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I'm not comparing borderline cases. An example is my daughter's friend with the 3.70 from Ursuline and a 32 ACT who couldn't get into UT at all with many of the kids at the bottom of the top 8% who may have decent grades but ACT scores in the mid 20s. In many instances we are not talking about close calls.
Unweighted GPA is irrelevant. What was her rank? There was a kid a year ahead of me who had almost perfect SAT scores, but didn't show up to class. Lot's of schools don't want that.
Maybe better, did she get into a school ranked higher than UT?
Unweighted GPA is irrelevant. What was her rank? There was a kid a year ahead of me who had almost perfect SAT scores, but didn't show up to class. Lot's of schools don't want that.
Maybe better, did she get into a school ranked higher than UT?
FWIW, I'm not a sworn opponent of top X%. I do think it should be more like top 5%, but in principle I do support having geographic diversity.
However, there are cases like the following:
I know someone who transferred to Plano West from Frisco Liberty after 10th grade. For those who don't know, both schools have roughly the same demographics, and also have adjacent catchment areas. At Liberty, this kid was in the top 1%; by the end of his senior year at West, he had dropped out of the top 8%, and was rejected from UT, although he was offered the CAP program. It wasn't as if his work ethic dropped over time; the only difference was what type of grades you needed to be at the top, and a difference in rigor between the Frisco and Plano AP/Honors classes. If there's such a gap between two schools that have similar student bodies in terms of race/icome level, I can only imagine the difference between, say, HP, and the Valley.
Again, I tend to be more ammenable towards automatic admission, but I don't think you should forget that it leads to cases like these.
Unweighted GPA is irrelevant. What was her rank? There was a kid a year ahead of me who had almost perfect SAT scores, but didn't show up to class. Lot's of schools don't want that.
Maybe better, did she get into a school ranked higher than UT?
No her school overall is ranked lower but her major/program is ranked very highly. I'd tell you where and what but there are two females her age in this major at her school. Anyway it's a top ten/major program and she got what amounts to a 3/4 scholarship too. Her HS class rank was outside the top 10%.
This is a big problem for lots of private high school kids. Lots of these kids do not make the top 10% but do competitively qualify for majors that's one problem another is many of those who do neither end up going out of state. OU, OSU, CU, KU, KSU, 'Bama, South Carolina, Georgia, University of Chicago etc. recruit the Dallas private schools like you wouldn't believe trying to lure these kids.
FWIW, I'm not a sworn opponent of top X%. I do think it should be more like top 5%, but in principle I do support having geographic diversity.
However, there are cases like the following:
I know someone who transferred to Plano West from Frisco Liberty after 10th grade. For those who don't know, both schools have roughly the same demographics, and also have adjacent catchment areas. At Liberty, this kid was in the top 1%; by the end of his senior year at West, he had dropped out of the top 8%, and was rejected from UT, although he did get into the CAP program. It wasn't as if his work ethic dropped over time; the only difference was what type of grades you needed to be at the top, and a difference in rigor between the Frisco and Plano AP/Honors classes. If there's such a gap between two schools that have similar student bodies in terms of race/icome level, I can only imagine the difference between, say, HP, and the Valley.
Again, I tend to be more ammenable towards automatic admission, but I don't think you should forget that it leads to cases like these.
You just supported TC80s longtime argument that Frisco schools are not worth their salt.
But in all seriousness, late in life transfers like that are usually unsuccessful. Do the credits transfer evenly? Are they weighted the same at West? Is the top math at Liberty the same course as the top math at West? Those are just the academic questions, they don't even factor in the psychological changes.
The gap between the Valley and HP is indeed huge. The question for UT is do they want to be a school that is mostly closed to the Valley so that mid-tier HP students can have an elite backup? (isn't that what SMU is for? HIYO!) The current answer is 'no'.
FWIW, I'm not a sworn opponent of top X%. I do think it should be more like top 5%, but in principle I do support having geographic diversity.
However, there are cases like the following:
I know someone who transferred to Plano West from Frisco Liberty after 10th grade. For those who don't know, both schools have roughly the same demographics, and also have adjacent catchment areas. At Liberty, this kid was in the top 1%; by the end of his senior year at West, he had dropped out of the top 8%, and was rejected from UT, although he was offered the CAP program. It wasn't as if his work ethic dropped over time; the only difference was what type of grades you needed to be at the top, and a difference in rigor between the Frisco and Plano AP/Honors classes. If there's such a gap between two schools that have similar student bodies in terms of race/icome level, I can only imagine the difference between, say, HP, and the Valley.
Again, I tend to be more ammenable towards automatic admission, but I don't think you should forget that it leads to cases like these.
I think limiting the percentage to 5 like you say or capping the total at 35/40% of each Fall's new class might make sense. At least the egregious examples of really smart kids being screwed over would be minimized.
You just supported TC80s longtime argument that Frisco schools are not worth their salt.
