Latest SB175 Top 10% - Senate Reported Enrolled Version

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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<p>5/30/09 - Senate Reported Enrolled Version</p>

<p>For all colleges (except UT):</p>

<p>Applicant must be in Top 10% and graduated in the prior two years. </p>

<p>Must have graduated under recommended or advanced hs curriculum --- OR --- meet ACT benchmarks or SAT 1500/2400.</p>

<p>Military kids pay instate tuition.</p>

<p>UT beginning fall 2011: 75% cap - starting with 1%, 2%, 3%...</p>

<p>If other colleges see they're in the same shape as UT then they have to notify hs of changes for the following year.</p>

<p>No legacy admits for UT.</p>

<p>Any school capping at 75% - students must take 6 hrs. in evenings or low demand times.</p>

<p>UT must submit reports to the powers that be.</p>

<p>Schools not capping at 75% will allow students to enroll in the summer.</p>

<p>UT and others using the 75% cap can not admit more than 10% from out of state.</p>

<p>81(R)</a> SB 175 - Enrolled version - Bill Text</p>

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<p>The two items of importance for CC are:</p>

<p>1) The Top 10% who took the recommended or advanced graduation track (which would be most everyone) do NOT have to meet ACT/SAT scores.</p>

<p>2) There is a cap of 10% for OOS admits at UT and any other college using the 75% limit.</p>

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<p>The 75% is 75% of Texas applicants, correct?</p>

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<p>I am pretty sure it is that it means no more than 75% of the entire group of first-year enrollees - about the Fall 2008 level.</p>

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<p>DMN says that it’s 75% of the Texas admits:
[TRAIL</a> BLAZERS Blog | The Dallas Morning News](<a href=“http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/05/senate-sends-top-10-percent-ch.html]TRAIL”>http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/05/senate-sends-top-10-percent-ch.html)</p>

<p>And the text of the bill confirms this:
Section 3 (a-1):“in excess of the number required to fill 75 percent<br>
of the university’s enrollment capacity designated for first-time<br>
resident undergraduate students in an academic year.”
<a href=“http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/SB00175F.htm[/url]”>http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/SB00175F.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, all applicants within the same percentile rank must be admitted, so if they only reach 70% with the top 7% of grads, they’d have to offer admission to all grads in the top 8% even if it brings them over the cap. They MUST admit as many students as possible to fill as they estimate in good faith, the entire 75%, which really means that it probably will have little effect on the whole.</p>

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<p>That doesn’t make any sense to me, the way it’s written in that story. It compares the 75% to the 81% this past year, but that’s the percentage of the class that was auto admit.</p>

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<p>The 6 hours after hours requirement is going to royally screw with UT. The faculty aren’t going to like having to stay late to fulfill a ridiculous request from the Lege.</p>

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<p>As far as I can tell, if this law were in place for the Fall of 2008, under the terms of the law, 81% of the class would STILL have been Top Ten kids automatically admitted.</p>

<p>I am not sure of the exact breakdown of the class, but I would assume that the number of top ten admits is roughly the same for each percentile rank (top 1%, top 2%, top 3%, etc.), if not skewed toward the bottom. This would mean that 8.1% of the total Texas residents who are accepted are in each of the top ten percentiles, and likely more toward the 8th, 9th and 10th percentile. The law requires that 75% be admitted automatically, which seems like that means that the bottom 6% would be cut from the 81% admitted in 2008. However, the law also requires that every kid from the same percentile rank is admitted. If they accept the top 9 percentile, and 8.1% of accepted students are in each of the top ten percentile, that means that 72.9% of accepted students are in the top nine percent. However, this does not fulfill the requirement to automatically accept 75%, so they would need to accept some kids from the 10th percentile to fulfill the law. By accepting some kids from the tenth percentile, they must accept all of them, meaning that for the class of 2012, all top ten kids who were accepted still would have been accepted under the new law.</p>

<p>In essence, the law will have an impact if the number of top ten applicants continues to grow, but at the current level it has no effect whatsoever except requiring UT to do what it already does and limit OOS enrollment. UT’s most recent class was 6% OOS, but they can increase that number to 10% if they so choose.</p>

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<p>Any newspaper spouting that 81% isn’t credible since they can’t be bothered to report the truthful 76%. Just the other day the DMN had sensationalized it up to 86%.</p>

