For years now, UT — and all state colleges and universities in Texas — has been subject to a state law that requires them to guarantee admission to the top 10% of every high school’s graduating class.

This may sound like a good idea, but it’s really not. In essence, it penalizes students who go to very good high schools and rewards students who don’t. A friend of mine has her daughter in one of the best private high schools in Houston, which means that UT is pretty much off the table for her — but elite private schools like SMU and Vanderbilt are, bizarrely, completely reasonable possibilities because of the girl’s credentials (National Merit, etc). These credentials would put her in the top 10% of pretty much any public school’s graduating class, but in a more elite private school, where the entire class is at a higher level of achievement, that 10% is significantly harder to crack. Because of this, it’s not unheard of for students to transfer to easier, less demanding high schools for their senior year, in order to pad their rank, if admission to UT (or any other state school) is desired.

I had this conversation with Leesa yesterday, and was reminded of it by this story in the Chronicle that notes:

Eighty-one percent of the students being offered admission to UT’s 2008 fall freshman class got in because they graduated in the top 10 percent of their high schools. That number is up 10 percent over 2007 figures and likely will rise to include all students in the not-too-distant future, William Powers Jr. warned.

A 2004 story at CBSNews included the stories of students Elizabeth Aicklen, of Austin, and Laura Torres, of San Antonio:

Not fair is exactly how Elizabeth Aicklen describes her experience with the “Top 10” plan.

“Everyone in my family has gone to U.T. I’ve lived in Austin for my whole life. I love it,” says Aicklen, who took a lot of advanced placement classes to improve her class rank.

Elizabeth’s problem, if you can call it that, was that she went to Westlake, the most competitive public high school in Austin, filled with overachievers from upscale families.

Did kids talk about their ranking all the time? Were they thinking of it constantly? “All the time,” says Aicklen. “After every test or every final, people were pulling out their calculators.”

Aicklen had a 3.9 GPA, and she still didn’t make the top 10 at her school.

But 80 miles away in San Antonio, Torres’ high school, Fox Tech, was vastly different. There were fewer challenging courses, less competition, and many kids from poor families. Torres had a 3.4-3.5 GPA, which put her in the top 10 percent of her high school. She didn’t take any advanced placement classes.

If Torres had gone to Westlake, she’d barely have made the top 50 percent. And if Aicklen had gone to Fox Tech, she might have been the valedictorian. As for SAT scores, Aicklen also scored hundreds of points higher than Torres.

N.B. that this rule doesn’t allow for other factors at all. No extracurriculars? No problem. Shitty SAT? No one cares. Took only the minimum classes required for graduation? Come to Austin! If it results in a full incoming class, with no room for out of state students or otherwise qualified kids outside the 10%, its proponents don’t care. If it results in good students going elsewhere while nebulously qualified kids from terrible high schools skate in, they don’t care. It’s just freakish.