The Texas 10% Rule
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published May 11, 2007, 5:26 pm in News.
The Texas legislature passed a law to cap the controversial 10% law. This is the law passed in response to the ruling that made affirmative action illegal as a reason to admit a student to a Texas school. Therefore, Texas passed this 10% law, which said that any Texas student in the top 10% of his or her graduating high school class will automatically be admitted to the first state school of his or her choice.
It sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? What it means, in effect, is that the top 10% of students at the best private school are admitted, as well as the top 10% of the most mediocre school. Sadly, this often manifests itself in increasing diversity at the state schools becuase the mediocre school are often located in more minority neighborhoods, and are attended primarily by minority students. So if there are ten schools in a city and they are rankied 1-10, both the number 1 school gets to go to the best state school, just as the number 10 school does. Therefore, the university ends up with a pretty diverse group. Without this law, and without any kind of affirmative action plan, the university doesn't end up with nearly as diverse a group. Without it, every student is simply ranked against one another, so the students from the poor school are competing with students from the best private high school. I'm sorry to say, but the majority of these best students from the best schools, especially the private ones, are not the Black or Hispanic kids. So you end up with a University populated by White or Asian students, not exactly a diverse mix.
So the 10% rule was an attempt to make things more equal in the face of losing affirmative action as a part of the decision. And it worked.
But it also meant that the University of Texas at Austin (UT) was swamped with admissions. Last year, UT admitted over 70% of its freshman class through the 10% rule. Yeah, it's pretty diverse, but UT's also upset about it. So are a lot of parents.
Imagine this: a kid has a 3.8 GPA and attends the best private school; he has a 1500 on the SAT, and his list of accomplishments are long. But he also attends some great private school with only 50 graduating seniors, and this kid is ranked 6. Odds are that he won't get into UT, then. Because 70% of the freshman class was going to the 10% rule, this kid would have a hard time getting in. Normally, UT would probably love to have him. Heck, he could get into a much better private school.
Imagine this: a kid from a large, poor performing school has a 3.5 GPA and a 1200 on the SAT. Because he attends a school with 500 graduating seniors, and he's number 40, he is guaranteed admission to UT.
Now I'm not saying the second kid doesn't deserve it, because I think he does. But how does the school justify admitting the lesser-qualified student over the more-qualified one? What if the second student happens to be White? Does that make it better or worse? Remember, race isn't actually a factor in the admission process.
What is the effect of this policy? A lot of people are angry, first of all. The students are upset becuase they can't get into the good state school. The parents of these students are upset, too, because their child, who spent years in difficult and expensive private schools cannot now go to the good state school. Imagine if the dad went to UT, and the grandfather went to UT, and so on. Now their child, who performs amazingly, can't actually go. Man, that sucks.
And UT is pissed about it, too. They say they're upset because they're missing out on more qualified students. This may be the case. The school can't admit students who are actually more qualified because they have to admit lesser qualified ones by law.
The real reason I think they're pissed, though, is because they're missing out on a lot of potential alumni money.
Think of it this way: the students who go to a poor school and do well and get into UT, well, these kids don't come from families with money. But the students who go to the most expensive private schools, their families do have money. If there are generations of the family that have gone to UT, then they're even more likely to give back to the school as alumni. These generations who have given thousands to the school, are now upset and cut off from it. The parents will stop giving, and the students will not have the option of becoming contributing alumni. Now this doesn't mean that the other students, the ones who got in through the 10% rule, won't give back to the school becasue I'm sure they will. What it means is that the parents of the students who are rejected because of this rule will no longer give their money. So UT is missing out on some significant funds here.
So what did the State legislature do instead? They said that the 10% is okay, but that UT only has to accept students that make up 50% of its freshman class. It's all about UT, you see, and the school fears that will eventually have to accept 100% of its freshman class through the 10% rule. So they stopped it now and capped it at 50%. So now they will only take the students in the highest percentiles until they reach 50% of their freshman class. Then they will take another 10% of students through a more comprehensive review process, not just paying attention to ranking, but also to other factors, such as activities, GPA, SAT scores, etc. They claim they will still keep a diverse student body, and that's really all the Texas law was trying to do in the first place.
The bill just passed the Senate, so now it has to go back to the House to become law. Me, I think it's probably a good thing. I agree with the 10% rule in principle, and I want to see it maintained, but I also don't think there is any need to make UT accept more than 50% of its students through the program. After all, with the dearth of funds going to higher education these days, every school needs all of the alumni giving it can get. No need to make that source of funds deplete...
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