Texas’ top 10 percent automatic college admission law—approved 20 years ago this May to increase diversity in public state universities—continues to fuel competition at Austin-area high schools, but changes could be on the way for the polarizing policy.

“All of the girls at our school were vying [to gain] a tenth of a percentage [in the top 10 percent],” said Josie MacLean, a University of Texas junior who attended Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, an Austin high school of choice where students must apply for enrollment.

Josie MacLean was not in the top 10 percent of her 85-student graduating class, instead getting accepted into UT through its “holistic” admissions process, which considers other factors, such as extracurricular activities, SAT scores and community service when admitting students.

Her mother, Jane MacLean, said Josie MacLean was concerned about her GPA, which exceeded 4.0, and her class rank throughout high school.

“While she was a very dedicated student, she was not the student who was acing every test and at the very, very top of the class,” Jane MacLean said.

Now, some state legislators and UT officials are hoping to use the holistic admissions process more often to admit more students such as Josie MacLean.

College admissions factors

Graduating in the top 10 percent of a Texas high school class guaranteed admission to The University of Texas at Austin in 2015-16. Out of the 527 applications UT received from these Austin ISD high schools that year, 127 students enrolled.[/caption]

Students in Austin High School’s class of 2015 top 10 percent had at least a 4.1 GPA, according to research conducted by a 2015 Austin ISD Campus Advisory Council during its examination to potentially eliminate the bottom 90 percent student rankings. The advisory council found only 0.4 GPA points separated the 70 students who fell between the 10th and 25th percentiles.

AISD denied a Community Impact Newspaper open records request during the reporting of this story. The data would have shown the average GPA needed to rank within the top 7 and 10 percent at the district’s high schools.

Nancy Nitardy, a college counselor at McCallum High School in Central Austin, said students in the top 5-10 percent of her school have ambitions to go to UT, but students in the top 1-5 percent have set their sights on out-of-state and Ivy League schools.

In 2015 about 5.4 percent of Texas high school graduates enrolled in out-of-state schools, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana universities received the highest number of Texas graduating seniors in 2015.

If students are staying in Texas, Nitardy said she encourages them to take dual-credit classes and consider programs such as PACE, a co-enrollment program between UT and Austin Community College in which students still receive four-year degrees; and Capital IDEA, a tuition-support program for ACC students seeking a high-demand career, such as nursing and technology.

Donna Balser, the owner of Austin-based tutoring service College Nannies, Sitters and Tutors, said many students use her services to maintain their position in the top 10 percent. She said student GPAs can be negatively affected if they take electives, such as band, art or choir.

“Additionally, we hear of students transferring to other schools that may not be so rigorous in order to be at the top of their respective class,” she said via email.

She had words of encouragement to students outside of their class’s top 10 percent.

“By being the best ‘whole student’ that they can, hard-working and over-achieving students still have opportunities to get into the schools of their choice,” she said.

Holistic process, proposed changes

Josie MacLean, who is studying geography and advertising at UT, said during high school she was confident she could get accepted through UT’s holistic admissions process. She said she worked hard on her application essays and stressed her involvement in extracurriculars.

In 2008, UT filled 81 percent of its incoming freshman class with top 10 percenters, a figure that spurred legislative action. By 2009 the Texas Legislature passed a bill capping the number of automatic admissions to 75 percent of incoming freshmen.

Today, only the top 7 percent of Texas high school graduates are admitted to UT based on class rank. Every other Texas public university continues to auto-admit on a 10 percent scale.

Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, Texas Senate Higher Education Committee chairman, proposed a bill this legislative session that would cap the number of automatic top 10 percent enrollees at 30 percent of UT’s incoming class.

Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, authored a bill that would investigate the current impact of the rule on a university’s admission and enrollment before taking more drastic steps.

Universities would have been required to evaluate the rule annually and submit a report to the state for further action.

But those bills were unsuccessful as the legislative session came to a close on May 31. Seliger said May 19 that his bill, Senate Bill 2119, did not have enough votes to scale back the top 10 percent rule, according to reporting from The Texas Tribune.

The number of applications The University of Texas receives from students outside the automatic admission threshold has grown since the top 10 percent rule was put in place. In the past two years the threshold was lowered to the top 8 percent in 2016 and top 7 percent in 2017.[/caption]

Increasing diversity

One benefit of the top 10 percent rule, according to UT President Gregory Fenves, is that it forced UT to increase geographic diversity. The latest freshman class, for example, came from 240 Texas counties, he said.

“The question that one could raise is: ‘If a student typically can’t choose if they go to a rich or poor school—[and] if they work as hard as they can—should they have some opportunity to attend the top universities of the state?’” said David Gardner, deputy commissioner for the THECB.

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.

Although the top 10 percent rule is imperfect, Josie MacLean said it should remain to maintain college diversity.

“While I do think it can be unfair because a lot of the kids that come in from underserved schools are not as well-prepared, I also think that right now it’s the best way we have to [increase diversity],” she said.

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