I've noticed a trend among my friends, if their kid cannot get into A&M or UT via auto admit, they end up at OU, Ark, Ole Miss.

Mostly OU...I was stunned by how many are going up there.

The auto admit rules in TX are basically making good students pick between second tier TX schools or the top tier school in a neighboring state OU, Arky, etc....

With decent scores and grades the OOS school cost the same as in state in TX. Which is more prestigious, good social life, and networking OU or North Texas/Tech/Texas State etc? seems like a no brainer to me.

As Texas grows and UT/A&M continue to have a limited number of seats, the problem will grow. However, there are several good public schools between the UT/A&M tier and the Tech/TX State party-degree tier. UH and UTD come to mind.

TriAg2010 said:

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It's not a new trend. This has been going on since at least the early/mid-2000s.

I fail to see this as a problem. For kids in the 10-25% percent of their class, I agree with the characterization that they as "good" students not "great" students. OU or Ark are appropriate academic fits. It seems like the vast majority all come back and settle in TX, so it's not like it's causing a brain drain in any practical sense.

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Just a hunch that the 10-25% you speak of will be very high earners (well rounded) and give $$$ back to their respected university both towards academics and athletics. I think we will no doubt see those repercussions.

Yet another example of unintentional consequences.

Will we ever learn that when the government gets involved, things get f$&@?# up?

If you spend about 30 minutes googling for information, you can see the problem isn't just the top 10% rule.

A&M leadership has decided to make full entrance to A&M as a freshman inexplicably difficult, while the school accepts countless transfer students. I would imagine many transfers are not near the caliber of freshman students rejected that were in the top 11-25% of their high school class.

It's an odd strategy, but my best guess is they know those top 11-25% freshman would overwhelmingly want to study business or engineering. Since those schools are already bursting, they decided to go this route.

The kid was a good but not great student in HS. Took a gap year for surgery then went to Collin for 2 years, determined they wanted to go BMEN with some great advice from a Collin counselor and pulled a 4.0.

Applied to UTD and A&M. Accepted by UTD in a matter of days with a ton of scholarship $. A&M took several months for a response and even then it was decision pending completion of Spring semester. (They were enrolled in a core class required for transfer.) It took until almost the end of June before the acceptance arrived and zero scholarship $. Less than 2 months is not a ton of time to plan but we figured it out. They were the only BMEN transfer at NSC.

Lots of ups and downs but they graduated a couple weeks ago just shy of 3.5. It was an amazing experience and they are WELL prepared to enter the work force.

There are plenty of capable students that aren't top 10%. Frankly, many of the top 10% from the smaller districts have the toughest time. My kids attended Plano schools and they were well prepared for the next step. At college night I was amazed at how many OOS schools recruited Plano graduates.

We are fortunate to have numerous quality districts not just in DFW but in Texas.

I'll probably get killed for saying this out loud, but the reality is that both UT and A&M are on their way to being filled with with Asian kids, Indian kids and small town kids. They don't want upper middle class white suburban kids. Their policies are targeted at exactly that.

My son's HS in Austin has more kids going to Arkansas than A&M. Why not? With the easy to attain scholarships it is cheaper to go to Arkansas, they hand out in state tuition for Texans like candy as do so many other schools around Texas. Those schools desperately want the Suburban kids from great HS's in Texas that crush it academically and support their school. The grads from our HS often come back from college and talk about how much easier it is than HS was while they have 3.5 plus GPA's or better and often graduate early.

The Top 10% Rule is insanity. When you have a school that is loaded with National Merit Finalists and Commended with College Readiness Rates around 90%, average SAT scores of 1200 plus, near 100% Graduation Rates, 70 percent or so having college credits while in HS to a school that barely has 20% of kids who are even college ready and say that the Top 10% is a good barometer it's a disservice to everyone except folks who are obsessed with white/class guilt. Can some of those small town and crap HS kids figure out how to compete with kids who have gone to those other HS's? Sure, but most will not. The reality is that most of those kids from the crap HS's need to be going to Texas State or A&M Corpus/RGV or Community College or trade school. They don't need to be going to Mays or Look and getting their teeth kicked in because they simply aren't prepared. Math has no feelings and you can't make up for a decade plus of preparation simply by throwing kids in the same pot and expect equal results.

A&M does offer Blinn Team and lots of other programs for kids to go to Corpus or Kingsville or something for a year and transfer in but a lot of those kids want to go to one school for 4 years. Others are like my Corps Buddy who has a daughter that couldn't get into A&M but is getting a monster scholarship to Indiana for Business (which is a higher rated B School), how in the hell does it make sense for A&M to turn up their nose to kids like that while "better" schools are bribing kids to travel over 1000 miles to go there? We lose so many amazing students due to Top 10% that would crush it at A&M so we can let in lesser qualified kids that are lucky to survive, often having to change majors to something in Liberal Arts and ending up with huge debt and mediocre job prospects. I know of at least 3 that fit that profile still working as Admins in their late 20s because they have a degree in something with minimal value with mediocre grades and they got into A&M because they were Top 10% at a low rated HS.

