Issue date: 3/31/09 Section: News

Texas' Top 10 percent law for college admission may change because of legislation that would limit it to 60 percent of incoming freshmen. The law was passed by the senate on Wednesday and sent to the house. Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, was the author of the bill. The University of Texas at Austin pushed for the bill. UT has been most affected by the Top 10 percent law with 81 percent of their fall incoming freshman class admitted because of the rule. The Top 10 percent requirement has shut out large numbers of other qualified students, including students with higher SAT scores than those accepted. The legislation would admit no more than 50 percent of students under the Top 10 percent law. These students would be admitted based on their class rank, starting with the top 1 percent and moving down until the class is half full. The other 10 percent would still be Top 10 percent students, but universities could use test scores and extracurricular activities as a base for admittance. The bill passed 24 to seven. All the opposed were Democrats who were afraid the proposal would affect the minority enrollment. School officials have said this will not be the case. The bill will affect UT because they were the ones that asked for the bill, but UT-Dallas and A&M are expected to be affected by the same problem in the next few years. The original Top 10 percent law was approved in 1997. The law was designed to ensure the top state schools' admission polices were not affected by race.

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