<p>I don't think I'm saying anything earth shattering by observing that schools in affluent areas, private schools, etc., tend to be very competitive. Getting into the top 10% is, therefore, more difficult than getting into the top 10% of many inner city/rural schools. Granted, students who go to wealthier schools are far more likely to have access to SAT prep, private college counseling, internship connections and other resources that will help them in the admissions process. But this advantage is balanced out by the fact that many of these students' peers have the same benefits. I'm not saying that inner city or rural students aren't deserving of an opportunity to go to college; I just don't think they should get a brake because they may not have been born into the ideal situation.</p>
<p>Basic- I am going to try my best to inject you with a wee bit of empathy, although I question my sanity for trying. You say your parents have NEVER helped you with school work, I seriously question that,but I'll let that go. Did you grow up in a household were English was spoken? Did you have nutritious food to eat? Do your parents have a vocabulary of say above 8th grade? </p>
<p>Testing reflects education NOT ability. Students going to subpar schools don't get the same educational opportunities. Grades reflect hardwork. This is why the top 10% law is based on grades not test scores.</p>
<p>If I could get my magic wand out, would you be willing to trade your life and be poor but able to make the 10%. Your inability to grasp the concept of your privilages is mind boggling. Just to let you know, there is a big difference in having a job for money to play and needing the money to eat. I am sorry for you that your life experience has been so narrow that you don't have the ability to appreciate your privilages and respect others who are less privledged.</p>
<p>govman- EVERYONE deserves a chance to reach their potential. If you don't think they should get a brake to go to college, then when exactly should they get a brake. Think about what you are saying. Past the economic benefit of these students getting to improve their financial outlook, as a society we have a moral obligation to level the playing field. Education is the foundation of hope, and living the American dream.</p>
<p>Happy4him: I resent that you feel mightier than thou with all your empathy for the poor and think I'm a stuck-up child. Not only does it make you sound rude, it makes you seem less credible.</p>
<p>Yes, I am saying my parents contributed little to my homework or projects I worked on at home. Please give me an example of what they could have done to help. I also come from a household where both English and Chinese are spoken. Thus, as for the vocabulary of my parents, I find that irrelevant. In homes where English is the only spoken language, I highly doubt the parents speak to their children with a heavy emphasis on SAT vocabulary. Also, how does having food to eat add to your argument? I hope you're not saying these other families have parents who can't provide a meal for their children.</p>
<p>"Testing reflects education NOT ability. Students going to subpar schools don't get the same educational opportunities. Grades reflect hardwork. This is why the top 10% law is based on grades not test scores."</p>
<p>I assume you're talking about standardized testing. Even if standardized testing only reflected education, since when was an education a bad thing? I'm not a super proponent of standardized testing, but I can't think of a better solution. Are you saying that even with hard work, one can't achieve high scores on tests? There's no doubt grades require hard work, but you're wrong that the 10% law focuses on grades. It doesn't. It looks at rank. It's a fact that more hard work is required to get a rank within the top 10% of a more competitive high school. It could even take more hard work even to crack the top 25%.</p>
<p>Furthermore, what makes you think college is different from high school? If anything, college is simply an extension of the methodologies employed in high school. If they weren't adequately prepared for high school, how will they be able to transition to the more rigorous expectations of college? </p>
<p>As a student who was in the top 10% of my class, I'm not speaking on my own behalf, but for others I know who lost the opportunity of attending UT due to the law. Do not try to belittle their hard work that went unrewarded.</p>
<p>Also, I only pointed out the fact myself and others I knew had held jobs to counter argument that some students would have difficulty of time management balancing school and work when it can clearly be done.</p>
<p>I regret that you choose to emphasize how woeful your life has been and are taking it out on those who have been more privileged in life when you don't know what you're talking about. If you're just simply arguing for those underprivileged, I commend you for your efforts, but also find you judgmental and arrogant for your belief you are so much more compassionate than others.</p>
<p>You don't comprehend the magnitude of the challenges that inner city school kids face.</p>
