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Originally Posted by UHDEEGEE
BG, you are correct in that my son can get into out of state universities that are ranked higher nationally than both UT & A&M and also that we have been blessed to be able to afford tuition at a private university. But, when you are a native Texan (btw, UT is NOT our family tradition) who wants to attend one of the 2 state flagship universities and are basically penalized for attending a "prestigious" high school, than there is something wrong with the system. Perhaps the mandatory auto-admits should be the top 3% instead of 10%? Or cap the percentage of freshmen admitted under the current top 10%? I simply feel that this law will hurt our state in the long run by forcing some of our best & brightest young men & women to look outside of Texas for college....and in turn accept jobs outside of Texas as well.
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Yes, I do agree that it's rather counterintuitive. That's part of the problem with instilling absolutely hardline "objective" standards, is that they're never really objective and someone is going to get screwed/overlooked. For example if they based it on a minimum SAT or something, there would still be issues.
There was a house bill (HB 78 (80R)) in 2007 which proposed capping the number of students admitted under the top 10% rule to 40% of admitted students. UT was strongly in favor of the proposal. It did not pass - it stalled in committee. The top 10% rule is rather popular with the legislature. They can point to an "objective standard," they can say we're not using affirmative action but still guaranteeing diversity, and for the legislators from the non-prestigious school districts it's obviously more popular with their constituents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588
That link gives more info on some of the proposals. Doing a top 7% rule has also been proposed. But with population growth, wouldn't that eventually become a problem too?
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Originally Posted by gee_ess
I am not sure I understand your proposal regarding admissons. Did you mean that the top 10% should be automatically admitted to any university in Texas instead of just UT?
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Yes, that's what I meant. Well, only including state schools. The legislature obviously has no control over what TCU, SMU, or Rice do, for example. But it does make inherent sense to me that someone who graduates in the top 10% of their class ought to be admitted to some state university in Texas. But why must we guarantee it's one of the 2-3 flagship schools? Frankly, most of the burden and flak surrounding the top 10% rule falls on UT and to a lesser degree A&M. You know?
Sorry for derailing the thread.
Hybrid Mode
