Expanding for the sake of expanding isn't a great plan, but we have this same argument on a yearly basis. We've had some of the same posters start the same threads about our impending academic doom going on 3-4 years now. I think it's worth considering that there's no way that A&M graduates are any worse than their 1997 counterparts, whose class better fit one magazine's performance metrics. Reading this article about the US News rankings in a proper perspective. (Again, approx. 25% of the ranking is based off of a 'reputation' score). The essay in that link by Nicholas Thompson is also fairly interesting.

I know this evidence is anecdotal, but the people I know who are/were in the position of teaching Aggies and those in a position to hire Aggies are still big fans. I've heard our graduates referred to more than once as a good "middle ground", balancing intelligence and capability with having a "good head on their shoulders".

Here are some rankings:

-2nd in nation among public universities in "Great Schools, Great Prices" category (U.S. News and World Report, 2011)

-2nd in nation among all universities in survey of 500 of the country's largest corporations for graduates their recruiters prefer to hire (Wall Street Journal, 2010)

-25th among public schools, 68th among national universities (U.S. News & World Report, 2015)

-1st in Texas in student retention and 4 through 6-year graduation rates

-Conducts research valued at more than $630 million annually, placing it among the top 20 universities in the country for the second consecutive year and third among universities without medical schools, after University of California at Berkeley and M.I.T. the only Texas university included in top 20

-4th in nation among public universities for "Employment After Three Months" (Financial Times, 2010)

-9th in nation among public universities for earnings of graduates ten to twenty years after graduation (Forbes)

-8th in the nation for high return on investment (ROI) for in-state tuition among public universities (PayScale, 2015)

-5th in the nation among public universities in "Best Value Schools" (U.S. News & World Report, 2015)

-4th in nation among universities based on "contribution to the public good" (Washington Monthly, 2014)

-#20 on Money Magazine's "Best Colleges' (2015)

-#8 among public universities in the New York Times survey of "What Business Leaders Say", which gauged the recruiters' opinions about their favorite schools. A&M was the #1 school in its region in this poll.

-Top public school in Texas for median career salary (PayScale 2012)

So despite our fall in the US News rankings, the last 5 years have been fairly kind to us in terms of salaries, reputation among recruiters, and ROI. A&M is still very well regarded in agriculture, engineering, and business in a state where those fields are prized.

With a rising population, there's no way that there aren't enough qualified students to fill up A&M multiple times over. Growth is undoubtedly part of our future, but I'll agree that it needs to be considered carefully and allowed gradually to ensure that more students get the same product that recent Aggie graduates received. Fighting against expansion for the sake of expansion and any lowering of standards is a stand worth making, but my post is to point out that the rumors of our academic demise, diploma mill status, and an upcoming "unhireable" generation of graduates is premature.

Thank god I already graduated. I can't even imagine trying to go to HEB on Texas when theres 80,000 students. It's ****ing unbearable as it is now

80K is just way too many students. It was be a logistics nightmare for faculty, staff, & students.

Sacrificing quality for quantity is definitely not in the best interest of our alma mater. Clogging up all the roads, sidewalks, classrooms etc. does not an academic institution make.

We would become a HUGE joke.

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What's the point of top 10% again?

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IIRC, it was promoted by Dr. Gates to avoid race-based affirmative action of the kind used at tu and most other schools at the time.

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There are top 10% students who would have been accepted & enrolled without the benefit of top 10%.

There are also top 10% teens who have no business going to college.

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this. But I'd add that there have been teens admitted who have no business going to college under all systems of admissions at every university.

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The top 10% rule was the state of Texas' response to the ban on affirmative action in admissions. Started in 1997. I don't think Gates had anything to do with it. It's a state thing, not an A&M thing. And Gates wasn't the A&M president until 02 or 03.

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What's the point of top 10% again?

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IIRC, it was promoted by Dr. Gates to avoid race-based affirmative action of the kind used at tu and most other schools at the time.

