UT Austin’s auto-admit rule raises the stakes

AUSTIN – Inside Higher Ed reports Brandie Cleaver, the college counselor at Stephen F. Austin High School, has a metaphor she likes to use when talking to students about applying to the University of Texas at Austin. As with most of her teaching analogies, this one is about dessert—specifically, pie. “Mrs. Cleaver loves pie,” she says. “Coconut and chocolate are my favorites, but UT Austin pie is OK, too.” She’s drawing a pie chart on the whiteboard in her office, which seems to have an open-door policy: About a dozen students sit around the large room in desks and on colorful chairs, working on homework or applications under walls plastered with college pennants. One pipes up from a bean bag: “The pie thing again?”

It’s a familiar analogy for Cleaver’s students because most of them have the state flagship, whose campus is just uptown, on their short list of prospective colleges, and she often has to explain just how slim their chances of admission really are. The pie conceit helps a complicated state policy issue go down a bit easier for 17- and 18-year-olds, though they may not love the taste. “This big chunk of the pie is already eaten by the time you apply; if you’re not in the top of your class, you’re wrestling with everyone else for this other little slice,” Cleaver explains, wielding a dry-erase marker like a cake knife. “If you’re a junior or senior not in [the top 6 percent of your class] and you’ve only got Austin on your list of schools, it’s time to think of some backups, because there’s just not enough pie to go around.” Getting into UT Austin is no sweat for Texas residents who graduate in the top 6 percent of their high school class. In accordance with a nearly 30-year-old state policy—which, until last year, was the only one of its kind in the country—all those students have to do is apply and they’ll be automatically admitted. The law mandates that at least 75 percent of UT Austin’s admits come from this pool.