboys: Honestly, I just hate when people complain about the top 10% rule. Sure, there are going to be some ‘bad eggs’ that wouldn’t get into UT had there not been the top 10% rule, but the overwhelming majority of the top 10% kids are hard-working kids who deserve to get in. </p>
<p>The thing I like about the top 10% rule is that it gives kids who are hard-working and studious a chance, even though they might not be the greatest test takers. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I smiled when I saw this. I graduated from the Southlake Carroll Senior High Class of 2006 ranked 397 out of 580. Bottom third of my class. Trust me, I’m aware of the caliber of Carroll students. *On a positive note, I’ve gotten straight As the past 4 semesters and am planning on transferring to Vandy next year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I really didn’t want to get into a top 10% argument, but I must comment on the assumption that all it takes is hard work to get into the top 10%. A student must not only work hard, but play the GPA game, learn to game the system, however you want to describe it. </p>
<p>At my kids’ HS, an A in a pre-AP class is worth one point more than a regular class, and an A in an AP class is worth 1.25 points more. 9th and 10th graders are usually allowed to take only one AP class per year, but in 11th and 12th grades, some students take 6 or 7 AP classes per year. If a student has a strong interest in say, theatre or choir or jewelry making or journalism or myriad other subjects, and actually takes quite a few *regular, unweighted *classes in those subjects, the student may have just kissed the top 10% goodbye. Their 100 in Journalism is worth fewer GPA points than their classmate’s 88 in AP Euro. </p>
<p>You can say that the latter student - the one who graduates with 14 AP classes - has the more “rigorous course of study”. That may or may not be true. But quite a few people choose to be in the former category - taking the courses that interest them rather than taking AP Art History when they have no interest in art history - even if that means that they most likely won’t be in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Well I see I’ve started an interesting debate on the Texas 10% rule. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well… Stillwater is a great college town. There are restaurants and retail surrounding the campus on the east and south sides. Famous restaurants like Eskimo Joe’s and the original Hideaway Pizza. My only complaint is that if you want something like Buckle or American Eagle or basically anything that does not scream Orange and Black you have to go a ways from campus. At least it’s all in Stillwater, though. </p>
<p>Stillwater has a few really cool areas that are all kind of like 6th Street in Austin or Aggieville in College Station. Downtown Stillwater is nice, with historic buildings…coffee shops, restaurants, and boutique retail. The Strip is a few blocks along Washington that has restaurants and bars…adjacent to the big Greek neighborhood. Then Knoblock Street has the stuff geared towards normal people…the famous restaurants, fan shops, a few chain restaurants and bookstores. All of these areas are walkable and you don’t need a car to get to. Everything else in Stillwater is a 5-10 minute drive.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks for laying that out…I guess I forgot to mention how/why the wonderful Governor George W. Bush implemented the 10% rule for our higher ed system (sarcasm). Ultimately you can’t say with a straight face that school v. school comes down to a racial/class thing a lot of times. If 50% of the worthy applicants come from just 50 high schools, that would make sense, especially when you compare how huge Southlake and Centennial are to all of the hundreds and hundreds of rural schools. It’s as if people don’t realize how many tiny damn rural school districts there are. </p>
<p>Obviously they did not care about evening it out for ALL high schools…just for the seriously underperforming ones, which (and this is a crying shame) are typically the ones where minorities make up the student body. Instead of implementing this costly and disastrous rule, they should have seriously looked at these inner city school districts and fixed THAT problem, and not by proxy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Dook, I fail to understand why you care so much when you probably couldn’t even locate more than 2 Texas universities. I’m not blaming a system for me not being able to get into UT…and that’s not even what I meant. I could most likely get into UT, and pay full tuition, when I should not have to. UT should be in the bag and should be offering me finaid…BUT that’s neither here nor there. Has nothing to do with my point other than why I even care. I’m not “blaming the man” for me not being in the top 10% – I’m *****ing about politics. There’s a difference…</p>
<p>It doesn’t make sense that I applied to Dartmouth and not UT? Howabout an obvious one: I wanted to go to Dartmouth, but not UT? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>By that standard anyone and everyone that gets into UT is hard-working and studious and deserves a chance…and congrats on transferring to Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>jeez osucowboys, don’t take things so personally.</p>
<p>Finishing in the top 10% is an accomplishment, whether you went to Southlake Carroll, Highland Park or (insert school that you look down upon). It’s definitely an accomplishment that neither you nor I could achieve. </p>
<p>Also, don’t misconstrue my words. I never once wrote that "everyone that gets into UT is hard-working and studious and deserves a chance.‘’ What I wrote is that “The thing I like about the top 10% rule is that it gives kids who are hard-working and studious a chance, even though they might not be the greatest test takers.” If a student finishes in the top 10%, obviously they did something right and they, at the very least, deserve a chance to prove that they can be a successful (or at least in the academic sense) college student, even though they might not have the greatest standardized test scores and might not get accepted if there weren’t a automatic admissions rule.</p>
<p>OSU Cowboy, you’re not telling the whole story of the Top 10 Rule. That rule is was supported and remains strongly defended by politicians and educators from RURAL areas of Texas, irrespective of ethnicity. A lot of white kids from the panhandle and other remote areas are quite happy to know that they’ll be admitted to UTAustin if they maintain a class ranking within the top 10%. It’s similar to the concerns about U of Virginia admissions on the part of kids from the D.C. suburbs. For years high school educators from Roanoke and southside Virginia complained that admittees from NOVA were “unfairly” taking all the spots in the entering classes at UVA. There’s no official rule in place that I know of, but it easy to see that nowadays a greater proportion of central/southside Virginia kids are getting into UVA, despite the fact the NOVA has some of the highest achieving high schools on the east coast.</p>
