Not speculation, a fact that might be hard to digest for students or parents of kids who attend regular public schools! - Am sorry if you feel slighted because you attend a regular public school as opposed to top magnet or charter school!
Let me give you facts: not just one year or two year - in the TX area I live , most years - students in a Top charter school in the country and some students from Top Magnet schools - get out of those schools after the sophomore year because they are not in the Top 10% of their class - get easily in Top 6%! They are also able to improve the resumes by participating the ECs because getting in to Top 6% in a public school is a breeze for these kids!
Interestingly, many of the top kids in the public schools could NOT make it to these Top Magnet schools! You should be happy that you attend a public school and are in the Top 6% and will get in to UT Austin! Also, sometime facts may not make you feel good that does not mean you accuse others of speculating - it is good to have school pride but let us not get our facts twisted!
Again where are your facts? Where is your data? You are merely restating your opinion as a fact. I sure hope they are teaching the difference between fact and opinion at these top charter/magnet schools.
UT knows the “good” Texas schools with high test scores and over admits outside of the 6% range for those schools. UT admitted over 100 from an Austin area school that had 600+ graduates. That’s the top 15%.
… that’s not happening. Any student that has competitive qualifications for Stanford, Ivies, or applying out of state to Top Publics (Mich, UVA, Cal, UNC, UCLA, GT, UW…) will be an auto admit to UT… easily… those students consider UT a safety school.
No necessarily. We had a student attend Princeton who was not admitted to UT. It happens more often than you might expect.
I’m not surprised to hear that there could be instances where a student admitted to a highly selective private school is not admitted to UT. The difference between been ranked in the top 6% as compared to top 8% is huge for UT, but it probably is meaningless to a school that exclusively conducts holistic admissions. Nevertheless, I’d reasonably assume that, on the whole, an individual accepted into one the two 20 colleges nationally is likely gonna be a very competitive applicant for review admission to UT.
So they weren’t a top student. But they had a passion, skill, personality or hard luck story that Princeton found compelling.
That’s holistic admissions.
hey itisgettin real - because I live in that district and can talk to about the exact schools where it is happening to you directly!
where is your proof that public schools kids are as good as these top schools??
How many of the top 5% of public school students go to Ivy league? There are more student - % wise going to Ivy league compared to the public schools in the major metro I live in! Those are facts - but am sure school administrators track it but will not share it!
I feel sorry that you feel so defensive! Not all can get in to Ivies or some of these schools - we all have to do the best of the situation that we have and still make it! UT is very good public university but it is Not an Ivy league or U of M or Berkeley …ditto with Public high school vs, some of these top charter or magnet schools in the country!
hey greymeer - You misunderstood my message - please read it again. If I did not make it clear, let me restate it.
Top 6% of these Top Magnet/Charter schools in the area (near big metro) go to Ivies, Stanford, U of M etc. - so the students from say 10-25% of the student class who do not make it to Ivy or U of M or Berkeley, CMU etc. - do not qualify for UT Austin in Auto admit unless they are lucky to make it because of lot of other activities etc.
BTW, some of the parents who go these schools have taken this matter to school counselors and some of us have talked to UT Austin admission people . They say individual programs do consider which school students go to but still we have many cases where you have kids (7-20%) who do not make it in UT because they have to admit so many Auto Admits
End result is UT system does Not get the top students from these top schools in TX meaning Top 25% because the Top 6% go to Ivies and other top universities and students outside the Top 6% class rank find it hard to get in!
Sadly, some people here (not you but some of the others in this post!) who attend public school or UT Austin feel defensive because they did not make it to these high schools (they may not live in those counties too) or they did not get in to Ivy league - try to feel better by calling out others!
Yet to hear Yale or Princeton called the Private UT Austin!!
I love UT but we need to keep the right perspective regarding what school we attend or our kids attend!
You’re not even making sense.
I am wondering about chances for McCombs.
In-state
Top 7% ACT 32 SAT 1480
2 varsity sports in 5A High school, 2 yrs class officer, lots of volunteer hrs,summer camp counselor, so far 6 AP tests with 4’s & 5’s
@itsgettingreal17 & @kg2013 . I came across your debate, and I was intrigued. I am not from TX, so I have no skin in the game one way or another (I was in this forum by mistake - I was looking for info on OOS applicants), but I do like a good debate
If you look at a study done by Stanford last year (https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/Texas%202017.pdf), it states that charter schools in Texas have a stronger academic growth in reading, but they are pretty equal in math with public schools. Most of the gains in reading were attributed to the charter elementary schools (the study collected data from K-12). On a high school level, both charter schools and public schools have similar academic growth.