Hey but our school gets to brag about how many first gen college students they have and how they are getting better at minority numbers, who cares if it is the best thing for those kids or the State of Texas. Thomas Sowell laid all of this out with his book "Preferential Policies" where he documented and researched why these policies were a disaster decades ago but we continue to ignore the data because it makes people feel good to have better diversity numbers and justifies hiring more administrators to tell us we are all racists.

Felt for a long time that Top 10% should guarantee admission to a system school, not necessarily flagship. But i don't expect it to change

I get the hate for the top 10%, but as a counter, why should A&M have a Highland Park and SMU like relationship with 5-6 of the major Texas suburbs? That isn't necessarily good for Texas either.

aggie93 said:

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My son's HS in Austin has more kids going to Arkansas than A&M. Why not? With the easy to attain scholarships it is cheaper to go to Arkansas, they hand out in state tuition for Texans like candy as do so many other schools around Texas. Those schools desperately want the Suburban kids from great HS's in Texas that crush it academically and support their school. The grads from our HS often come back from college and talk about how much easier it is than HS was while they have 3.5 plus GPA's or better and often graduate early.

The Top 10% Rule is insanity. When you have a school that is loaded with National Merit Finalists and Commended with College Readiness Rates around 90%, average SAT scores of 1200 plus, near 100% Graduation Rates, 70 percent or so having college credits while in HS to a school that barely has 20% of kids who are even college ready and say that the Top 10% is a good barometer it's a disservice to everyone except folks who are obsessed with white/class guilt. Can some of those small town and crap HS kids figure out how to compete with kids who have gone to those other HS's? Sure, but most will not. The reality is that most of those kids from the crap HS's need to be going to Texas State or A&M Corpus/RGV or Community College or trade school. They don't need to be going to Mays or Look and getting their teeth kicked in because they simply aren't prepared. Math has no feelings and you can't make up for a decade plus of preparation simply by throwing kids in the same pot and expect equal results.

A&M does offer Blinn Team and lots of other programs for kids to go to Corpus or Kingsville or something for a year and transfer in but a lot of those kids want to go to one school for 4 years. Others are like my Corps Buddy who has a daughter that couldn't get into A&M but is getting a monster scholarship to Indiana for Business (which is a higher rated B School), how in the hell does it make sense for A&M to turn up their nose to kids like that while "better" schools are bribing kids to travel over 1000 miles to go there? We lose so many amazing students due to Top 10% that would crush it at A&M so we can let in lesser qualified kids that are lucky to survive, often having to change majors to something in Liberal Arts and ending up with huge debt and mediocre job prospects. I know of at least 3 that fit that profile still working as Admins in their late 20s because they have a degree in something with minimal value with mediocre grades and they got into A&M because they were Top 10% at a low rated HS.

Hey but our school gets to brag about how many first gen college students they have and how they are getting better at minority numbers, who cares if it is the best thing for those kids or the State of Texas. Thomas Sowell laid all of this out with his book "Preferential Policies" where he documented and researched why these policies were a disaster decades ago but we continue to ignore the data because it makes people feel good to have better diversity numbers and justifies hiring more administrators to tell us we are all racists.

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Aggie93 gets it. Its too bad those in charge do not. I have mentioned before about my son going to SMU/Cox school of Business. Amazing to me how that happens and he gets Blinn Team at A&M. With the money SMU is throwing at him it will come to only about $8k more than A&M.

TriAg2010 said:

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It's not a new trend. This has been going on since at least the early/mid-2000s.

I fail to see this as a problem. For kids in the 10-25% percent of their class, I agree with the characterization that they as "good" students not "great" students. OU or Ark are appropriate academic fits. It seems like the vast majority all come back and settle in TX, so it's not like it's causing a brain drain in any practical sense.

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I disagree. I have seen this trend as well.

They also do nothing to very little scholarshipwise for the Texas kids the "have" to accept. Over all they seem to have a poor vibe toward these kids and seem like they would rather have out of state or international kids (make more money!)

Out of state universities are much much more interested in our kids. Son was in the top 1%. A&m offered him nothing, but would allow him to attend. Out of state schools offered a lot. He went out of state and has not returned.

Really kind of pisses me off.

500,000ags said:

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I get the hate for the top 10%, but as a counter, why should A&M have a Highland Park and SMU like relationship with 5-6 of the major Texas suburbs? That isn't necessarily good for Texas either.

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It's not about that at all. It's about A&M wanting the best prepared students with the highest potential and likelihood of success. If they go to HIghland Park, great. If they go to a lesser HS, great. The problem is the system is unbalanced because we are treating all HS's the same and they simply aren't. Every other University certainly doesn't and they are thankful we let them poach so many great students.

That of course ignores how A&M does very little in terms of scholarships for kids from those great HS's that typically have parents who make over $100k. Unless they are a National Merit Finalist they are lucky to get more than a token. Buddy of mine has a son with a 1570 SAT and Top 5% and only got a Corps Scholarship, other schools were offering full rides.

A&M and Texas are the only colleges playing this stupid game. No one else cares about class rank with no context of the school. Everyone else cares about GPA, Classwork/College/AP Credit, activities and leadership, and of course SAT score.

