House poised to keep top 10 percent rule, with UT exception

The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, May 22, 2009

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News choppe@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – The House is poised to limit automatic admission to the University of Texas at Austin to the top 8 percent of graduating high school seniors but keep the current top 10 percent rule the same for all other public campuses.
Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, said his bill aims to give schools such as the University of Texas at Austin and UT-Dallas the discretion they need over college admissions.
Dan Branch, R-Dallas, said his bill aims to give schools such as the University of Texas at Austin and UT-Dallas the discretion they need over college admissions.
That route, approved Thursday as House members debated how to structure automatic admissions to state universities, is dramatically different from what the Senate has approved, a cap that would allow a maximum of 60 percent of a freshman class to come from the top 10 percent law.
The decade-old law has been credited with adding diversity to campuses with more Hispanic, black and rural students.
But with 26,000 high school seniors winning automatic admission to colleges, some campuses are finding themselves inundated with must-take freshmen, and they have complained that they are losing discretion on who to admit.
UT, in particular, now has about 85 percent of its freshmen being dictated by the automatic admissions law.
While the House bill initially mirrored the Senate approach, an amendment that would handle UT separately won widespread support.
House members said that since most of the problems were with the surge of students at UT, the otherwise successful top 10 law should not be changed at other universities.

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