quote:
The fact that Texas requires 10% of the top students in states high schools have a seat SOMEWHERE is laudable...it isn't so in Georgia where there are plenty of seats in colleges but in the "better" schools those seats are reserved for the top 3% or so of instate students. UGA, GT, Emory, along with a handful of other schools, are on par with the best schools in the nation and they are VERY selective in their admissions policies because they can afford to be. The same is true of all states. Texas should be applauded for making space for instate kids. Of course the best and the brightest are going to go the best schools, if thats what they want to do, as it should be....but the Texas Techs and Texas States do a good job with students meaning to get an education and the state and its people should be lauded for seeing to it that those schools are also among the top in the nation and that a kid who tries in high school will have a seat somewhere.

I think you have two misconceptions about the Tp 10% law and education in Texas in general that are leading you to a false evaluation of the program's merits. One of your own assumption, amd one due to a woefully false statemenr made by the person to whom you are responding.

1. The top 10% law doesn't guarantee a student a seat "somewhere". It guarantees the student admission to the state university of the student's choice. Guaranteed admission to all state funded colleges and universities. (This has since been pared back for UT Austin and UT Austin alone, currently UT's cutoff is top 6%, but UT has the ability to adjust that number as needed to ensure no more than 75% of their incoming class is class rank percentage based.) A&M and all other public universities have to admit any student in the top 10% of their class who applies, regardless of actual academic ability.

2. Contrary to what the poster you responded to stated, Texas has LOTS of underfunded, underachieving, failing, and borderline failing school districts. From the middle of the sea of affluent suburbs in northern DFW (I live in the middle of this sea too), it can certainly seem like every high school in DFW is incredibly competitive, but that's absolutely not true. We just have to drive 30+ minutes to see the other side of the coin from here. And all those underfunded, failing schools have a 10% of their graduating class too.

The reality of the top 10% law is that lot and lots of kids graduate from crappy schools in the top 10% of their class, but are basically remedial students with Jr. High reading levels, and struggling to do basic algebra.

But by law A&M HAS to admit them. And UT too if they end up top 6%.

The reality is those kids would be much better off at Tech, UNT, UH, SHSU, etc. Where the coursework is less rigorous, less competitive, and there are more remedial services available to help get them up to college level coursework that they have never seen before. Instead they matriculate in Austin or College Station, and fail out before the end of their freshman year. At which point the well prepared kids from high performing districts who finished outside the top 10% and got deferred admission through a community college or satellite campus coming out of high school, tranfer in to fill those spots.

Top 10% hasn't done anything but put the ambitious kids from failing schools even further behind by saddling them with a year of failing grades on their transcripts to overcome in addition to their overall academic underpreparedness.