But in all seriousness, late in life transfers like that are usually unsuccessful. Do the credits transfer evenly? Are they weighted the same at West? Is the top math at Liberty the same course as the top math at West? Those are just the academic questions, they don't even factor in the psychological changes.
The gap between the Valley and HP is indeed huge. The question for UT is do they want to be a school that is mostly closed to the Valley so that mid-tier HP students can have an elite backup? (isn't that what SMU is for? HIYO!) The current answer is 'no'.
That's fair. But one of the unintended consequences is that lots of the affected kids who go elsewhere go out of state and end up paying full out of state tuition. That's money lost to Texas forever and really bright kids who may never come back either.
No her school overall is ranked lower but her major/program is ranked very highly. I'd tell you where and what but there are two females her age in this major at her school. Anyway it's a top ten/major program and she got what amounts to a 3/4 scholarship too. Her HS class rank was outside the top 10%.
This is a big problem for lots of private high school kids. Lots of these kids do not make the top 10% but do competitively qualify for majors that's one problem another is many of those who do neither end up going out of state. OU, OSU, CU, KU, KSU, 'Bama, South Carolina, Georgia, University of Chicago etc. recruit the Dallas private schools like you wouldn't believe trying to lure these kids.
And is her SAT score equal to 1400? Many schools will look at a high ACT score without the SAT backup and factor that in. I think the pertinent question is: did she go to a school consistently (and across the board) ranked above UT? If she did, well UT may have missed the boat on that one. But if she didn't, if she went to LSU like a nameless person whom we all know I am referring to, well, no loss there.
(I'm not trying to come across as flippant about your friends kid, I understand you are presenting a personal anecdote and it's difficult to respond without coming across as personal, too. So please know that is not my intent.)
Top public school students are recruited hard by those schools, too. Their main argument is not that you won't get into UT. Their main argument is that they will give you $$$ and UT will not, making them a better buy. (But, then they wouldn't go around bragging that they got UTs leftovers either. I'm sure that's an unspoken assumption and part of it)
You just supported TC80s longtime argument that Frisco schools are not worth their salt.
Nothing new here- TC and I have always agreed on this. Stuff like this only corroborates what we, and others, have been saying for a while .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Considering Coming Back
But in all seriousness, late in life transfers like that are usually unsuccessful. Do the credits transfer evenly? Are they weighted the same at West? Is the top math at Liberty the same course as the top math at West? Those are just the academic questions, they don't even factor in the psychological changes.
The gap between the Valley and HP is indeed huge. The question for UT is do they want to be a school that is mostly closed to the Valley so that mid-tier HP students can have an elite backup? (isn't that what SMU is for? HIYO!) The current answer is 'no'.
Generally speaking, the curriculum, in name, isn't that different between the two schools. In tenth grade, for instance, you're going to take some variation of AP World History if you're in that top stream. So I do think the credits transfer evenly, because it's hard for the Plano West people to say that they're going to weigh your Honors Geometry grade as a regular class, just because they feel that it's less rigorous than our Honors classes. I'm also pretty sure that this guy didn't face many psychological issues from transferring, given his personality, although that certainly can happen in most people...it probably would happen to me.
Again, I agree with you that UT should definitely be open to the whole state. I do think though that when you consider a situation like this, and then try to think of what the bottom of Frisco's top 8% is, and then try to think of those students in schools in the Valley, that maybe we should scale back the number of people getting automatic admission.
Again, I agree with you that UT should definitely be open to the whole state. I do think though that when you consider a situation like this, and then try to think of what the bottom of Frisco's top 8% is, and then try to think of those students in schools in the Valley, that maybe we should scale back the number of people getting automatic admission.
My only response to that is this appears to be what is happening. 10% is easy and catchy, but maybe not right for UT-Austin, I think it'll be 7% this year for applying seniors.
And is her SAT score equal to 1400? Many schools will look at a high ACT score without the SAT backup and factor that in. I think the pertinent question is: did she go to a school consistently (and across the board) ranked above UT? If she did, well UT may have missed the boat on that one. But if she didn't, if she went to LSU like a nameless person whom we all know I am referring to, well, no loss there.
(I'm not trying to come across as flippant about your friends kid, I understand you are presenting a personal anecdote and it's difficult to respond without coming across as personal, too. So please know that is not my intent.)
Top public school students are recruited hard by those schools, too. Their main argument is not that you won't get into UT. Their main argument is that they will give you $$$ and UT will not, making them a better buy. (But, then they wouldn't go around bragging that they got UTs leftovers either. I'm sure that's an unspoken assumption and part of it)
She took the SAT I don't recall her score though. It was similar to her ACT.
He school is ranked lower than UT. I just looked this up to be sure - in her major according to the list I looked at UT is ranked 1, TAMU is ranked 3 and her school is ranked 5. So the net of all this is she didn't qualify for UT at all. But did qualify for a scholarship into an incredibly demanding major at a top five program in her desired area of study. For her it worked out it would have been a mistake to downgrade and study sociology or whatever at UT.
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