I just don't buy it. I went to a 2A rural high school in one of the poorest counties in Texas. I graduated last in the Top 10%, and only made it because of rounding up. I graduated SCL in FINC. 4 of the other 9 in the Top 10% also went to A&M. Two did engineering and work in big O&G, another did CoSci and is doing well last I heard. My girlfriend graduated Valedictorian at same high school, she graduated MCL in MKTG. She does well. Because it's a rural high school, A&M is a great fit so many of the Top 10% kids go there. I have never heard one story of burn-out or being out-competed from some big high school kid. From older high school classes, I can name several that ended up in Big 4 Acct. Also name several that went to Texas and did well too. Just hasn't been my experience that these kids get culture shocked into failure at A&M. It's Texas A&M, not Harvard.

500,000ags said:

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I just don't buy it. I went to a 2A rural high school in one of the poorest counties in Texas. I graduated last in the Top 10%, and only made it because of rounding up. I graduated SCL in FINC. 4 of the other 9 in the Top 10% also went to A&M. Two did engineering and work in big O&G, another did CoSci and is doing well last I heard. My girlfriend graduated Valedictorian at same high school, she graduated MCL in MKTG. She does well. Because it's a rural high school, A&M is a great fit so many of the Top 10% kids go there. I have never heard one story of burn-out or being out-competed from some big high school kid. From older high school classes, I can name several that ended up in Big 4 Acct. Also name several that went to Texas and did well too. Just hasn't been my experience that these kids get culture shocked into failure at A&M. It's Texas A&M, not Harvard.

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My wife was #2 in her Class from a 2A HS. She struggled mightily her Freshman year as she had never taken a true college class as nothing like that was offered. She recovered and graduated in MKTG and has had a very successful career but that's because she worked her ass off.

Dad was a similar story in the '50s. Youngest of 10 out on the farm in West Texas who got an Opportunity Award scholarship. He was at the top of his class in HS and wanted to be a Vet but was completely unprepared for college level Chemistry classes. He recovered, changed majors, and had a highly successful AF career. Different world back then of course.

Honestly I have less of an issue with rural kids, especially at A&M. The cultural fit is strong and many are ideal fits for Ag majors which are a core part of the A&M mission. Some also can make it in Engineering and Business of course and that's great.

The issue is more with the large HS's in areas like the Valley and the cities that have terrible ratings. Often they barely have 25% who graduate that are college ready at all by the minimum standard. Yet those HS's may have 3k students and 7-800 grads so 70-80 kids that get auto accepted to A&M. Most also get heavily recruited by us and get scholarships for financial need as their parents make less than $60k. A lot have never taken a legit AP course or Dual Credit. They may have gotten a 1000 or a 1050 on their SAT. Many are first gen to college. While it's a nice story many of those kids simply aren't prepared. They would be very successful at UTSA or Texas State or A&M Corpus but College Station eats them alive. Certainly some do make it but rarely in Engineering or Business (which they often start off in) and they are the most likely to drop out.

Individuals can always overcome and beat the odds but in the end Math is Math.

500,000ags said:

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IMO Texas A&M needs to lay off the transfer student sauce and invest in the ability to admit more non-auto admit Freshmen. A&M is way too easy to transfer into (in most cases), so A&M is trading kids willing to transfer from partner schools, instead of making the room for many great students that are Top 11-25% and go OOS.

Just curious, are there numbers on the drop out or attendance rate from these problem schools you mention?

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I don't have hard data but I have a LOT of anecdotal both from folks at A&M in school and as a Recruiter in the professional world. It would be challenging to get the right data set honestly and I doubt A&M wants people to know that information so they sure as hell aren't going to advertise it. They don't want to be seen as a place that flunks out first gen and minority students even though inevitably that's what happens. As I mentioned earlier you can read "Preferential Policies" by Thomas Sowell from back when I was at A&M (he actually did his research on Vanderbilt primarily but he looked at other schools as well). He warned about the dangers of allowing in students for reasons other than pure academic qualifications and how it would backfire.

I completely agree A&M should be focused on trying to get the best Freshman admits but that's not the game they play. Instead they are trying to game the numbers with the Top 10% (instead of dropping it to say the Top 5% as auto) and then doing more holistic admissions. They are essentially trying to create a path for family of Ags to get into A&M via transfer while avoiding having terrible diversity numbers. The reality is if they went purely off academics A&M would be overwhelmingly White and Asian far more than it already is and that's very bad politics.

SwissAgg said:

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SwissAgg said:

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My nephew is visiting the good guys, A&M, as we speak. He got a full ride at OU, but he wants

to see what the Aggies will offer scholarship wise. He is in the top 5% in Grapevine, and hope he chooses

us over the land thieves.

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you are assuming that he is white. He is not, but Hispanic. He should do well on the sholarships.

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Hispanic is a sub-category of white.

We went to an informational at one of the aggieland weekend things and once they admitted top 10 and academic, there were barely any spots left. Was obvious his group would be last.

It would make perfect sense to have an SAT minimum for top 10, which would shrink that down some.


make minimum 1250 for top 10, 1350 for top 25. That would leave a good chunk of "holistic review" spots.

gotta have those "diversity numbers" though