<p>I had typed a massive response to your argument, but then I accidentally hit the back button on my mouse and lost it all. </p>
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<p>To compare your hard work with that of an inner city school kid's is comparing apples and oranges. Those that have managed to get out of those hellholes will have overcome obstacles that you have never faced.</p>
<p>To think that hard work is the solution to everything ignores the decades of history and societal hypocrisy that have undermined these areas for so long. Your competitive school's success on standardized testing, for a large part, is due to 9 years of complete education. </p>
<p>As an Asian student at a competitive school, with parents that earn 6 figures and are there for me when I need them, I recognize the problems that you talk about. But they pale in comparison to the dysfunctional and abusive families, perpetually underfunded and understaffed schools, drugs, violence, and gangs that blight inner city schools.</p>
<p>Ah well, I'm too tired to retype the rest.</p>
<p>While you bring up good points, this thread is about Texas. I will concede to your points on the triumphs of those who have gone through a childhood in an inner city school. My argument is against those in a suburban setting where schools are less challenging.</p>
<p>Also, don't tell me I don't understand the magnitude of their challenges and try to label me as ignorant. I did volunteer work last summer in inner city Houston and interacted with the less privileged. I've seen their struggles. While I may not live that life, don't assume I live in a bubble where I've only experienced privilege and have no empathy for others.</p>
<p>basic - You missed my entire point. Education is of the utmost importance, but if students are not having the opprtunity to receive the same quality education in high school, then they should get that opportunity in college if they make the top 10% in their public high school. Test scores reveal what you've been taught. If you have the advantage of going to a more competetive school, you have the opportunity to take better classes and be more "educated" thus you should have higher test scores.The rank is determined by grades, so I have no clue why you dismissed the comment on grades. My point on food, is that many poorer kids (white & black) don't get proper nutrition. I am not implying you are ignorant, I am saying you are narrow minded and unable or unwilling to consider another perspective.</p>
<p>You have me pegged wrong. I was blessed to have grown up in a white privillaged enviorment, but I understand the value of education very personally. My father's grandfather was an uneducated sharecropper, my grandfather worked his whole life in a manufacturing plant. My father headed a prominent union in the US and instilled a strong belief in me to help the working class people. These people are the foundation of our country and more specifically our economy. I have seen many of those people fall to the lower class because of jobs lost and the economic down turn. For some of these people, hope is hard to come by.</p>
<p>Education is hope. If a student has worked hard enough in their public school, then they deserve a chance to get an equal education at a public university. If the college has to offer remedial classes to catch their education up to yours, so be it. Less educated does not mean less capable!</p>
<p>If you want to talk understanding another persons struggles, I have been to the "hollers" of the Appalachain mountains where kids would barely get food, if it wasn't for free lunch. I have worked with Hispanic families in the Shenandoah Valley that work at the apple orchards and chicken farms. The kids are the only ones in the family that speak English. They have no one at home to help them with their school work. I studied religion and politics in Jerusalem, and saw the struggles of two nations divided.</p>
<p>Our society can not change overnight, but education is the key. If we do not have diversity in our higher institutions of learning, then where. If not now, when!</p>
<p>Two of my kids have their masters in education and are teachers, and one son will be starting college at an Ivy League school this fall to study economics. I worked for a major media network until I decided to stay home with my children. Obviously, my strong beliefs in education and the economy have been passed on.</p>
<p>I hope not to distort your community service record, but I feel I must interject when you directly relate understanding the problems of those who lack the necessary support around them and those who have grown up in circumstances less than the norm and yet have still found a way to succeed. </p>
<p>What I feel would give you a better perspective, is if you actually stepped into a classroom in one of these inner-city schools. Just look and see if you could succeed if that environment had surrounded you for much of your life. </p>
