Texas’ top 10 percent automatic college admission rule has worked for and against one Austin-area family.

The law—enacted 20 years ago this May to increase diversity in Texas’ public universities—has benefited Jettin Murphy, but so far it is working against her brother, Maverick, a junior at Round Rock ISD’s Westwood High School and a member of the golf team.

Their mother, Shelby, said her family moved to Northwest Austin for Westwood’s academic prestige.

But that prestige may have backfired, she said, because the competition to be in the top 10 percent of the class and the rigor of the classes leaves Maverick—who wants to study engineering and military science at Texas A&M University—fighting for a spot in the top 50 percent of his class, despite his 4.3 GPA.

“It’s been kind of demoralizing,” she said, adding he stresses about missing classes because of the golf team—something that is not considered for admission with the top 10 percent rule.

Shelby’s daughter, on the other hand, attended Granbury High School outside Fort Worth and easily ranked within the top 10 percent. She is now a sophomore at The University of Texas.

Seven of Granbury’s 414 seniors enrolled in UT’s 2015 class, according to the Texas Education Agency’s Texas Academic Performance Report and UT’s Texas Feeder School Supplement. 

In comparison, 86 out of 627 Westwood seniors enrolled at UT in 2015.

In hindsight, Shelby said she wished she had enrolled her son in a less challenging and less competitive school—and that the top 10 percent rule would disappear.

“[Maverick] would feel not quite as discouraged to where he has to clear this higher bar, these higher standards,” she said.

COMPLICATIONS OF THE RULE

Situations such as Maverick’s exemplify some consequences of the 20-year-old college admissions rule, which some critics argue hurts students from competitive, rigorous schools by limiting the admissions criteria to a single factor.

UT’s “holistic” admissions process looks at areas from extracurricular activities to community involvement, UT President Greg Fenves said.

In 2008, UT was filling 81 percent of its incoming class with top 10 percenters, a realization that spurred legislators to alter the university’s admission policy from automatically accepting those in the top 10 percent to those in the top 7 percent.

Now, 75 percent of UT’s freshman class is made up of top 7 percenters who are admitted automatically via class rank.

“This lone factor misses the richness and the educational and life experience that often get in the way of one’s class rank,” Fenves said at an April Senate Higher Education Committee meeting.

Among school districts, the sole component of the top 10 percent rule—class rank based on GPA—is calculated differently. In Pflugerville ISD, the GPA of the 2016 class was calculated on a weighted scale. Advanced Placement and advanced courses were graded on a 5.0 scale, pre-AP and other approved courses on a 4.5 scale and other TEKS-based courses on a  4.0 scale. No dual-credit courses were counted.

In Hutto ISD, a weighted scale is also used, but with different allocations. For regular classes, a student is graded on a 3.6 scale, and pre-AP, AP and dual-credit classes are graded on a 4.5 scale.

In Round Rock ISD, rank is calculated on a weighted system factoring in regular class grades on a 5.0 scale and AP, IB, pre-AP and TAG courses on a 6.0 scale.

“Dual-credit courses and AP courses, for example, are just two things that can affect how a GPA is figured, and that may be different for each district,” HISD spokesperson Todd Robison said. “It’s often apples to oranges.”

UT’s 2016 FRESHMAN class

According to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 22,185 students ranking in the 11th and 25th percentiles of their class in 2016 went to a state public university. Almost 37,000 students in the other 75 percent also went to Texas public universities.

At UT, 27,215 Texas students applied in 2016; 18,744 were accepted. Of those, 12,733 were in the top 10 percent; 1,499 fell between the 11th and 25th percentiles. Of those who enrolled, 5,571 were in the 10 percent; 1,964 were outside of it.

“The landscape of higher education in the state of Texas is dramatically different now than [when] the first bill—the top 10 [percent] bill—was passed 20 years ago,” UT Provost Maurie McInnis said at the committee meeting. “Many, many more institutions in the state are really high-quality academic institutions. Perhaps the choices that some people are making are a reflection of that.”

FUTURE STEPS FORWARD

Fenves said the top 10 percent rule forced UT to increase geographic diversity. The latest freshman class includes students from 240 Texas counties.

Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes said public universities have become more diverse, but he cannot be certain it is because of the automatic admissions law.

Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, Senate Higher Education Committee chairman, said the 10 percent rule once served a purpose in improving higher education’s diversity but is no longer doing so.

He proposed SB 2119, a bill that would have initially eliminated the rule entirely, but in later drafts it  permits universities to cap the number of automatic enrollees at 30 percent of the incoming class.

This would have a tremendous impact at UT, which currently caps its automatic admission portion of a class at 75 percent. If passed, Seliger’s bill would free up 45 percent of the incoming class for those admitted through the holistic admissions process.

“In recent years, with significant growth in the college-going population, the University of Texas at Austin felt particular pressure to increase class sizes in order to have any flexibility,” he said.

In 2009, UT received 14,000 applications from non-top 10 percenters but could only admit 3,300 students through its holistic admission process, Fenves said. By 2016 the university had received 21,000 non-top 10 percent applications for the same number of available slots.

Although Seliger is ready to move now, other lawmakers are hesitant. Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, authored a bill to investigate the current impact of the rule on university’s admission and enrollment. Universities would be required to evaluate the rule annually and submit a report to the state for further action.

Even with further analysis, Seliger said he is not convinced the rule is necessary.

“It is not the role of government to set admission policies and procedures for universities absent some compelling reason, discrimination and things like that, which there is not right now,” he said.