<p>Lake Washington is correct…</p>
<p>Additionally, in looking at racial diversity, they found that quite often the lack of racial diversity closely aligned with the lack of geographic diversity. They saw both were problems and one, in some ways, helped to create the other quite often.</p>
<p>One more thing-- how can you say, osucowboys, that “Of course the top ten percent did better than the next ten percent!” on one line, but not realize that of the 30% not admitted under the top 10 rule, where do you think they’re coming from? They’re coming from those top schools, of course, and probably the next tenth, obviously, and they’re still not performing as well as those kids from the top tenth not at those great schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, but the problem is that it unfairly discriminates against a hard-working and studious kid just out of the top 10 percent who isn’t the greatest test-taker at an academically stronger high school. Where is the fairness in that?</p>
<p>The fair solution is pretty darn easy. Have a state-wide test for all Texas high school sophomores. Then index the results every year with 10 percent of each student body as the mean and raise or lower that 10 percent based on a school’s result compared to the mean. It could be scaled on a curve on the low side so even the most undeserving schools would still get 2 percent. That will also put the focus on districts to improve non-performing schools rather than covering up true academic issues with this 10 percent solves all nonsense. No solution is perfect but this would be a big step in the right direction. </p>
<p>**Of course this won’t happen. ** As poor performing schools far outnumber great performing schools, there is no way state representatives would vote for it. But let’s not cover up the existing problem with discussions about underrepresented class, social, ethnic, racial or geographic issues. It’s not about condoning past problems either. It’s about what you do going forward.</p>
<p>Modest Melody, You mean the 20% of kids at UT not admitted under the 10 rule…not 30%. I think that a piece of that pie probably comes from your Southlakes and Centennials and Lamars. I think bigger pieces of that pie come from OOS and from everywhere in Texas. Basically you leave 20% of the incoming freshman class for everyone else to compete from. So that 20% is going to look more like a regular student body.</p>
<p>LakeWashington, I didn’t know Virginia also did something like that. That really tarnishes my image of UVA then. And yeah, it’s ironic that rural students benefit the most from that (which I have *****ed about that too in this thread) since there are hundreds upon hundreds of tiny rural school districts (and somehow they all have a brand new high school right off the main highway that bypasses whatever town). But the 10 rule was definitely not designed to help out rural kids, that’s just an unintentional byproduct. </p>
<p>The 10 rule came about to address the politically incorrect fact that the best schools were dominating UT. Now the worst schools band together to dominate UT–which seems like the lesser evil out of that situation?</p>
<p>This is what I think is ridiculous: Take Lamar, a pretty big high school in the affluent inner west side of Houston for example, which is always a USNWR Top 50 high school in the entire nation. Any decent admissions policy should give Lamar a lot of preference because of how high their academic performance is. Instead Lamar is one of the schools that the 10 rule is designed to penalize the hell out of. Fortunately most of those kids do not stay in-state…and now it’s even less.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, it is diversity, in a sense, but perhaps should just be considered a good idea. </p>
<p>Obviously, the 24 on the ACT is not some poorly considered or arbitrary number. It is the lowest number of the mid-bracket on the common data set that colleges report. As approximately 33 percent of University of Arkansas students are 23 or below on the SAT any kids they can draw from others states into the higher bracket is helpful to the school’s ranking. </p>
<p>It is also smart to draw kids that are a notch up from other states that will be spending money in your state for 4 years versus their home state. These kids may find a job and stay, becoming a permanent resident. All positive things to a state’s economy. I don’t know what it costs Texas to educate a student but any outflows of kids has to be considered a potential lost opportunity and a costly one at that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But why does it need to happen if the top 10 percent blanket rule has not resulted in a decrease in quality of the students? In fact, students who were in the top ten percent of their class are doing extremely well at UT. Once you find one ample predictor of success, why change to another one, especially when your current predictor is breaking down a complete lack of diversity where only some tax payers had the privelege of using a public system? The thing is, UT is a public school and is around to serve the state-- it was serving about 1/30th of the state before the rule, after the rule that has improved greatly and students continue to have success at UT. So it sounds to me like this rule has worked quite well.</p>
<p>Whatever benefits the top ten percent law may give, it cannot continue indefinitely. The percentage admitted under the law increases yearly. I’ve heard this year that 86% were supposed to be auto admits from this law. As large as UT is, it will run out of room shortly unless there is some change to the law.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>After the top 10% rule had been in effect for 4-5 years, I started looking for the newspaper articles telling about how so many of the top 10% admits were not graduating…only those articles were not written because those students were doing just fine. As Malcom Gladwell would say, you just need to be good enough.</p>
<p>I wish Texas had more truly top notch choices for state schools. The culture at A&M is just too strong to be considered a serious alternative for many students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You seem to be very aware of how bad things used to be but wish to put your head in the sand about things past the status quo. </p>
<p>The state flagship school is not for everybody. First and foremost it should be for students that deserve to be there. That should be done with only one bias, that bias being about academic performance. I love the idea that a kid who doesn’t test well can get into Austin. But not at the expense of another kid who doesn’t test well getting tougher marks at a more rigorous school. A young person should not be penalized because another school gives out A’s to students that show up.</p>