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There are top 10% students who would have been accepted & enrolled without the benefit of top 10%.

There are also top 10% teens who have no business going to college.

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this. But I'd add that there have been teens admitted who have no business going to college under all systems of admissions at every university.

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It pre-dates Gates by about 10 years, and applies statewide anyway not just to A&M

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Fighting against expansion for the sake of expansion

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Yup. And I'll go one further.

Expansion as a defined goal (the poster child is 25x25) is very poor planning. We should prepare for expansion that occurs as a consequence of growth. Making expansion a goal is not wise.

IF size, in and of itself, is going to be a goal, I would submit that it's pretty clear that a smaller main campus enrollment and increased system campus enrollments is a much wiser and more efficient course.

I have confidence that our new President will do what he can to reign in our Chancellor from over stepping his boundaries, as he has been these past few years. It will take the regents to redirect him to his proper job, though.

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mkyoung@tamu.edu

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I wonder how many upset people in this thread actually took the time to email President Young.

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mkyoung@tamu.edu

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I wonder how many upset people in this thread actually took the time to email President Young.

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What should I say?

In 2025 A&M will have 9,000 auto enrolled students because they are in the top 10%.

So am I suppose to tell Young to increase enrollment because there are deserving instate students who aren't in the top 10% as well as deserving out of state students and foreign students? Or do I tell Young to hold the line at 9,000 students and make it know that only the top 10% texas high school students plus athletes get into A&M? Sorry if you went to a better high school or you're out of state or a foreignor because you're not welcome here.

Let me know which message because I have the email address already typed in.

Forgot there is one other category - transfers. Should I email Young and say that we shouldn't accept transfers anymore?

One other question. What happens in 2030 and beyond when they number of top 10% auto enrollees tops 11,000 and by 2040 is over 15,000?

Should I be contacting the legislature instead of Young to get the 10% rule changed. Will the courts allow this? Should I be contacting someone about all the people moving to Texas and the Hispanic population producing a lot of kids?

Tell him to check the necessity of eliminating top 10%
... Or allowing a system to place the auto-enrolled into any campus within the system.

Presumably A&M could cap its auto-admits to 75% of the freshman class like Texas has.

I know there is (or was) an A&M policy to automatically admit students in the top 25% of their class with a qualifying SAT or ACT score (1300 and 30, with minimum score requirements for each section according to the guy on the admissions board). I don't know if this is unique to A&M or is a state requirement like the top 10% rule. I am not certain whether this is still in effect but I believe it is.

In any case, Texas seems to have figured out a way to keep their enrollment numbers flatter and as a result are more selective about who is admitted. I don't see why A&M couldn't do the same.

That DARS link was very helpful. Does anyone have a similar link for Texas?

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What's the point of top 10% again?

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IIRC, it was promoted by Dr. Gates to avoid race-based affirmative action of the kind used at tu and most other schools at the time.

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There are top 10% students who would have been accepted & enrolled without the benefit of top 10%.

There are also top 10% teens who have no business going to college.

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this. But I'd add that there have been teens admitted who have no business going to college under all systems of admissions at every university.

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It pre-dates Gates by about 10 years, and applies statewide anyway not just to A&M

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As I age, IIRC gets less accurate.

Per Wikipedia, the top 10% rule was from 1997 after Hopwood, and tu got a special deal from the lege in 2009 to cap top 10%ers.

edit to add: Found the basis for my faulty memory. After the Grutter and Graz SCOTUS decisions, Gates stated that A&M would not restart using race as an admissions factor, relying on the top 10% rule. Meanwhile tu added race back to their criteria, leading to the Fisher vs Texas.

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In 2025 A&M will have 9,000 auto enrolled students because they are in the top 10%.

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So you lobby to drop it to top 8%.

Or, it's also possible that our auto enrolled count won't double (almost double) in 10 years..

