I'm sorry if I sound snarky or whatever, but this really rubs me the wrong way. I'm not from a prestigious school, a well performing school. Shoot i'm from the city that is one of the poorest in the nation. But it sounds like your saying, is screw the poor kids. Screw the kids who work hard to get good grades (but not good enough to match up the kids in Dallas/Houston/Austin area) they aren't the 'best and the brightest.' Let them suffer at a not so stellar school.

It is true that our top 10% wouldn't match up the top 10% of a "prestigious" school in Houston or Dallas. But this rule is what gives us hope that we can actually go a good college, and not have to settle for a community college. I know that when I was in HS, our rival school's valedictorian's GPA was a 'B.' If the top 10% rule wasn't in place, I highly doubt she would have been attending UT (which she did, and she excelled there).

Your 'best and brightest' students probably have soo many more opportunities than any of our 'best and brightest' (and not to toot my own horn, but i'd consider myself one of my area's best & brightest). Your 'best and brightest' can probably afford to attend any of those opportunities. Ours can't.

It sucks that UT and A&M are overgrown with too many students. That's not the students fault. I think it's the Texas Gov't fault. They decide to give the bulk of the funds to UT & A&M, instead of all the rest of the schools. If they decided to give more money to the other public schools to help bring up academics & such then maybe more students would be willing to give other schools a chance.

Neither was I, as a matter of fact, HISD tried very hard to close my old high school this year due to it's "lack of performance". However, I worked very hard in high school to make a 4.0, graduate #1 in my class of 625 and receive a full scholarship to my college of choice........all WITHOUT a law that said they had to take me just becuase I was in the top 10% of my class.

Prestige has nothing to do with it; merit does. A 4.0 is higher than a 3.0. It's my opinion, that those students with the higher GPA and/or test scores should be the ones accepted first, no matter where they go to high school. In other words, a student with a 4.0 from your high school should be admitted before my own son with a 3.85 from a "prestigious" high school; however, my son with a 3.85 should be admitted before your rival school's valedictorian with a "B".

Awesome, congrats to you. I'm glad you could do it without the 10% law, but not everyone gets a 4.0 or graduates #1. Someone can work EXTREMELY hard in school, and still get a B/C average. Why should colleges only accept the students with the highest grades? They don't all succeed in college, shoot they don't all graduate. I was like #6 or #7 in school, and I'm the 3rd to graduate from college. All the rest dropped out, or went back to a community college.

And let's be honest, since you say your son is from a "prestigious" HS, he'd be admitted to UT waaaaaaay before anyone from my city would, regardless of GPA.

ETA: I know you said that you didn't go to a 'prestigious' HS, but seeing as you are in Houston, I would assume you all had adequate funding. My High School didn't have enough supplies to go around. When I was in geometry, for a class of 30, we had to share 2 protractors. We didn't have enough calculators to go around, and teachers would give extra credit if you gave them printer paper for the class computers.

[quote=epchick;1747981]And let's be honest, since you say your son is from a "prestigious" HS, he'd be admitted to UT waaaaaaay before anyone from my city would, regardless of GPA.[quote]

No, he won't because he is not in the top 10% of his class. We've already been to an admission session & spoken to a counselor and UT will max out it's freshman class with top ten's by the time my son starts college.

[quote]ETA: I know you said that you didn't go to a 'prestigious' HS, but seeing as you are in Houston, I would assume you all had adequate funding. My High School didn't have enough supplies to go around. When I was in geometry, for a class of 30, we had to share 2 protractors. We didn't have enough calculators to go around, and teachers would give extra credit if you gave them printer paper for the class computers./[QUOTE]

Actually, when I was in school, we had to provide our own supplies....the district supplied nothing. HISD is big and it's not what I would consider a wealthy school district. I'm guessing that some of the differences between your high school experiences and mine, though, are due more to age....I believe I've got a few years on ya.;)

If a student is working "extremely hard" in high school and can't cut a B/C average, they most likely aren't going to be able to handle getting a decent GPA at a competitive university.

says you. I've seen it done.

Predicting college success is an inexact science, at best, which is why colleges look at grades, test scores, and other factors in making admissions decisions. The private school at which I taught had a VERY tough grading scale - so our B/C students routinely went on to be B/A students at prestigious colleges. Other schools - yes, here in the Houston area - would give students Bs for breathing. Standardized tests level the playing field somewhat, but again, nothing is 100% accurate. Males do better on the SAT, but females have higher college g.p.as. If the SAT were a totally accurate indicator of college preparedness you would expect the males to do better in college.

