<p>No, that is not always the case. Case in point, back in 2006, my son was nominated for a citywide award for scholastic achievement by athletes. Out of the 30 or so kids who were awarded the scholarship and honored at a dinner, I was shocked at the number of highly ranked (top 10%) of kids who had gpas of 3.3 or lower; that’s not a’s or mostly a’s, they were at best b students, which was considered the top of the heap at the school they attended. IMO, those kids could have worked harder and gotten a’s. Maybe they didn’t have ap classes, but they could have gotten a’s in the classes they did have.</p>
<p>edit to add - interesting that they were awarded scholastic achievement awards as well - they could have filled the whole banquet with kids from competitive hs’s but they had to spread the wealth… Like UT…</p>
<p>“I don’t really understand your point. Most kids in the top ten percent ANYWHERE are getting all A’s or mostly A’s.”</p>
<p>Not in my district. Basically, if you took a ton of AP classes from 9th grade (maybe 8th) all the way to senior year and made a B or above in those classes (even an occasional C) you’d be in the top ten because of the 6 point GPA thing we had. One of my best friends got all As all through high school but she didn’t take APs and was in the top 15% but not top ten.</p>
<p>I know a few lazy people who got into UT because of their top ten percent status. They did not get into their college of choice, though.</p>
<p>Comiclover, whereas at the school my kids went to if you had 1 b, having taken the most difficult curriculum available (all ap’s), you are ranked 7% (this is my son’s situation right now - thankfully still top 10%). And, to even be in the top 1/4 (25%), you have to have better than straight a’s in “academic level” classes because the cutoff for top 1/4 was above a 4.0 (weighted). </p>
<p>This past year, my nephew was top 1/2 with a 3.8 unweighted gpa (somewhere around 37%). </p>
<p>It’s tough - and we don’t have 1000 students, only around 450 per class.</p>
<p>Can I just add - I’m so glad that this is my last kid to get in (and through) college!! Woo Hoo!!</p>
<p>Then, Florida is even worse, with only 1 real “flagship university”, certainly much worse than the California system (but don’t say this to a Seminole). Should UF then have to admit EVERYBODY and their dog if they’re in the top 10%, since it is truly the only “good” university in the state?</p>
<p>I reiterate : I think as Texans, residents should absolutely be guaranteed a spot in the Texas universitiy system, but NOT the school of their choice.</p>
<p>Yes we can look at Florida system also. But I would like to point out that California’s population is 36 million while ours is 24 million. But they got great colleges like Cal Tech, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkely, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC San Deigo, USC, Pepperdine, etc… just to name a few.
What do we have? UT? Other than that we don’t have much option.</p>
<p>So even a Florida style system would be good where you are guaranteed into a public university but not UT.</p>
<p>Edit: I forgot to mention Rice. And I don’t consider A&M to be on the same par as UT. No matter how much they claim they are better than UT.</p>
<p>And, of the schools you name - 3 are private - so no guaranteed admission, 3 are public, but might as well be private - it is ridiculously difficult to get in the upper echelon of CA public unis (just as it is UF in Florida) MUCH more competitive that UT, and the rest - are great - but until our legislature wants to fund our public university system, we have what we have. But, we are not in DEBT like CA either - talk to my friend who works for the city of San Francisco, who is getting basically an IOU at times instead of a paycheck, and ask her about the governmental policies of CA!! LOL</p>
<p>Oh, and if you throw our upper tier privates in there with UT and A&M - Rice, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Austin College, Trinity, etc., there are quite a few good options here as well.</p>
<p>But, then both CA, TX and FL are sorely lacking in good colleges per capita if you compare them to MASS, Virginia, NY, etc. when you factor in privates with publics. What’s your point?</p>
<p>One reason why our legislatures can’t fund our public universities more is because Texas is required to have a balanced budget. So we can only spend what we get. While in California they don’t have this problem. (Which is why they are bankrupt also).</p>
<p>Well honestly I am going to end my argument here because no matter what we post on this site, it’s not going to change anything in the Texas Legislature.</p>
<p>But one last point I will make is that we just put a band aid on the problem by this modified top 10% rule instead of fixing it from the root.</p>
<p>I agree. I still say that the only fair way to settle this argument for everyone would be to abolish the law completely. It would give the kids who are more qualified by their numbers the spots needed, it would still give a chance to the minority students because a college like UT still needs that ethnic diversity that makes it so great, it would shut up the suburban whites complaining about their kids not being given a fair chance (their kids might not get in, but they’d have the same chance at rejection as “the dumb, ghetto child”), and it might give out of staters a better chance at admittance.</p>
<p>I still stand with the belief that a school should take OOS and International applicants as a sign of prestige, not as a disrespect to taxpayers in texas. when it truly comes down to it, the school would ultimately make more money with the additional OOS or International tuition than the additional taxes that texas residents pay. (OOSers and Internationals have to pay taxes in their respective homes too). Again, just my 2 cents</p>
<p>Suit targeting UT admissions denied:
A federal judge in Austin Monday tossed out a lawsuit filed last year challenging the University of Texas at Austin’s use of racial preferences in admissions.</p>
<p>U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks granted a summary judgment in favor of the school, which argued that its practices met legal requirements spelled out by the U.S. Supreme Court. Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, which represented Abigail Noel Fisher of Sugar Land and Rachel Michalewicz of Buda in the lawsuit, said Sparks’ decision will be appealed.</p>
<p>The lawsuit didn’t challenge the top 10 percent law, which guarantees admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of a Texas high school, but contended that UT-Austin unlawfully uses racial and ethnic criteria to select other students. (The top 10 percent law was modified this spring to cap the number of students admitted under the law at 75 percent of the freshman class, starting in 2011.)</p>
<p>Fisher and Michalewicz, both of whom are white, were denied admission to UT last fall; Fisher enrolled at Louisiana State University and Michalewicz enrolled at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Blum said.</p>
<p><em>Interesting comments follow the article</em></p>
<p>Here is one of the most interesting comments; from a graduate of an underperforming high school:
p<em>linda (0)<br>
p</em>linda wrote:
I went to Milby High School in the East End. I didn’t take AP classes till my junior year because my counselor threw my transcript from my middle school to the side with all the other “below average” students. She put me in math classes that were teaching the students how to multiply and divide negative and positive integers, english classes that were teaching grammar and punctuation and science classes that did not have class sets of scientific calculators.
