Texas Top Ten law

For those who don't know what this is, it's where the top ten students are automatically accepted to any public school in Texas. I think it's stupid because students who work their butts off in a larger school don't get accepted because someoen in a small school took their place. I think it should matter on GPA. I had a GPA of 4.78 (on a 6 point scale), but someone who went to a smaller school didn't have to work near as hard as I did to get up there with their 2.5. Or whatever. They'e trying to change the law, not that'll matter to me much.

Anyone else have any opinion?

A lot of people from my school and other schools deserved to get in. Shouldn't the smarter person be accepted first?

Papa, it's nice to see you with such a "liberal" open-minded perspective. Hanging out here is having a terrific effect on you


Why don't they do it by percentage rather than pure numbers? Automatically admit the top 5% or so of every high school, that way no one is penalized or benefited purely on the basis on class size. When I was in high school, they had two ways of determining automatic admission to the public universities in the state: one based on percentile ranking (anyone in the 95th pecentile or higher got in); the other used a formula based on a combination of GPA and SAT scores -- I can't remember the exact numbers, but the higher the GPA, the lower the minimum SAT needed for automatic admission and vice versa (if you got a 1600, your GPA could be as low as a 2.8 or so to get in, while if you had a 4.0, your SATs could be as low as 1000).

That seemed to be fairer than a top ten system.

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I am one of those students who went to a piss poor school and while our top ten students were very smart and deserving of the benefits, pretty much the rest of the top ten percent didn't deserve it. What is upsetting for me is that we a had a kid accepted into the University of Texas College of Engineering, yet he failed physics in high school. at least he flunked out after a semester. Its just a shame that people like him can get into a good school like that, but students who chose to go to the "Math and Science Magnet" schools couldn't get in because they weren't in the top ten percent even though they were byfar the better student. The rule is horrible and just needs to go away.