Quote:
Originally Posted by TriDeltaSallie
For the sake of those out of the Texas loop, could you explain the reasoning behind the 10% rule?
Thanks!
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The top 10% rule was passed in the aftermath of the Hopwood v. Texas in 1996. That court case struck down UT's affirmative action policy when 4 white plaintiffs who had been rejected from the UT law school won a court case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopwood_v._Texas
The Michigan court case decided by the Supreme Court now probably overrides Hopwood v. Texas. But back in 1996, both the legislature wanted to do something to preserve some kind of affirmative action. The concern was that students from weaker high schools or remote areas of Texas (well, really any of areas of Texas outside the most prestigious high schools in the urban centers of Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio) would face an uphill battle getting into UT. So the top 10% rule was instituted. It states that any student who graduates in the top 10% of their HS class will automatically receive admission to any Texas state school. In practice, most of those students end up going to UT.
UT doesn't like the top 10% rule much because they A) believe they could achieve more geographical/racial/ethnic diversity in admissions without it (and especially in the aftermath of the Michigan case) and B) are now forced to "automatically" admit up to 80% of their freshmen class. Since they save some spots for out of state and international students, you can see that it is extremely, extremely difficult for them to keep the size of the freshmen class down and admit anyone from a Texas high school who is not in the top 10%. The school next most affected by the rule, A&M, I believe admits 40-50% of their class based on the top 10% rule, so they are not nearly as affected as UT at this point (although the numbers are climbing for all the Texas schools).
I believe there is currently a lawsuit from a Houston student challenging the top 10% rule as reverse discrimination against students from predominantly white, urban and suburban prestigious high schools. That student failed to make the top 10% at her school because she took orchestra for four years, which is not a weighted course.
That said, as an instructor at UT, I do not believe the top 10% rule really means the student body at UT is unqualified or anything of that sort. In fact, some of the students from prestigious high schools have been low performers in my classes because they get to UT and go Greek and start drinking and partying too much and go crazy, whereas the students from small or rural or "weak" high schools are there to really better themselves and move up in the world. Just my opinion.
Basically, at this point, no one likes the top 10% rule except students from smaller high schools and the legislature. It does have the advantage of being some kind of "objective" standard that based on the way high schools are distributed across the state, will guarantee some kind of racial/ethnic/geographic diversity at the school. Personally I think it would make sense to alter the rule so that you were required to be admitted to
A Texas state university rather than
ANY Texas state university. Don't know if that would fly though. I think it will be interesting to see how the lawsuit from the Houston student goes and if the top 10% rule is struck down.
I also feel that if the top 10% rule does get struck down or altered by the legislature, UT will start dramatically reducing the size of its freshmen classes. The university would like to have more students housed on campus and more money to spread around per student, and more money to spend on graduate students and research programs. So if the top 10% rule goes, there are still going to be struggles for students from prestigious high schools, because there will be fewer students admitted overall.
I also have to say I'm not super-sympathetic to students from prestigious high schools, as I believe that the students who just miss getting into UT can usually A) easily achieve admission to any number of other good universities inside or outside of Texas, some of them possibly even more prestigious than UT and B) can easily afford tuition at private universities (not to mention A&M and Tech - it's not like those two schools are bad schools or something, and actually those schools, particularly Tech, may benefit from the top 10% rule by having more students check them out). I do understand that for many of those students, going to UT is a family tradition or whatever. But... I dunno.
Hybrid Mode