I hate the 10% rule for the same reason I hate curving grades - I don't think you as an individual should be penalized if you are in a class of smarties, nor should you be rewarded if your classmates are idiots. :)

Soo true. I'm so glad that the SAT & all the AP exams were not accurate predictions of how well i'd do in college. I got an 'ok' SAT score (I should have taken it a second time) but my AP scores were horrible. I remember on the back of the AP score sheet it specifically said that the scores accurate reflect how well you'll do in college. I'll be honest, I took 3 tests, and I got two "2" and a "1" and by the AP score sheet I should have been a "C+" college student. So glad that didn't happen.

I see how the 10% rule isn't beneficial, just because the GPA range is so varied throughout the state. I just keep remembering one of my bff's who left here our sophomore year and moved to The Woodlands, TX and she eneded up doing horribly the first year there. Had she graduated from our HS, she probably would have been #2 or #3 in the class, yet her first year over there she was failing most of her classes.

:):D:):D:)THANK YOU!!!:):D:):D:)

I get what you're saying, but Bill Gates went to The Lakeside School, arguably (but not really) the best school in Seattle. A huge percentage of the school's students are named National Merit Semifinalists/Scholars every year. And Bill G. still got in to Harvard, despite the shortcomings you mention.

All of this talk makes me wonder, with so many kids not getting into their state's flagship university, are they considering private schools before they choose an out-of-state public university? For some of those kids, it actually may be cheaper to go to a private school! I know my private school in California always has A TON of Texas kids.

I can only answer based on my son's situation and what he is looking for in his college experience. First, he wants a large university (over 10,000 students) because his high school has over 3,500 students and as he told me when I mentioned a much smaller, private college, "Mom, I want to go to college, not the high school version."

Second, the college he chooses must obviously, offer his major of choice. He knows that he wants Engineering, but is undecided on the specific area. There is only one large private university in Texas that we have found that offers a "full range" of Engineering options; most only offer Mechanical, Electrical and/or Computer. The one private university that does have numerous options costs $46,000 per year. He can go to any one of his out of state choices for half that, even paying full out of state fees. Based on his ACT and SAT scores, though, we have already been told by 2 of his choices that he's pretty much assured scholarship money (actually, one is already guaranteed when he applies).

Third, he wants a college that has an active Greek system. He's heard way too many "glory day" stories by both Mom & Dad.:)

Fourth, his dad feels VERY strongly about DS attending a university with a good national reputation. This usually translates into more high quality potential employers recruiting on the campus.

This kid is my one and only and the thought of sending him someplace that is a 9-10 hour drive away makes me extremely anxious. I wold LOVE to find a university in Texas that offers everything that would satisfy all three of us, and as a native Texan, it saddens me to say that nothing that we've seen in Texas can compare with what we have seen outside of our state.:(

There is a larger problem in Texas than the top 10% rule and that is the lack of tier 1 universities. In a state of our size to only have 2 public top tier schools is sad. Add to that fact that they're both behemoths and our students choices are limited. My daughter graduated in the top 10% last year but had no interest in a mega-school. Her SAT scores weren't quite enough to get her into Rice (even if we agreed to pay that tuition - yikes!) so she had to look out-of-state. She wanted the whole package of a larger (10 - 20 K) university with demanding academics, Div. I sports and a traditional Greek system. My solution is to get the state to put more effort and money into bringing up our other wonderful universities so that more of our top 10% consider them. It is a real solution that other states understand. Really and truly, not every student in TX wants to be an Aggie or a Longhorn.:eek:

That is true! We actually discussed this in another thread (about Texas recruitment), here is the link:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...=93223&page=11

If it's that easy to make a 4.0 in high school, that 4.0 is meaningless as an indicator of actual preparation for college.

Kstar, I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about maybe even in your own chapter. What GLO are you a member of again? Some of us may actually know the MS.

If anyone is really worried about the results of PNMs with 3.8s, call the greek life office and see what they tell you. I don't think anyone with real recruitment experience is going to say it's "grade risk" level.

I don't know how I'd feel about the 10% rule were it in play in my state, but one of the things that it does seem to sort of demand is that you work really hard wherever you are.