<p>I don't know if any of ya'll heard this, but a couple months ago some state reps. proposed that the top ten percent law be done away with or changed to top five percent. But a couple days ago, the bills were rejected BUT they decided now that automatic admissions is still granted to top ten percenters, but they have to have been taking advanced classes like AP, IB, dual credit and stuff like that.</p>
<p>Does this rule only apply to persons who are coming from Texas high schools?</p>
<p>yeah, only people from accredited texas high schools can be automatically admitted by the top ten percent law</p>
<p>Taking Ap and Ib classes? Like just taking them? That doesn't really make a difference ... if say one person takes like 1 Ap class or something. What happens if the school doesn't offer Ap's or stuff like that. That would suck for the top students. Man why can't these legislators cut off some of the percentages.</p>
<p>I believe that the new rule states that you have to be on track to graduate under the "recommended" plan or the (oh shoot, i forgot the other word) something like "accelerated" plan. That was so the kids who are top ten percent in the easier high schools who are taking no AP or Honors courses won't have the advantage over those kids who are taking the harder classes but maybe not getting the top grades because of the difficulty of the subject matter. I guess they'll have to come up with some new formula to figure in which combination of course load and grades will be a fair measure of the "best and brightest"</p>
<p>yeah it's just unfair that someone from a not so up to par school who normally wouldn't even be in the top twenty percent of a better school would get picked over someone who goes to an awesome selective school and would probably be valedictorian somewhere else. I think the revision is a good change because that means that not just anyone is getting in</p>
<p>Man, the top 10% rule is freaking stupid in my opinion. If you're smart enough and well qualified already then you wouldn't have to worry about getting in. All this rank stuff is allowing a lot of less qualified people to get entrance into the top universities and crowds out the opportunities of a lot of promising people.</p>
<p>The Texas Senate has passed a bill requiring the "Recommended" graduation plan and a standardized GPA calculation which gives a .5 boost to AP & IB courses - goes into effect 2007-2008. The Texas House has a bill in play which has not yet been voted on. The House version does something entirely different. We won't know what the final changes to the Top 10% rule will be until we find out what emerges from the conference committee. Time is short for the current legislative session so who knows if any changes will actually get to the Governor's desk.</p>
<p>Well this is Texas too, everything legislative takes forever.</p>
<p>In Texas, the "Recommended" plan is a sham. In addition to everything required, you have to take a fine art class and world geography to get it. My counselors told me that I <em>had</em> to take a fine art and WG my Senior year (they get more grant money if more people graduate recommended) until I printed up the "Minimum" plan and showed it to them. I would have had to give up AP Stats and AP Computer Science (my two electives) if I wanted to graduate under the "Recommended" plan. Which really shows my academic ability and which shows my ability to act as a herded cow?</p>
<p>Colleges have been accepting and denying people for the past hundred years - I think they know who belongs and who doesn't better than legislators.</p>
<p>The Recommended plan never really got in the way for me. I mean it was so simple, so I got most of the required courses out of the way early. I'm going for the Distinguished Achievement one but that doesn't seem too hard either.</p>
<p>Yeah I had already passed the DAP without knowing.</p>
<p>I think a good compromise would be to not allow THEA liable students automatic admission... in this present system, a top ten percent student that has less than 1000 on the SAT is automatically admitted while a student with a 1200+ score and top 25% (which was my case) is denied...something is wrong here....anyways... the cap program is not that bad..the year went by quickly...</p>
<p>Students need to remember that the 10% rule is primarily in place --as a result of the court ruling removing race as a criteria for admissions. The objective was --or seemed to be -- a sort of back door approach to diversity --in many forms, racial, economic, geography etc---</p>
<p>I am especially humored by MaxLee "the top 10% rule is freaking stupid in my opinion. If you're smart enough and well qualified already then you wouldn't have to worry about getting in. All this rank stuff is allowing a lot of less qualified people to get entrance into the top universities and crowds out the opportunities of a lot of promising people."</p>
<p>I wonder how he would define 'less qualified' </p>
<p>Generally my point is it is a state university politics come into play, educating the 'common man' is part of their goal ... and ---the favorite of adults ---life isn't fair , get over it ...... </p>
<p>The real deal is that Texas needs to build up more of its state schools to upper 50 status... just too many people wanting a higher education</p>
<p>I believe that the latest idea is to limit top 10% acceptances to 50% of total acceptances.</p>
<p>"I wonder how he would define 'less qualified' </p>
