It can, but it can also bring on the "I don't stand a chance so why try" attitude if your HS is a competitive one. I know in my son's school that a flat 4.0 isn't even in the top 25%. Historically, that cut off point hovers around a 4.06 so not even every National Honor Society student makes the top quarter. If a student isn't taking at least 2 PreAP/AP courses each year they don't stand much of chance of even hitting the 4.0 mark, so many of them don't even try. Or they try to catch up and take AP courses their Junior year when college is looming on the horizon and they find that they are unprepared and fail. As a parent, if you have any choice in where you send your kids to HS, you pretty much have to decide what you want them to get.....into the Top 10% OR a good, solid base education. I remember my son's 5th grade Math teacher telling us, "If you want him to be in the top 10 then send him to XYZ for high school." We chose the other route and now it's looking like I could lose my son to a Sweet Georgia Peach (who we will love, too, if it happens)!

Assuming that the role of college admission is partially to divide the benefits of college education over a diverse range of students, it makes more sense to put parents who have the resources to make the decision you faced make that decision than it does to leave poor kids without similar educational options out.

But I'm pretty sure my feelings about it would be more complicated if I had a dog in the fight.

And there's an attractive fairness from the outside of saying that your just going to guarantee admission to students across the state who make the absolute most of their academic opportunities. Top 10 percent is going to be hard to hit no matter where you are.

If there were other benefits like highly involved parents choosing to put their kids in less obviously awesome school districts, thereby spreading the wealth of high parental expectations, how could that fail to be a good thing for education in Texas too?

Sure it's easy for me to say not being in Texas.

ETA: I'll add that the thing I find weirdest about it is that it's pure GPA rather than some sort of index including test scores. But I guess if you include test scores, you put the kids who had to go to worse schools at a further disadvantage.

And while I'm sometimes not sure how I feel about fretting about diversity in college admissions, I think the Texas answer really does mean you are likely to get diversity of all sorts, rather than the racial and ethnic but little economic diversity that I think some schools get.

I totally agree! I don't think any chapter at a state school is going to think a 3.8 is a grade risk.

Ours. :o

That's what I thought, and re-reading that I'm being more of a jerk than I certainly needed to be (sorry, Kstar).

But I find the original claim that a girl with a 3.8 is going to have grade problems pretty outlandish.

Kstar did say that it was her personal opinion that lower than a 3.85 is risky. Further, she is correct that Panhellenic only distributes the unweighted GPAs of PNMs to the chapters.

Although I have only advised at OU (I attended graduate school there), Kstar’s representation of the high school grade point averages is fairly accurate. I know simply from seeing the unweighted GPAs and the final bid lists of some chapters that there are many pledge classes in which you can count the number of “Bs” received by the entire pledge class on your hands. However, I feel that this is more representative of the caliber of PNMs (and OU students in general) than it is an indication that a PNM cannot receive a bid with less than a 4.0. It’s been a few years but I seem to remember that well over half of the PNMs had 4.0 GPAs. In my experience, I would not be concerned about going through recruitment at OU with a 3.8 GPA.

As has been discussed, OU is definitely a campus that requires recommendations and preparation.

That's what I was thinking when Kstar said that about her pledge class. It's one thing for 4.0s to be common in PNMs and in a pledge class, but it's another if 3.8s aren't good enough to get a bid because you're a "grade risk."

As I said earlier if 4.0s are that common, then they are pretty meaningless. It would put you in the top half of PNMs?

But it does reveal something about high school grade inflation.

This is what I was thinking. I went to an incredibly competitive high school, but when I say "competitive" I guess I mean that the academics should be extremely rigorous and students must "compete" against themselves and the standards in order to achieve a 4.0. When half the school gets a 4.0, I'd say the school isn't doing a very good job at challenging its students. If it's truly as excellent a school as you say, any college its students apply to will know it, and they will take that into consideration when judging your son/daughter; I know my college knew about the schools in my district, even though I'm up in Washington and my school was in California.

