Austin CoCO is apparently another way into UT

(06-11-2013 01:05 PM)MemOwl Wrote:  

(06-11-2013 07:07 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Kind of a separate but not too off-base question here -- what percentage of high school kids these days will choose UT and what percentage will choose A&M? I know that it's the top 8 pct of each high school class that gets into UT and it's either 8 or 10 pct for A&M. I was struck by our local high school in the number of honors graduates who chose UT over A&M. Maybe it's just one of those years where it's more UT families at the top of the class, but I had thought A&M was closing the perception gap over UT.

My wife is a hs guidance counselor so this is dinner table talk. My perception is as follows

1. The auto admit threshold is the same for both schools. I believe it is top 8%

Are you sure of this? Last I checked (about 1.5 years ago), UT-Austin was the only exception to Top 10%. And I thought the changes to the state law a few years ago, allowing a lower percentage, were exclusive to UT-Austin.

Can't swear to it.

(06-11-2013 10:23 AM)Otts Wrote:  How heavily was your son/daughter 'recruited' by Rice?
What influenced their decision to select Rice?

I am a Rice grad, married the love of my life that I met at Rice 40+ years ago, and have two daughters who graduated from Rice! One now has an MSW from Texas and counsels battered women, mostly Hispanic, as she speaks Spanish. The other is a Harvard Law grad now working for a law firm in NY! I am bragging on my daughters for obvious reasons, but also to say to a new dad to Rice that you have a daughter with the world ahead of her, and I think Rice can be an incredible boost to that!! Welcome,welcome! BTW, which ignorant Midwestern state are you from that doesn't know about Rice? We really aren't that smart a####, but we do enjoy giving each other a lot of, we'll, you pick your term. Welcome to Texas, and especially to the great city of Houston.

(06-11-2013 08:39 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(06-11-2013 07:07 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Kind of a separate but not too off-base question here -- what percentage of high school kids these days will choose UT and what percentage will choose A&M? I know that it's the top 8 pct of each high school class that gets into UT and it's either 8 or 10 pct for A&M. I was struck by our local high school in the number of honors graduates who chose UT over A&M. Maybe it's just one of those years where it's more UT families at the top of the class, but I had thought A&M was closing the perception gap over UT.

BTW, I don't think we had any kids going to Rice this year. One was accepted but couldn't afford it, even with the scholarship aid. But I think that's unusual too and I would imagine that on average, we send 1-2 to Rice a year (more on the years where we have some athletes going there).

My son just graduated in a class of 110. This school is the top school in HISD (CVHS). All classes are AP/pre-AP. They sent 2 kids to Rice this year, probably 5 to UT, and only 1 or 2 to aTm, 1(?)to TCU. But what struck me was the number of kids choosing to go to UT-Dallas. I think there were 5.

My daughter graduated from a similar sized private school (Kinkaid)

about 5 to Rice. Probably 3 to TCU but I wasnt really listening for them... 1 Dookie and two vandys that I recall... 1 STanford... 1 Harvard.. a couple other ivies... maybe 4 in total... appx 20 to UT or some variant of that to get into UT *Austin CoCo or UTSA or UTD and one... only one Aggie. thought that was odd

My sons year it seemed similar in numbers, but I noticed a decent number of TCUs... perhaps 5-8?? of course, they were in BCS bowls his jr and sr years

It seems that the Aggies and Longhorns tend to get big groups from individual schools and it appears to be predictable. The Cy-Fair schools seem to, by and large, send many students to A&M and a small fraction of that number to Austin. While I have no empirical evidence of it, it has long struck me that schools in relatively rural areas tend to have many grads heading to College Station while more urban schools tend to have grads heading to Austin. From the standpoint of maintaining a comfort level in an environment similar to home, that makes some sense to me.The kids at the top end of those schools, having more options than the state schools due to scholarship opportunities, tend to scatter more. But there I go being an amateur behaviour scientist offering SWAGs again.

UT has always attracted more from the urban areas and A&M more from the small towns and rural areas. The choice for Houston Wesbury graduates in 1971 was:
1. UH because it was affordable
2. UT
3. scattered numbers to A&M and other in-state schools
4. 8 went to Rice

The valdictorian went to Radcliffe and a couple of students to Brown

At St. John's in the early '90s, nobody went to TCU. My class had 115 students, with about 20 going to the Ivy League (8 to Princeton alone), 12 to Rice, and about another 15-20 going to schools like Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, Berkeley, Williams, Amherst, and Johns Hopkins. The remaining half of the students went to places like Colgate, Middlebury, Davidson, Tufts, and, of course, UT. There were about 2-3 who went to A&M. There were a handful who went to SMU, but I really cannot think of a single person in my class (or in the surrounding classes) who went to TCU.

That has probably changed, though. The elite colleges are much more generous with financial aid than they used to be, which has made the elite schools much more competitive (because more kids from rural and poor schools can have access to, say, Princeton or Stanford than they did 20 years ago). I believe this has pushed admissions downward at competitive high schools and prep schools. Fewer Harvard and Yale acceptances, which results in students at these top high schools looking further down the college list. Rice, in my opinion, has benefited. And I bet TCU has, too.

I have seen a recent list of where Kinkaid graduates are going. SMU and TCU both are doing very well with about equal numbers going to each. UT used to get the majority a long time ago but the quota system has cut that way down.

(06-13-2013 10:15 PM)Barrett Wrote:  At St. John's in the early '90s, nobody went to TCU. My class had 115 students, with about 20 going to the Ivy League (8 to Princeton alone), 12 to Rice, and about another 15-20 going to schools like Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, Berkeley, Williams, Amherst, and Johns Hopkins. The remaining half of the students went to places like Colgate, Middlebury, Davidson, Tufts, and, of course, UT. There were about 2-3 who went to A&M. There were a handful who went to SMU, but I really cannot think of a single person in my class (or in the surrounding classes) who went to TCU.

That has probably changed, though. The elite colleges are much more generous with financial aid than they used to be, which has made the elite schools much more competitive (because more kids from rural and poor schools can have access to, say, Princeton or Stanford than they did 20 years ago). I believe this has pushed admissions downward at competitive high schools and prep schools. Fewer Harvard and Yale acceptances, which results in students at these top high schools looking further down the college list. Rice, in my opinion, has benefited. And I bet TCU has, too.

(06-14-2013 04:58 PM)75src Wrote:  I have seen a recent list of where Kinkaid graduates are going. SMU and TCU both are doing very well with about equal numbers going to each. UT used to get the majority a long time ago but the quota system has cut that way down.

Really? My memory must be pretty flawed. I don't recall many times TCU or SMU were called, and UT was called AT LEAST 15 times. (for those that don't know, they announce the college choice for each graduate as they get their diplomas)

Heck, Austin Community College (pre-admit to UT) sticks out more in my mind with 3 than either TCU or SMU... A&M was obvious to me with 1 because a college freshman at A&M and a high school rising senior who wants to go to A&M were with me and we joked about it.

Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying

+1. I think Del Conte had us on that road. His departure was the biggest loss we have suffered.

(06-11-2013 08:57 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-11-2013 08:47 AM)Owl1991 Wrote:  

(06-09-2013 11:40 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  I think the combination of plenty of money, successful marketing, and successful sports is an excellent model for a university to pursue. The fact that in a particular case those attributes are on top of a thinner academic foundation does not make them attributes we should look down on. (And even in that particular case, we may find before long that those attributes have led to a strengthening of the foundation as well.)

Rice + TCU "best practices" = Stanford

Agreed.