Top Ten Percent

In Kelly Fraser's reporting State lawmaker wants ten-percent rule, a lawmaker has proposed a plan similar to the top ten percent rule in Texas. Since the passing of the law in 1997 (Bucks), thousands of students in the state of Texas have entered high school working towards the goal of graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Then, with this task accomplished, they are automatically admitted into any state school of their choice. This accomplishment, which in no sense is an "easy task", has eased numerous students' minds about the college application process and where they will be getting their "higher education".

However, the true results of this legislation are not only in the positive motivation it can provide some high school kids of getting into their "dream school", but also the negative effect of putting, in most cases, less qualified students in the drivers seat of who is getting into the more competitive schools in Texas. In essence, the top ten percent rule, as good as it may seem for some students and law makers, has just as much, if not more negative effects on the high school students of Texas.

Texas is a vast state with many rural cities and towns. Most of these towns high school are very small, with graduating classes much smaller than those of bigger cities. Along with just being simply smaller graduating classes, these high schools also lack AP course and other advanced measures that further prepare students for the workload that college provides. This makes it easy for kids to graduate in the top ten percent of their class than a school such as Westlake, where sometimes a 3.9 on a 4.0 scale is not even good enough for the top ten percent there.

"I've had emails and letters and phone calls from people who literally have changed schools because their kid was in too competitive a high school, and knew they couldn't graduate in the top 10 percent," says Sen. Jeff Wentworth on this issue in an article concerning the Texas system. Promoting a frantic move for a family out of a larger, more competitive school district to a smaller, less challenging one just is surely not the results that the legislatures were looking for or anticipating, but the truth is, its happening.

"The current situation in Texas is that you can have a young man who is an Eagle Scout, who's president of his student council and captain of his football team. But because he's in the top 12 percent, he's not automatically admitted," says Wentworth. "But somebody else who's in the top 10 percent, who didn't even take the recommended curriculum for college work, who took the minimum curriculum, automatically goes to the University of Texas at Austin -- and that's not fair".

It is not fair, but continues to be in full effect and handing qualified college bound students rejection and even countering the motivation that the legislation was designed to provide. To implement this on a national level would cause the same problems that it would cause in any single state.