Will Texas's Admissions Policy Hurt Athletics?
In his continuing campaign against Texas's "10 percent" admissions policy, University of Texas President William Powers suggested last week that the rule theoretically might force the school to stop accepting out-of-state and international students and make it more difficult to admit special-case students such as musicians and athletes, the Austin American-Statesman reports.
Powers was referring to a state law that automatically admits the top 10 percent of every Texas high school graduating class into the UT system's flagship college in Austin. Currently, 81 percent of the freshmen admitted to UT-Austin are admitted through this law. Thanks partially to the economy, Powers expects that number to rise to 86 percent this fall. That leaves very little room for everyone else, including out-of-state students and in-state skilled musicians or athletes who do not graduate near the top of their high schools classes.
Without some change to the law, UT will be forced to reject all Texas high school graduates who are not in the top 10 percent by 2013, according to a report by the university. By 2015, the report said, there will be no room in the freshman class for students from other states or countries.
"It has become a crisis for us," Powers said. "We're simply out of space."
A Texas spokesman tells Paper Trail that should such circumstances arise, the university would try to increase its enrollment rather than cut out-of-state enrollment or programs like sports and music.
Powers made his comments after testifying before the Texas Senate Higher Education Committee, which voted 4 to 1 to revise the law and allow the school to limit how many students it admits under the 10 percent policy.
According to the American-Statesman, the proposed legislation would "admit students ranking in the top 1 percent, the top 2 percent and so forth until half of the slots were filled. The remaining slots would be filled through what [bill sponsor Sen. Florence Shapiro] called a 'holistic' examination of the pool of applicants, taking into account leadership, musical and artistic talent, race, ethnicity, and other factors."
Next, the revised legislation goes to the full state Senate, which approved similar legislation two years ago. That law revision later failed in the House.
More about Texas's dilemma is in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Tags: college admissions | colleges | University of Texas
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Reader Comments
Accept students on merit
I too agree that the top 10% law should be revised, at the very least to top 5%. I know for a fact that UT is turning away several excellent students each year because of this silly law. I got accepted into the CAP program a few years back when I graduated from high school and it was a pretty big surprise. Both my parent studied at UT, my father obtaining his PhD from the physics department and my mother, her master's from the communications department. My sister also attended UT back in the late 90s and received a degree in education. I was top 11% percent in my class and had several extra curricular activities. I was president of three different clubs in my school, scored a 1640 on my SAT, did an summer internship at NASA my junior year of high school, received a letter of recommendation from a NASA scientist, and I still didn't get it. I'm starting to believe the committee involved with accepting students is either brain dead or on crystal meth.I know for a fact that several students in the top ten percent of my class flunked out of UT their freshman year and were back at home the following semester. The people in charge should really start to accept people on merit and not because of some number. I had to become the outcast in my family and attend Texas A&M University. I guess it worked out in the long run though, A&M does have a better nuclear engineering department anyway.
admission to UT Austin
I applied to Austin for fall 2009 and just recieved a letter in the mail indicating that I would only be accepted to the university through the CAP program, which would require me to attend one of the UT schools for my freshman year first, such as that of El Paso, San Antonio, or Pan American. I'm a American citizen, however I'm graduating from an American school overseas. I scored above a 1900 on my SAT, have a 4.0 cumulative, graduated in the top 10% of my class, the president of the National Honor Society, a member of student council, and have been participating in various sports since 9th grade. Basically, I've met the minimum requirements, and have also added multiple letters of reccomendations, including one from the Superintendant of my school (a UT Alumnus). I do truly believe that I embody the qualities of UT Austin and would have been accepted had this law limited the number of applicants accepted by the top 10% law. I support and call for a revision of this law..especially for the sake of musicians, athletes, and non-texas and top 10% students!!
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