What is the top 10% policy?

High school students in the top 10% of their graduating class receive automatic admittance into the University of Texas. This percentage is now in the single digits and getting progressively lower as the applicant pool gets bigger. The purpose of this law is to give all students-regardless of economic levels and access to instruction-the opportunity to go to UT. As it applies to high schools separately, the intent is to focus on the academic achievement within a school as opposed to a collective 10% (as in the 10% in Texas on the SAT or ACT).

The purpose is noble, but does it address the population transferring in, students who have missed school due to illness or accident and, the special education population?

If you are moving here from another state with a student who is already a Freshman or a later grade, your student may have a problem. Other states, where holistic review is used for admittance into the state university system, are not going to be preoccupied with offering a slew of advanced courses where students can “weight” their grade point average. Upon arrival here, courses must be translated into classes acceptable to the requirements for graduation and, if that’s not possible, your student will be taking additional coursework to catch up. For example: AP European History-a core class in Illinois-is an elective here. Your student must complete World History. All of this means that a formerly out-of-state student may not be able to compete for the top 10% without extraordinary effort.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a manager in a local bookstore. She told me that many years later she was still bitter about the fact she missed school due to illness. It ultimately hurt her ranking and she had trouble getting offers from Universities. Shouldn’t she have had the opportunity to tell her whole story? Most likely Universities would have been impressed by her perseverance instead of focusing on the ranking numbers. A parent informed me that she was considering holding her daughter back a year from Kindergarten because the catchment high school is so high-performing that she was concerned about the academic pressure there. Residents are thinking well in advance (and well after the fact) about the fairness this policy brings to the educational process.

As for the students with IEPs and 504 plans, the reality is that is often only parental advocacy that helps this population gain admittance into an advanced program with appropriate accommodations.

Let me know what you think.