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<p>This puts Kennedy in a very powerful position, which Roberts hates. Majority opinion will either be by Kennedy or Roberts. Oddly, this puts the liberals in the catbird seat; they can just sit back and see whether Kennedy or Roberts offers them more. UT wins.</p>
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<p>I oppose affirmative action but think that if it is not banned soon, it may not be for a long time, at least at the national level. If President Obama gets to fill a court vacancy, he will do so with a justice who supports affirmative action. The Democrats are currently the (slim) majority party, due in part to a rising share of the electorate that is non-white, and future Democratic presidents will also support AA.</p>
<p>When there is a top X% plan, class rank becomes more important. Does the state dictate how class rank should be calculated (which subjects to include, what extra points if any to give honors and AP classes)?</p>
<p>^ Each school district decides for itself its approach to ranking.</p>
<p>Another result is that schools/districts are increasingly going uranked, or at least not reporting rank.</p>
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<p>^^^^^^^No.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t that mean that no one from the school qualifies under the top X% plan, costing the school’s applicants seats in the UT system?</p>
<p>I oppose affirmative action but think that if it is not banned soon, it may not be for a long time, at least at the national level. </p>
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<p>I think the Supreme Court has already accepted another case involving affirmative action.</p>
<p>To comply with the top 10% law, we will report rank for those kids and then for any other kid who thinks reporting rank may benefit them. We’ll also report rank for the top 25% for the academic admit program for A&M. Not reporting rank forces schools to look at our kids holistically, and they come out looking much better than their rank would indicate.</p>
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<p>That’s the argument made by HS educators, but Michelle Hernandez, former adcom at Dartmouth, says just the opposite: not ranking, hurts the top students.</p>
<p>What does she mean by top students? Any student who wants to report rank can still do so, so if you’re a tippy-top kid then by all means ask that your rank be reported.</p>
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Thank you for the detailed response. The agreement to bifurcate these proceedings makes the issue of standing more complicated, but my understanding was similar to what you’ve presented here.</p>
<p>If the case isn’t decided on standing I think Grutter will end up effectively gutted. I can’t see any interpretation that would clarify the existing framework without getting completely stuck in its deficiencies.</p>
<p>There are simply not many seats for holistic admissions as there are for ranked students. So it would be odd for schools to aim for a pool of 5% when there is a pool of 75% at UT for those who are ranked.</p>
<p>The top 10% can still report rank and so still get in. It’s the other 25% of spots that the other 90% are aiming for. That 90% weren’t getting in under top 10% anyway.</p>
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<p>Based on following the manner in which particular high schools in Texas report their ranking, I agree completely with BB, and by extension with MH. The most striking differences were offered by two “sisters” schools. The male version changed its reporting process by releasing a precise ranking at the end of the Junior year. The school for the “sisters” did cling for years to its myopic process by only releasing the ranking a few weeks before graduation. Despite the calls from Austin, the nuns refused to release a ranking in the FALL of the senior year, and would only mark the ranking on the applications by quartile.</p>
<p>The results? An extremely small percentage of girls ever made it to Austin, and as expected, an extremely small number of students were admitted to HYPS. On the other hand, in the years immediately after the changes at the boys’ schools, admission to Austin became routine, and admissions to HYPS and MIT skyrocketed when before the best only made it to Notre Dame, Duke, or Georgetown. Finally, the girls’ schools relented last year and the changes in admissions have been spectacular for both Austin and the “top” schools.</p>
<p>The rankings by quartiles did function as long as the girls were directed to “middle of the pack” schools (Think Lady of the Lake or Baylor) and the school was proud to send their top 25 percent to such schools. On the other hand, it did hurt plenty of students, and especially for Austin. Not surprisingly, the students scored more admissions at Texas A$M via the high SAT scores. And lastly, it deprives the valedictorian of the free tuition scholarship in Texas. Can’t get it if the school does not rank properly! </p>
<p>To understand the negatives, just think how HYPS react when the valedictorian of the school is reported as being in the top … 25 percent. And how this works for scholarship purposes. Unless one is resourceful enough to make sure an “unofficial” transcript with a manual entry of the detailed ranking is submitted with the application, not much good happens. </p>
<p>PS If it were not clear, private schools in Texas can participate in the automatic 10 percent, but they have to report the ranking in time and comply with the minimum curriculum.</p>
<p>Here’s a wealthy Austin-area HS that voted in 2010 to drop rank … This is from a fall 2012 article, but I can’t find a link to the whole thing.</p>
<p>“The Eanes school district’s decision last year to stop ranking all but the top 10 percent of graduating seniors seems to have helped more local students gain access to public universities that implement the top 10 rule. Admissions in to UT were up 38 percent this fall to 141 students, and admissions to Texas A&M rose 49 percent to 160 students.”</p>
<p>As I wrote earlier, of course the top kids will want to report rank as it benefits them. But a kid who is more in the 20-25% area who has a 2500+ SAT is going to benefit more from not reporting a rank. At my HS, the top four kids are going to MIT (2), Duke and Stanford, with several Ivy acceptances among them, so the policy obviously isn’t hurting the kids at the top.</p>
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<p>Did you mean 2300+ SAT?</p>
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<p>Sorry, but your point (and the district’s policy) is inconsistent. The district DOES in fact rank the top decile, which is all that ‘MIT, Duke and Stanford’ care about…</p>
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<p>How do you figure? Assuming you meant 2250, that hypo student is clearly not in the top decile and adcoms will immediately realize that fact (since the supposed non-ranking district still identifies the top decile).</p>
<p>IMO, a 2250 who was just missed the top decile, say 11%, would do much better in the admissions game with additional ranking than just allowing the adcoms to guesstiamte that such student was 15-20%, or worse.</p>
<p>I meant to type 2250+. Sorry. They’re good but not that good. ;)</p>
<p>I never said it didn’t rank the top decile. In fact, I’ve repeatedly said that it did so as not to hurt those kids. But you need only look at the CDS of selective schools to see how few high schools, relatively, are now reporting rank. At our school, adcoms were asking us to go unranked so they could take more kids without hurting their rankings, which factor in how many kids are in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread, just wanted to point out that Texas schools are doing various things to counteract the Top 10% rule.</p>
<p>What time do decisions come out?</p>
<p>No decision today…they may release more decisions on Thursday.</p>