Or, yes, the tier 1 TAMU-CS that only had top 10% students would be preferable to an 80,000 student TAMU-CS campus.

Jeff, a couple thoughts:

1) There's a reason the TAMU System has 11 universities. The College Station campus is not the place for every student who did well in high school. It's for the cream of the crop. There's also a reason there are 6 university systems in Texas. There are plenty of options for students who don't get into TAMU-CS.

2) You're assuming the top 10% rule will still exist in its current form in 2025. UT-Austin has already lobbied to be exempt from it and the legislature agreed in 2009 to allow them to limit top 10% admits to 75% of their class. They only have to auto-admit students in the top 8% of their class, which will likely be lowered again with population growth. Why aren't we pushing for a similar exemption??

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I know there is (or was) an A&M policy to automatically admit students in the top 25% of their class with a qualifying SAT or ACT score (1300 and 30, with minimum score requirements for each section according to the guy on the admissions board). I don't know if this is unique to A&M or is a state requirement like the top 10% rule. I am not certain whether this is still in effect but I believe it is.

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It's not a state law. It's voluntary and it's still in effect. I would be curious to know how many students are admitted to A&M that are not in the top 10% and are not top 25%/1300 min sat score.

I bet it's in the thousands and those are the students you would start denying immediately, then consider eliminating or raising the top 25%/1300 policy.

I think if limiting enrollment is a concern then you would basically follow the model that Texas has.

Step one would be deciding how big of a class you could take.

From there say that only 75% of the students will be auto-admitted. Get to that number by taking the top 10%, then whatever gap is left fill it with kids who meet some other auto-admit criteria similar to the current auto-admit criteria of SAT/ACT plus class rank.

Then admit the remaining 25% of the class based on the "holistic evaluation" or whatever they call it.

Doesn't make sense to adjust the auto-admit criteria until you decide on how big of a class you can handle.

Remember that only half of the actually enrolled class is top 10%. So yeah, another quarter from non top 10% auto admits and another quarter for review candidates.

How can we consider ourselves top tier and do any less than that?

80 K Wow !!

Lance you really shouldn't rest on our laurels. While you're sitting back relying on our reputation, our rankings will plummet. We didn't get to this level of respect by sitting around. The Ags before us busted ass and brought us up by the bootstraps.

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In 2025 A&M will have 9,000 auto enrolled students because they are in the top 10%.

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So you lobby to drop it to top 8%.

Or, it's also possible that our auto enrolled count won't double (almost double) in 10 years..

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The trend is undeniable. We had 5800 last year and are over 6,000 this year. The DARS report shows the steady upward growth in this category. The 9,000 in 2025 and 15,000 in 2040 is just a continuation of the trend. So the first step is for you guys to come to grips with the real numbers.

As for lobbying to drop it to 8%, you guys need to contact your state reps, not Young. I remember when A&M had 10,000 students, so the 60,000 we have today is a huge jump, both in numbers (50,000) and percentages (600%). Going to 80,000 doesn't seem like a big jump to me, not compared to what I've lived through. Doing that by 2025 seems ambitious, but by 2035 this figure seems attainable unless something happens to Texas' population, like a major war.

Unless you guys can figure out how to stop our state population from growing.

The answer is more Tier One institutions, not diluting the two we have.

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The answer is more Tier One institutions, not diluting the two we have.

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Then you have wasted everyone's time on this thread because the people who can implement your "answer" are state govt. Not TAMU. And good luck convincing anyone we need to spend billions more on Tech, etc to bring them up to Tier 1 status. I think you're a dog chasing your tail.

By that Rubric all of Texags Is a "waste". And the notion of more Tier One institutions has been discussed at length on this thread. Oh, and Tech wouldn't be on the list.

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By that Rubric all of Texags Is a "waste". And the notion of more Tier One institutions has been discussed at length on this thread. Oh, and Tech wouldn't be on the list.

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Answer - you haven't spent time working on polticians to implement your idea. Rave on Captain Crazy!

