Step 1 - Top Ten Percent Plan
UT guarantees admission to Texas HS seniors in the top 10% of
their class. This accounts for around 75% of the incoming
freshman class.* UT doesn't look at any other information in a
student's application at this stage except class rank.
In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided
FISHER v. UT-Austin, a case about the legality of UT's
race-conscious admissions policy. In the decision,
the Court reaffirmed the compelling governmental
interest in higher education diversity, and sent the
case back to a lower court for further review.
Admissions policies like UT's allow colleges and
universities across the country to expand
opportunities for new students from
underrepresented communities and increase
diversity on campus.
Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are often
mistakenly portrayed as being left out or even
harmed by race-conscious admissions. In reality,
Asian enrollment was 17-20% BEFORE and AFTER UT
began considering diversity. AAPIs actually benefit
from flexible admissions policies like UT's because:
(1) it gives individualized consideration to each
student's unique circumstances, and
(2) it enriches the academic environment with
perspectives from a wide range of racial,
socioeconomic, cultural, and other experiences.
Let's take a closer look at UT's admissions policy to
see why…
*This percentage has been adjusted year to year from 10% to 9% or 8%. The cutoff is
the top 8% for Fall 2013.
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Step 2 - Individualized Review
UT admits the rest of the freshman class through an
individualized review of their applications, looking at an
academic index (grades & test scores) and then a personal
achievement index of 6 equally-important factors: leadership /
extracurriculars / awards / work experience / community
service / special circumstances (including race, class & more).
More AAPI students are admitted under individualized
review than any other racial minority.
Here are some common misconceptions about race-conscious admissions--and the realities behind them.
It's wrong to discriminate based on race, so aren't diversity
considerations just special treatment for certain groups?
UT should adopt a "merit-based" admissions program
instead of a "race-conscious" one because "merit" is how
you really measure achievement.
Asian American & Pacific Islander students just don't
benefit from race-conscious admissions.
Looking at class expands opportunities for the
underprivileged. So why does UT need to look at race?
It's not only wrong--it's illegal. But diversity considerations are NOT the
same as discrimination. In a race-conscious admissions plan, race is never
the deciding factor for admission. Race & ethnic background is one small
factor that is part of an applicant’s story. It can benefit students of ALL
races, including Whites.
There's actually no difference between “merit-based” and “raceconscious,” so you don’t have to choose one over the other. UT’s program
is a good example of this. All the factors UT considers under individualized
review (extracurriculars, community service, leadership, test scores,
grades, diversity) enable it to pick the best students for its incoming class.
Here are 3 reasons why that's just not true: 1) AAPIs as a group can
benefit from race-conscious admissions in particular academic programs
(when UC Berkeley got rid of race-conscious admissions, Asian enrollment
fell in some graduate programs), 2) Some AAPI subgroups remain
underrepresented in higher education (only 18% of Vietnamese
Americans, one of the largest AAPI subgroups in Texas, have an undergrad
degree compared to 27.5% of all Americans); and 3) exposure to diversity
is one of the most important aspects of a good education.
UT's plan already considers class as one of its factors. But admissions
policies that only consider class diversity don’t do an adequate job of
achieving overall diversity, due to the large number of economically
disadvantaged White applicants. That’s why UT also looks at race &
ethnicity as a separate factor.
For more information, please visit: http://aaldef.org/asian-americans-race-conscious-admissions-faqs.html