Jenny McGinty graduated in the top 10 percent of her class at San Marcos High School in 2014. Because of her academic achievement and placement within her class, she was granted admission to The University of Texas through the state’s top 10 percent rule.

The law—approved 20 years ago in May to increase diversity in Texas’ public universities—dictates that students in the top 10 percent of their graduating class are granted automatic admission to public universities in the state.

McGinty, who plans to graduate from UT in May 2018, said she hopes to go into work in international development or for the U.S. State Department.

“It really does help minority schools not get overlooked by these universities, but there are still issues within the rule on a more local level,” she said.

The critics

Some critics argue the rule hurts students from competitive, academically rigorous schools by limiting the admissions criteria to a single factor.

Hays CISD spokesperson Tim Savoy said the legislation creating the top 10 percent rule has had unintended consequences. Although it increases access for college admission, the top 10 percent rule also adds “a tremendous amount of pressure” on students to improve their GPA.

“You wind up having students who are very cognizant of their grade point average and are attracted to weighted classes, such as [Advanced Placement courses],” he said. “They’re deciding which courses to take based on what will help them get a grade point average, not what they’re most interested in.”

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

Today, 75 percent of UT’s freshman class is made up of top 7 percenters who are admitted based on 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,” UT President Gregory Fenves said at an April Senate Higher Education Committee meeting.

Increasing diversity

Fenves said the top 10 percent rule forced UT to increase geographic diversity. The latest freshman class, for example, came from 240 Texas counties, he said.

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 or because the state’s population is increasingly more diverse.

Matt Flores, assistant vice president of communications at Texas State University, said Texas State is able to achieve a geographically and ethnically diverse student population without being affected much by the top 10 percent rule.

The university attracts students from throughout the state, including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and South Texas, he said.

The ethnic makeup of the university’s student body mirrors that of the rest of the state as a result. That is partly a function of Texas’ changing demographics and a concerted effort on the part of the university administration, Flores said.

“Ethnic diversity has long been a goal of this institution,” Flores said. “That’s something [university President Denise Trauth] has always discussed in her goals. That’s been an ongoing goal of this institution, to have a university whose student body reflects that of Texas at large. Our campus student body looks like the rest of Texas pretty much.”

In fall 2016, half the students who enrolled at the university were considered ethnic minorities, Flores said.

“Some of it has to do with the sheer demographics,” Flores said. “Other things have to do with the fact that we have efforts aimed at increasing minority participation at the university.”

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

Seliger proposed Senate Bill 2119, which initially sought to eliminate the top 10 percent rule, but in later drafts permits universities to cap the number of automatic top 10 percent enrollees at 30 percent of the incoming class.

This would have a tremendous impact at UT, which is currently only caps its top 10 percent portion of the class at 75 percent. If passed in its current form, 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,” Seliger said. “At one time, it was an enormous percentage of an incoming class at 81 percent [being admitted through the top 10 percent rule].”

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 on this issue now, other lawmakers are hesitant to act. State Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, authored a bill that would investigate the current impact of the rule on university’s admission and enrollment before taking more drastic steps.

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.