And by the way, universities do not use weighted GPAs in admissions; they look at the AP and advanced classes a student has taken, but they weigh them just as other classes in terms of GPA. As others have said, not every high school weights GPAs or has AP classes. Colleges still see 4.0s as being the top of the ladder.

And to the person who said that they were considering whether to send their child to a competitive school or a place where they will have an easy time skating past their peers, I hope anyone in your situation chooses the former. THAT is the best way to prepare him/her for college and the workplace, and it would be a shame to stunt their learning just so they can get into a particular college. I wasn't even in the top 25% of my graduating class, but I know I was much better prepared for college thanks to my classmates that forced me to work my tail off.

To all you familiar with Houston - does anyone want to argue the top 10% at North Forest is in any way comparable to the top 10% at Bellaire? I'd go so far as saying the top HALF at some schools could academically kick the butts of the top10% at some others. I feel sorry for the 11th percentile students in the highly competitive schools. I have known so many HIGHLY qualified students who couldn't get into UT or A&M.

Also, I am a big supporter of those Texas schools which are not the so-called top tier - which is weighted pretty heavily by the graduate programs (research institutions). This does not necessarily translate into a better undergraduate experience. It all comes down to the particular program - some non "top-tier" schools have BETTER undergraduate programs than UT or A&M. :eek:

But being well-qualified is sort of its own regard as long as you can get into a decent school someplace. So while the middle or even the bottom at some schools are certainly better prepared academically than the top kids at another, it's not the complete academic kiss of death to be in the 11th percentile at a really great school.

If college admission is some sort of PC spoils system, and it seems to be used this way, at least the 10% systems is objective and clear. When diversity is weigh more ambiguously with other factors, kids are at the complete mercy of admissions officials. In Texas, you've at least got a pretty clear picture of what your chances are based on your class rank.

It's true - you'll know you are totally screwed based on your class rank, and not on something like whether or not you are the more qualified!

But diversity standards mean no one ever objectively knows who is more qualified. Your qualifications may be that you have a 4.0 and a 1600 but you're white and suburban with college educated parents. My qualification may be that I have a 3.5 and a 1300 and play the oboe and am part Navajo (not really) and will be the first in my family to go to college. Valuing diversity may mean we're not playing simply by the grades and test score rules.

I'm not sure I agree with this thinking either, but there's something to be said for a system that at the very least says, if you are in the top 10% we're going to let you go where you want to, as opposed to a system that says, like most of the top ranked highly selective private schools seem to, apply: we'll decide if you are good enough. Attempt to be perfect in every area and we'll decide whether you fit in this year's class or not.

But one problem that has reared its ugly head is that you are not doing the top 10% any favours if you let them go and they are NOT prepared. Then they can't cope - and end up flunking out. Their professors don't know - and don't care - from whence they graduated. As admitted freshmen, they have to be able to pull their weight. I know that some schools have had a problem with sending their top 10% off, and then they don't do well. Those students would be MUCH better served going to a community college or a smaller college where they can get up to speed and get the kind of personalized attention they cannot get at UT or A&M. It's sink or swim - and if they aren't prepared, no matter how well-intentioned their admission was, you risk sinking the very students you most want to enable to succeed.

eta - the program has been in place for some time - does anyone know of any other states that have adopted it?

[quote=PeppyGPhiB;1748896]And by the way, universities do not use weighted GPAs in admissions; they look at the AP and advanced classes a student has taken, but they weigh them just as other classes in terms of GPA.quote]


Actually, the admissions counselors that we met with over the summer at both Auburn & U of Alabama told us that they DO use the weighted average if your high school reports it that way.

Ole Miss counselor said they use unweighted for admissions, but weighted for scholarships, as did LSU's counselor.

I think this is true in any admission system.

I don't know of any other states that adopted the 10% deal, but I think most are just trying to do their own little diversity dance and weren't under the same legal pressure.

I wonder how much having the idea out there that UT and A&M are so hard to get into sort of creates the idea that if you are top 10% you HAVE to go there. Anybody know how many of the top 10% of the graduating classes at really good high schools used to choose UT or A&M?