<p>Bottom line, this ruling hasn’t changed a thing except for adding that ridiculous evening class bit and wasting my tax dollars. No one is going to like that. It will interfere with sports and band and who knows what else. And, no, the profs who have to work nights now won’t like it either. Hmm, will that mean UT will have to hire more evening security? Their electric bills will also increase. What about kids who must work evenings to pay tuition? Whoever came up with that little gem needs his head examined. In fact they all have lost their minds for even approving the amendment. … Ok, that would be Sen. Dan Branch (R) from Dallas who proposed it. He was the original sponsor of SB175 and is the Chairman of the Higher Education Committee which explains a lot. I wonder why UT let that get approved? Be careful what you wish for as this might be what bites them.</p>

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<p>I don’t think the 6-hour evening class requirement will really materialize in practice. They left enough wiggle room in the language of the bill, like “other low-demand hours” and “as necessary to ensure the efficient use” to allow UT plenty of discretion. What is a “low-demand hour” at UT? Maybe Monday mornings before noon? :wink: There is a teasip joke in here somewhere!</p>

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<p>I take back what I said. It does look like it means 75% of the spaces allocated to resident (Texas) students. That is good. IMHO, the proportion of the class that is automatically admitted should be lower than it was in fall 2008. I hope this helps.</p>

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<p>OK, let me try again. This is how I read it:</p>

<p>75% of 2011 freshman class – top x% Texas students
10% of 2011 freshman class – OOS/intl students
15% of 2011 freshman class – Texas students who aren’t admitted in first group</p>

<p>Is that how you read it?</p>

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<p>No, it isn’t 75% total, it’s no fewer than 75% of Texas residents. The OOS/international number MAY be no higher than 10%, but probably won’t be that high.</p>

<p>The numbers will probably be 6-7% out-of-state and international, and 93-94% Texan, of whom no fewer than 75% (about 71% overall) must be top ten admits.</p>

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<p>nunya, it is 76% of the TOTAL admitted students, but 81% of the Texas residents are top ten admits.</p>

<p>The law concerns only Texas admits. At least 3/4 of those students admitted as Texas residents must be top ten students. If more than 3/4 of places would go to top ten students, they may cap it after they have reached 75%, provided that all students at a single rank are admitted. So, if they don’t reach 75% with the top 8 percentiles, then they must admit the entire ninth percentile, even if it goes over the 75% cap. If they don’t reach 75% with the ninth percentile, then they must admit the entire tenth percentile.</p>

<p>If my calculations are correct from last year, every top ten admit would still have been given an automatic place.</p>

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<p>nunya</p>

<p>The 86% rate is the estimated one for those admitted this spring for the fall of 2009. The DMN didn’t “sensationalize” it. That number has been talked about for months.</p>

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<p>Yes, 86% of Texas admits are in the top ten percent and are automatically admitted. The number has gone up fairly steadily at about 5% per year, and at that rate next year will be 91% and they will all be automatically admitted. The next year would be 96%, and at that point the top ten cap would go into effect.</p>

<p>Plugging this year’s numbers into the new law, 86% of Texas admits would be competing for a guaranteed 75% of the spots. If you assume that each percentile of the top ten percent is equal (8.6% of the top ten percent), the top eight percent would take 68.8 percent of the spots. This doesn’t fulfill the requirements of the cap, so they would then begin admitting 9th percentile students. The 9th percentile would bring them over the cap, to 77.4%, but under the terms of the law, they would need to admit all of the ninth percentile. The tenth percentile, however, would have to compete with the rest of the applicants for places.</p>

<p>If you follow the prevailing logic that the percent of top ten applicants will continue to grow, next year’s cycle will see roughly 91% of admitted Texas students be top ten students. Under the new law, they are all guaranteed entry because the law doesn’t start until the Fall 2011 admissions cycle. Were it in place, and each percentile of the top ten were 9.1% of the applicants, the top 8 percent would be automatically admitted and would make 72.8% of the entering class. This doesn’t fulfill the requirements of the law, so the entire 9th percentile would be admitted, forcing the tenth percentile and the rest of the applicants to compete for 19.1% of the spaces.</p>

<p>If it continues to grow at the same rate, for the first year the law goes into effect would see 96% of the available places taken by top ten percent applicants. However, they now will only have to take them until the 75% cap is filled. If 9.6% of the total available palces are in each percentile of the top ten, the top seven percent will be admited automatically, making 67.2% of the places, so the top eighth percentile will also be admitted, making a total of 76.8% of the available places reserved for the top eight percent. Students in the ninth and tenth percentile will have to compete with the rest of the students for the remaining 23.2% of the places.</p>