<p>That rule is unfair, but often when faced with unfair circumstances that broadly affect such large members of the community, you find a way to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Progressivism. Whether this does that, I don't know.</p>
<p>Bourne- Great point.</p>
<p>I have a word of advice to those students in the top 11-33% of their classes in Texas................Go to a good school outside of Texas. I know it sounds a little scary, but it will benefit you immensely. You will be so much more well-rounded than any of those top 10% that chose to stay in Texas. It's nothing against Texas. My years in Texas definately broadened my life experiences.</p>
<p>Happy: Thanks for the backhanded compliment that I'm not ignorant but rather I'm narrow minded. I dismissed the importance of grades earlier due to your statement the top 10% law related to grades. Again, it's not based on grades, but rather how you fare against your peers. While technically, yes, grades are involved, it's one's ranking against the other students which takes precedence. I admire your hope for equal opportunities in higher education. However, when that happens, the more educated students who do in fact score on higher on AP tests and the SAT receive the proverbial short end of the stick. They are the ones who are not immediately admitted to the university and instead are provided the CAP program or summer admit option. The less educated ones are the ones who receive the direct route to the university and forgo the satellite university. Wouldn't you agree it would be rational to send these other students through the CAP program where they would be able to learn in an environment dedicated to catching them up to the other students at the flagship institution?</p>
<p>Bourne: I hope you didn't think I was trying to boast and project the impression I believed I lived their struggles. I was simply showing I knew there were other situations out there outside my own. I do believe in a utilitarian philosophy where we can maximize good. While the 10% law does benefit those less privileged, it doesn't make sense to me why those close, but not top 10% should suffer.</p>
<p>UT does a fantastic job of providing different opportunities to admission to the university, whether through its summer program, CAP, or an external transfer from a community college. To me, if it weren't for the top 10% law, the students would be apportioned more fairly.</p>
<p>At the risk of distracting from the protracted, albeit colorful, debate over how basic's privilege has disqualified him from maintaining a valid position on the 10% rule, I would like to make an observation. The argument by some seems to be that the rule in question helps disadvantaged students gain access to schools like UT which therefore increases their chance of entering the middle class and a supposed bevy of other benefits. I would argue, however, that rather than lower the standard of admission to UT by using the 10% rule, Texas must raise the standard of education at its other public colleges where inner city/rural students are more likely to make up a significant portion of the school.
I agree that education provides both hope and opportunity, but that will only remain the case if employers, and society as a whole for that matter, believe attaining such an education actually means something and is not just the product of artificial admissions quotas.</p>
<p>Basic and govman- I appreciate that we have entered into a healthy debate and passed emotional statements. </p>
<p>Basic- While I don't totally disagree with your latest argument, the challenge is to achieve the fairest system possible. It will never be perfect. I agree that it does not feel fair to have students be admitted to UT with lower test scores, but test scores will always be higher in advantaged schools for reasons we have already debated. It's not the students fault that they go to an inferior school, and deal with multiple other disadvantages, nor is it a students fault that they go to a better public school or for that matter a superior private school; but this is a state university, and I agree that the law should give equal footing to students who have achieved the top 10% rank at all public high schools. This policy should improve the entire public school system in years to come. The old expression that it is hard to see the forest for the trees applies here. Your view is obstructed by the trees, and I am asking you to step back and see the forest. I do think you are a very bright person, otherwise I would have stopped posting by now.</p>
<p>govman- Just because everyone doesn't come to college with an equal education, does not mean that they will decrease the value of an education at UT. The education students receive at UT will allow everyone to reach their ability and be successful, that is not going to change. I can not express strongly enough my belief that education with a diverse student body will benefit everyone.</p>