<p>Generally my point is it is a state university politics come into play, educating the 'common man' is part of their goal ... and ---the favorite of adults ---life isn't fair , get over it ......"</p>
<p>Get over what? Are you implying that I'm stupid dude? I've seen countless people cheat their way into the top 10% in schools with high class numbers and get automatic admission while people at tougher schools with low class numbers get weeded out by this rule. UT's admissions for people out of the top 10% is really tough. I think all schools should be based on individual success more than some stupid rank because that fluctuates greatly from school to school. You can have a smart school, but the class will only have 50 people or so and then you can have those extremely large public schools where there are 800+ kids. That makes a big difference.</p>
<p>"The real deal is that Texas needs to build up more of its state schools to upper 50 status... just too many people wanting a higher education"
If UT wants to upgrade its status then it better get rid of this rule. Also I also see this as a problem in American society to cater to the "common person" as you put it. That's why all the foreign countries have smarter students that are at the root of all our outsourcing problems. Why is this? Because their governments focus on rewarding the students with the highest potential. (Some of the asian countries are cutthroat when it comes to any college admission in general). If the colleges are so good at picking people through admissions, then they should just let them do it that way and get more "qualified" people even though the process would definitely take much longer. This is how most of the upper tier schools do it and if you want Texas to be the real deal then it needs to scrap that rule in my opinion. Or at least lower the %. While it is generally true that public colleges aren't quite up to par with most of the elite schools, some of them are very high up there, Cal-Berkeley and Michigan Anne Harbor, and you know admissions into those schools are as tough as any.</p>
<p>Max:
Well I wanted to prompt a lively response and I did ...thanks...</p>
<p>I actually agree with much of what you say. I am not a fan of the top 10%,though my kid is in the top 10 and a national merit scholar,etc..</p>
<p>My objection to it is on many of the grounds that you list. A couple of points, as to UT I agree that the top 10 rule may hurt its rankings and agree other public univ. prob. do better. The correct yardsticks are the Micigan,CAl-Berk, North Carolina ...and when i say hurt its status, it is certainly ranked highly in many areas, esp engineering and business</p>
<p>There is a need for a society to have educated citizens ... my point was actually that the state of Texas should realize that is should have more, higher ranked univ...California has CAl-B, UCLA, UCSD,UCSB, and several of the Cal States.....</p>
<p>I believe investments should continue to UT and A&M, but increase to Texas Tech, Houston, and prob UNT...... </p>
<p>I was not implying you were stupid, you response is solid...... but I have seen people cheat there way to jobs and houses, spouses; so it can happen and not be fair... we should try to make it so, but sometimes you have to take opportunities given and go with it</p>
<p>According to an article in the Houston Chronicle a couple of days ago, the percentage of minorities actually matriculating really hasn't changed statistacally from when the rule was not in effect to when it was enacted. For some reason, UT and A&M are not attracting large numbers of minority applicants. Who the top 10% law really helped were kids from small, rural high schools, or highschools with lower socioeconomic levels than the large, suburban, uber-competitive high schools. This, along with the minority argument, is why many legislators are fighting tooth and nail to keep some component of the 10% rule in effect. </p>
<p>I can't see the Texas House and Senate coming to a compromise any time soon. There are some really crazy ideas being offered up during legislative sessions. One that was mentioned in the paper (I cannot believe it is anything other than facetious) is that the percentage of minorities accepted should equal the percentage of minorities on the football team! I like the method where you get accepted into a state university, but not necessarily the "flagship" universities. I think some states do this, but I'm not sure which ones.</p>
<p>On a personal note, my S who attends a competitive private school was not top 10% but was accepted to UT. I also know of many other kids with good stats (other than rank), both from his school and from our area public school, that were accepted. So, for those who may be applying, keep heart, it can happen.</p>
<p>15mbw - Sorry, it was just that one of my friends that worked pretty hard didn't make it into UT because of what other kids in my class were doing so I kinda got worked up about it.</p>
<p>Yes, you're right, life is pretty unfair and I guess we have to make do with what we have.</p>
<p>No need to apologize...... I think it is a debate worth having, I agree with the post above to guarantee a spot at a state school for top 10% but not a specific location. ...ps Just because life can be unfair, doesn't mean we don't fight to make it the best we can for everyone</p>
<p>Again the need for the political will to upgrade the schools that I believe with very little help could go from good to very good/great ... I believe those are Texas Tech , Univ of Houston, and Univ of North Texas ---in that order</p>