My kids go to private schools that are much harder and much better than our local public school so I understand the debate! Throwing in my experience to hopefully encourage some of you in that situation! Although the top 7percent gets into UT from our local schools, they are not prepared for nor do they get into top programs at UT… rarely McCombs or engineering and never honors programs. Outside of top 10% kids get into a Blynn instead of A&M too. We opted for top private schools instead of basically guaranteed entrance into UT or A&M and it was a tough decision! However, it paid off! I had a kid last year graduate from an “unranking” school who got into BHP and Plan 2. His class rank was 10% but test scores and resume were very good. Grand total about 20% of the kids from that high school got into UT from his class. A&M is closer to about 50%. It is definitely hit or miss though with those top programs! I have one accepted into A&M engineering now who is about top 20 % at her school but has great test scores. We will see!
Moral of the story: they do not treat all schools the same. They know which ones are super competitive!
So, because you enclosed “unranking” in quotes and you say your son was 10%, it seems your exclusive private high school actually ranks but tells UT they don’t in order to game UT’s admission process.
Well, not really, I actually do not know his exact rank. Most schools that don’t rank include a school profile when they send in student’s paperwork. It has a breakdown into quintiles based on GPA’s in the class so schools have an idea of where they are in the class just not an exact number. His GPA was roughly 10%, so I am assuming that is what was used to figure out his AI. The only real advantage I see to not ranking is that it allows programs like BHP to say they take top 2-3% only but then still take kids from competitive un-ranking schools. Most of the top six at his school probably wont go to UT, honestly and exact class rank really only matters at public schools like UT and A&M that are required to take a certain percentage no matter what everything else looks like.
Could I dislike a post by @xtexasmom? I have kids in private schools, but your post is obnoxious/pompous. Many students from public schools get into the top programs at UT and Texas A&M, and into (gasp) Ivy League schools. Nice that you paint public schools with a broad brush - sorry to seem rude, but your post really rubbed me the wrong way. UT wants students who make the most of their environment, so it sounds like your kiddos are making the most of their environment. Yes, non-ranking schools usually get in more (often) double the students than a non-ranking school. My kiddos school got 25% of last years class (small school). Also, having a child at UT already, the admission process STINKS! My child was accepted into engineering and did not find out until Feb. 1 (not in the waves), and my Longhorn had scores in 99% percentile and tons of AP classes, extracurricular activities, service work, etc., so hang in there everyone and good luck!
Oh goodness! I am really sorry. I really didn’t mean to sound that way. I agree 100% about public schools…many, many are excellent and absolutely do get kids into top programs. I taught at one of the best in the state for a number of years and those kids were getting an excellent education and it was VERY competitive. The one my kids are zoned to is just not like that. Everyone in the area knows it and most don’t care about education being iffy. Sports are the thing.
I was really just trying to say that UT knows which schools are super competitive…public or private.
Some of the info above is erroneous respecting UT’s admissions accounting for the competitiveness of different schools. UT’s admissions process is not a black box, after years of litigation pretty much everything including the algorithms and admissions formulas are a matter of public record if you do a simple Google search for Fisher v. Texas. In fact UT posted most of that stuff including the depositions taken from their admissions officers on their webpage. Of course, its literally hundreds of pages long so I know that for the average person it would be impractical to look through all of that material. An alternative to that is to consider laying down the $10 to buy the book written by the former UT admissions counselor about UT’s admission practices - Your Ticket to the Forty Acres: The Unofficial Guide for UT Undergraduate Admissions.
Chapter 10 of the book is entitled “Correcting Misconceptions” and contrary to the assertions above, the former UT admissions officer explains “Why doesn’t UT account for high school competitiveness?” Therein the book stresses that admissions “wants students who excel in their environments” and UT “doesn’t care whether it is a top-ten Texas high school or is public or private.”
That doesn’t mean that private school education is a waste which should be a comfort to @kg2013 . After all, when you tinker around with the admissions formulas that UT uses for its Academic Index, the dirty little secret I discovered was that it appears that the formulas appear to overweight standardized test scores over class rank. So, I wasn’t surprised when my review applicant eldest son who was not a top 10% applicant at his competitive public high school was admitted to UT as a review applicant and also accepted into the Liberal Arts Honors (LAH) program. His rank most definitely hurt him; however, the quality of the education he received at that same school made it possible for him to achieve a 790 out of 800 subscore on his SAT Reading/Writing which resulted in acceptance to UT and the LAH program. So, if the private schools that @texasmom is sending her child to meant he’s achieved higher test scores on his SAT/ACT, then yes it has made him a more competitive applicant for admission and honors consideration. But its not because UT assigns more weight to applicants from that school but rather because the quality in education the applicant received is likely reflected in their superior test scores.
FYI, the UT Admissions Twitter account announced today that the Director of Admissions will conduct an Instagram Stories Q&A on November 15 where y’all can get answer to these types of questions.
@fatherof2boys do you have a link to the 11/15 Instagram Stories information? Time? Instagram account name? THANKS!
@201five, the Instagram nametag is bealonghorn. The Twitter account is @BeALonghorn.
Thanks