<p>After my trip to Jerusalem, our class thesis concluded that the first step towards a resolution would best be accomplished by begining a school where the Jewish and Palistinian students were educated together from primary school on. The hope was that they could develop relationships young and not let the only focus be on their differences. Unfortunately that has been many years ago and nothing has really changed. I do not think we should water down our cultures and all be the same. I do think we need to respect where others come from, and do whatever we can to help one another. </p>
<p>Peace :)</p>
<p>Happy: Thanks for providing your own insight. I agree the system will never be perfect. There will always be a group that suffers. I've chosen to speak up for the more middle class who currently suffer from the system and you have chosen to speak for the less privileged who otherwise would suffer. I believe the strongest argument for the top 10% law is that while it can be argued the student body may not be at the fullest potential in terms of prior education, it does at least attract competent and capable students. I appreciate your passion and thanks for listening.</p>
<p>Jmanco49:
It might be that attending college opens your eyes and allows you to be more socially aware. You understand that the world is not just BLACK and WHITE but in fact a RAINBOW of variables.</p>
<p>Joking or not, it's disheartening to see an ignorant (google ignorant for the full definition, if you don't see why your post was ignorant) post such as this. It is especially surprising that it is coming from someone choosing to develop themselves intellectually. You will not go far in college, or in life, if you can't change your perspective on things.</p>
<p>The 10% rule as well as affirmative action, may not make all too much sense to you right now. Maybe once you step foot on campus for your first day of orientation and meet your fellow students from every different background imaginable, that sense will start to kick it.</p>
<p>P.S. Go to pbs.com and search for "Brazil in Black and White." Something I think you all should do if you want a different perspective on affirmative action.</p>
<p>"If these students are in the top 10%, then they are qualified. Defining them as weak students is insulting."</p>
<p>This is where I can't agree with you. The fact that a student is in in the top 10% based on GPA at a weak high school does not mean that the student is really qualified to compete at UT. He may be, or he may not be. It's not an insult to point this out. Indeed, I'd be interested in knowing about what UT has done to deal with the influx of students who would not have been admitted without this program. Are they flunking out? Has UT established remedial programs? Or are those students in fact performing as well as anybody else?</p>
<p>Hunt- It's not insulting to point out the differences, I thought generalizing them as weak students was insulting. I agree that there is a difference, but based on the law they are qualified.</p>
<p>I'm a parent of a kid that got denied at UT Austin. He had 1390 SAT, finished about 13% in his class in a good suburban school in Plano. He went through the IB program and ultimately tested out of 43 hours of college credit through IB, AP and CLEP exams. He was clearly well qualified for UT and likely would have gotten in if UT didn't wind up filling up so many of the slots with top 10% applicants. </p>
<p>Even with his experience, I don't have a problem with the rule. He could have worked harder and finished in the top 10%. He made that choice. He could have been involved in more ECs to make his resume look better. He had a reasonable chance to get admitted and didn't do everything he could have to get admitted. </p>
<p>He wound up get a CAP offer. That is the conditional acceptance program where if you attend one fo the other UT system schools for a year and pass 30 hours with at least a 3.2, you are guaranteed transfer into UT. He did that and will head to Austin this fall to join his many friends from the IB program that got in last fall. Lesson well learned for him and he still gets to have the UT experience.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate that a kid that learned enough in high school to test out of a year and a half of college can't get into UT. But, kids like that pretty much all get CAP offers and if they really want to go to UT they have a path to make it happen.</p>
<p>I now have a second son who will be a senior next year. He wants to go to Florida, also a bear to get in, and have UT as a fall back. He's just a couple of spots out of top 10% right now and has a full AP load next year. He knows if he finishes strong in his senior year he'll be in the top 10% and have his back up secured if he doesn't get into Florida. So, we're hoping we're on the other end of the deal this go around. The security of knowing you're in based on your work in high school and not having to stress over the letter coming. Well at least not the letter from UT. We'll stress plenty on the Florida letter.</p>
<p>There is no perfect system. But, if you know what the system is at least you have a chance to tailor your performance to the system in play.</p>
<p>They should change it to top 5% instead of top 10% and I might be okay with it.</p>