I fought my hardest to be taken seriously because I was not one of the “magnet students” so therefore I had no voice. The only voice i had was in the school newspaper of which i edited and wrote. I got myself a internship at the Houston Chronicle my senior year because 1 teacher believed in me. I got myself into those AP classes, held a part time job and internship at the Chronicle and got myself into the Top Ten Percent by the skin of my teeth and am now an Honor Student at the University of Texas at Austin.
You dare to tell me, and the 11 other students from my graduating class, that we are not “prepared” because we went to a school that doesn’t wait on you hand and foot?
I spent most of my days fighting for respect from the authority figures at my school to be taken seriously and to take care of my academics and future. Most of the students had full time jobs and helped paid the bills to keep their lights on and still passed AP Calculus with a 5. And yeah, some didn’t have those chances or chose not to take them because they never felt respected or motivated to do so.
UT gave me a chance to get away from that environment. To experience life outside of “you’re not good enough,” “you’re not smart enough,” oh, and my favorite, “you’re not as smart as them because they go to Bellaire, Westside, Carnegie Vanguard, etc.”
I tell you what, I’m smart enough to know which fights to fight and tough enough to let the ones not worth it, go. And I can thank my high school for that. I can never forget where I came from.
8/17/2009 7:39:23 PM</p>
<p>Yes, and she probably would have been accepted at UT anyway, ESPECIALLY if they used strictly holistic measurement for admission - Great extra curriculars, probably a stellar essay. Coming from Milby, she’s probably 1st generation college, perhaps Hispanic (my sister in law went to Milby, so I’m very familiar with the school). </p>
<p>Pulled herself up by the bootstraps kind of kid - Heck, she might have even gotten into Harvard! They love scrappy students with a back story like this girl!!</p>
<p>Some of the other comments made me embarassed for Texans (and LSU fans). Ignorant people drive me crazy (and so does horrific spelling).</p>
<p>Please, people - There is a difference between then and than; your and you’re; there, they’re and their!!!</p>
<p>I agree with one of the posters who said that they are playing the race card again and the 2 girls were hoping for an activist judge to rule in their favor.</p>
<p>I guess he hasn’t done much college searching lately! He mentions Harvard’s cost of attendance at $26000 per year - yeah, in what decade? Maybe he just looked up the tuition cost? I guess if your student is willing to live in a van, down by the bridge…</p>
<p>Abigal Fisher went to my high school and graduated with me. She also got into Baylor and LSU as far as I remember but what ticks me off is the fact that I see kids who transfer into UT from community colleges such as HCC and ACC who DON’T deserve to be at UT. Why does UT make it so much easier to transfer then it does for students not in top 10% to get in? Is it because students who transfer to UT from a CC enroll in majors that are in less demand and so they just take up seats or what?</p>
<p>I also disagree with the way UT handles its summer program. Iv’e seen students who were maybe a few people behind top ten end up going to UTSA for the CAP Program, these kids deserve to go into the summer program instead of having to attend a year at UTSA.</p>
<p>It might be that the seats that are the “most full” at UT are those in the “301” and “302” classes, and the transfer students don’t take up any of those seats? Also, the transfer students are low risk; they’ve made it through one or two years of college so maybe UT is confident they can handle being responsible for themselves and for their college coursework?</p>
<p>(If we were talking about some other schools, the rate at which transfer students are admitted might be related to those schools trying to get mor students without hurting their US News rankings (because a school can play around with transfer admission rates and not impact its US News rankings), but I don’t think UT worries about US News rankings. These rankings are highly influenced by admission rate and UT can’t do much about its admission rate.)</p>