<p>OOS and international students aren’t really going to be effected by the law because they’ve always competed for seperate places than Texas residents. The law allows a maximum of 10% of available places at UT to go to OOS students (UT has never had an official OOS restriction before), but they currently only grant 6-7% of places to non-Texans. It will be interesting to see if they increase, decrease, or let this number remain constant.</p>

<p>One interesting fact I read today: the class of 2012 had 208 international students admitted. Of these, 122 (59%) were admitted under the top ten law as they had graduated from Texas high schools. So the top ten law doesn’t only affect Texas applicants, but those from overseas as well.</p>

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<p>The law is a bit unclear to me once the total students admitted gets close to the 75% limit. Take the example above where it is projected that 96% of the 2011-2012 Texas applicants will be in the top ten percent. While it is true that the law stipulates that UT must admit all students within a percentile, I’m not certain that the cutoff is at the top 7 percent or 67.2% of the spaces. Once the top 7% in this example is filled, the total number admitted would be 76.7% (through 7.99% out of the top 10%) which is above the 75% limit. It doesn’t appear that the 8th percentile would be automatically admitted at this point since UT would be admitting students throughout the entire 7 percentile (7-7.99) and would have gone over their cutoff.</p>

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<p>"If the university elects to offer admission under this subsection, the university shall offer admission to those applicants by percentile rank according to high school graduating class standing based on grade point average, beginning with the top percentile rank, until the applicants qualified under Subsection (a) have been offered admission in the number estimated in good faith by the university as sufficient to fill 75 percent of the university’s enrollment capacity designated for first-time resident undergraduate students, except that the university must offer admission to all applicants with the same percentile rank."
That last part of the clause is the part that will prove tricky for UT.</p>

<p>It’s an estimate, not an exact number. But if 96% of the available spaces would be taken by Top Ten students, and each percentile is 9.6% of the total places available (UT hasn’t ever released breakdowns of applicants by individual percentile rank as they’ve never had any need to before, so I’m assuming each percentile is equal), then the kids in the first percentile would be 9.6% of the places, the second percentile would be 19.2, the third 28.8, the fourth 38.4, the fifth 48, the sixth 57.6, and the seventh 67.2%.</p>

<p>At this point any kid who was ranked 7.0 or higher would have been admitted. The next pecentile, the eighth percentile (7.00-7.99) would bring UT over the cap, BUT they must fill the cap at the very least according to the text of the law. If they don’t, they will violate the law because they haven’t made a good faith effort to fill 75% of the enrollment capacity. Therefore, they would be obligated to admit some kids from the eighth percentile to fill the cap of 75%. If they admit even a single kid from the eighth percentile, according to the law they are obligated to admit all of them, even if it brings them over 75%. So each and every kid in the eithth percentile has to be admitted.</p>

<p>Essentially, they are obligated to fill 75% of places for Texas residents with Top Ten percent applicants, plus every other kid in the same percentile as an applicant in the top 75%. The 75% is more of a minimum that they must admit under the law and not a cap on the number they may admit. They are unable to stop at 67% just because the next percentile would bring them over the 75% number–they must admit the entire next percentile to meet the requirement. At least that’s the way I read the law.</p>

<p>However, it wouldn’t surprise me if UT adopts your interpretation to try to limit the Top Ten enrollment even more. That will open them up to further legal challenges trying to clarify the law’s wording.</p>

<p>Does this make it clearer?</p>

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<p>I think the difference is in the symantics between 7% being defined as 7.0% and 8% being defined as 7.01-7.99%. From reading the law, UT is obligated to reveal the cutoff percent to high school juniors no later than April of their junior year. So, the hopeful student on the cusp of 7-8% who learns that 8% is the cutoff for their particular year may very well interpret it to mean 8.0-8.99%. As you mention loneranger, UT will have to be extremely clear as to how they are administering the cutoff or face some lawsuits. Thanks for the clarification.</p>

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<p>“The number has gone up fairly steadily at about 5% per year”</p>

<p>Of the four undergrad classes, three have increased in size, only the freshman class size has gone down fairly steadily.</p>

<p>Would those international students under the Texas ruling be military kids or what?</p>

<p>I agree, the wording stipulates UT would have to admit the whole % even if it takes them over the 75% limit. There was a reason why the admendment demanding UT submit reports was included and they will be watched very closely.</p>