Jamie Stockwell
UT DAILY TEXAN
Austin (U-Wire)- Administrators from UT System colleges said Tuesday they are unsure of the effects of the state's new top 10 percent admissions law.
Under the law, any student who is in the top 10 percent of his or her graduating class must automatically be admitted to any state college or university. No consideration is given to the quality of the school. While the university can request the students' scores they cannot be used for admissions purposes
"There's a girl who we admitted under the new law who graduated in the top nine percent of her class, but she only has a 650 SAT score. It's just not a good situation," said Franklyn Jenifer, president of UT-Dallas, a campus of about 1,500 students.
W.A. Baker, vice president of UT-Tyler, said the new law limits the admission decisions at UT-Tyler. He said the 56 applicants who have applied to the school have all been admitted. From the 56 applicants, less than 15 percent are minorities.
State lawmakers passed the top 10 percent law in 1997 to counteract the effects of the Hopwood vs. Texas court ruling that led to the end of affirmative action policies in Texas public universities.
UT System Chancellor William Cuningham said what's important is the component schools are complying with the new law.
"I'm very pleased with the progress and what's going on at all the campuses," he said. "What I'm most interested in, though, is the conclusion and the end result of all this."
Walker said his expectations are high for incoming freshmen admitted under the law.
"With something like this, we won't know how it works out until we've seen the results, and I'm anxious to see the results," Walker said.
Jim Vick, vice president for Student Affairs, said that although the university admitted a smaller number of freshmen this year, their attempt at recruiting minorities has been heavy.
"We've done a lot to make sure we bring in more minorities, and we'll continue to do so and bring the university back the way it was," he said.
Francis Frederick, acting UT System vice-chancellor for academic affairs, said the recruiting of minorities does not stop with the new law. Although applications for the university have increased, officials from UT-Dallas and UT-Tyler are down from last year.
"We still recruit heavily, but we're finding that we're losing large numbers for financial reasons," Jenifer said.
Jenifer attributed the low number of freshmen to the recent addition of lower division classes to the campus six years ago. UT-Dallas had only offered upper division and graduate courses.
"It takes a while to catch on, and we understand that," he said.