Texas has the right idea to cap at 50K

You do realize that A&M spends a ton of money on lobbyists, right? And that those lobbyists take their orders from the president and the chancellor, who also lobby the legislature.?

Email the chancellor and president Young if you care about limiting enrollment. They have the muscle to influence the legislature.

Here is my answer - the key is make sure we don't lower the bar to attract students. If we are attracting high quality students because there are more of them or we are more popular, then I'm fine with that. This has been the trend for the last 50 years and all indications are it (population growth in Texas) will continue for the next 50 years. I think A&M should press the legislature to allow for fewer top 10% admits in the future, as tu has already been allowed to do. Maybe make it top 8%.

The quanity doesn't bother me as long as the quality is there. Which is why I said the key is don't lower the bar. And as long as we maintain quality then quanity is a good thing. More Aggies mean more clout.

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In 2025 A&M will have 9,000 auto enrolled students because they are in the top 10%.

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So you lobby to drop it to top 8%.

Or, it's also possible that our auto enrolled count won't double (almost double) in 10 years..

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The trend is undeniable. We had 5800 last year and are over 6,000 this year. The DARS report shows the steady upward growth in this category. The 9,000 in 2025 and 15,000 in 2040 is just a continuation of the trend. So the first step is for you guys to come to grips with the real numbers.

As for lobbying to drop it to 8%, you guys need to contact your state reps, not Young. I remember when A&M had 10,000 students, so the 60,000 we have today is a huge jump, both in numbers (50,000) and percentages (600%). Going to 80,000 doesn't seem like a big jump to me, not compared to what I've lived through. Doing that by 2025 seems ambitious, but by 2035 this figure seems attainable unless something happens to Texas' population, like a major war.

Unless you guys can figure out how to stop our state population from growing.

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Texas has basically capped their enrollment at about 50,000. They've had to get legislation passed in order to do this, but the first step was that the leadership at their university decided that getting bigger was a bad idea.

Similarly, if A&M decided it wanted to cap enrollment at 60,000, then that ball would get rolling based on input from A&M, not a letter campaign to the legislature.

The reality is that right now that A&M has shown no interest in curbing growth. A&M's solution and the state's solution seems to be the same as your solution: "The state is growing so let's just turn A&M into an 80,000-student university so we have room for all our top 10%ers at a Tier One school." Really the whole conversation has been about whether or not that is a good idea. As you say, the state's population is continuing to grow... do you think that growing A&M's student population to keep up is the right way to handle that?

And what happens if the top 10% of a graduating class are idiots one day? It seems high schools will pass anything now.

Can't leave anyone behind.

Bagger I do not agree. Leadership structure is broken and we can't resist the will of the regents, who are appointed. Legislators should be contacted. They, in fact, do hear from parents whose children don't get in and that is where some of the pressure comes from.

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You do realize that A&M spends a ton of money on lobbyists, right? And that those lobbyists take their orders from the president and the chancellor, who also lobby the legislature.?

Email the chancellor and president Young if you care about limiting enrollment. They have the muscle to influence the legislature.

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You don't really know what you're talking about. Please stop posting.

Going back to 25 by 25, businesses have a real incentive to continue the perception of a "STEM crisis". If you read anything by Dean Banks, she starts her justifications by saying that industry has asked for a huge increase in STEM grads. Well no ****. If there's an oversaturation of engineers, then companies can choose the cream of the crop and pay them significantly less. Obviously industry is asking the state legislature for more engineers, but the state is too stupid to figure it out, and A&M is either too stupid or doesn't care because of the favor of the legislature.

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You don't really know what you're talking about. Please stop posting.

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Here's an article from the Statesman from 2009 when Powers and Cigarroa were pushing the legislature for a cap on their top 10% admits. Do some reading. Or just continue to embarrass yourself.

UT President and Chancellor Seek Top 10% Cap

Like I said, the push will need to come from President Young and Chancellor Sharp.