Office of the President

Speeches & Reports

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Texas House of Representatives
March 18, 2008

Remarks by Dr. Elsa A. Murano
President of Texas A&M University

Chairwoman Morrison, Vice Chairman McCall and members of the committee—it is a pleasure to join you this afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss admissions at Texas A&M University.

Texas A&M is proud of our heritage as the state's only land-grant institution of higher education. As such, our mission is to educate all young people in Texas who exhibit scholastic promise.

To accomplish this mission, we must provide a quality education that is accessible to:

• Both the urban and the rural;
• All income levels;
• And the diverse population that makes up the state of Texas.

I know how important this mission is from personal experience. As a young Hispanic girl living in Miami, going to college was something nobody else in my family had done. I am grateful for the doors a college degree opened for me, and it is undoubtedly true that I would not be here today if it wasn't for my academic career.

At Texas A&M, our data shows that we are accomplishing our mission of educating the leaders of tomorrow, no matter where they are from, or who they happen to be. It is noteworthy that:

• 83% of Texas counties have at least one student in our 2007 freshman class. These students come from 1,002 Texas high schools, a significant increase over the 853 high schools represented in our freshman class back in 1996;
• Our admission rate of underrepresented minorities as freshmen has increased by 75% since 2002, while our enrollment of these students has increased by 65% over this same period. We are certainly not yet where we need to be in terms of our student demographics, but the trend is definitely headed in the right direction. And we are committed to having a student body that reflects the ethnic diversity of the state of Texas;
• 25% of our freshmen are the first in their family to pursue a college education; and
• 25% of our freshmen come from household incomes of less than $40,000, based on the data we are able to obtain from FAFSA applications.

We pursue our mission of educating young Texans who exhibit scholastic promise through a variety of strategies, most notably our eight Prospective Student Centers. These centers are located throughout the state, in Dallas-Fort Worth, Corpus Christi, Houston (2 centers), San Antonio, McAllen, Laredo, and on our campus in College Station. At these centers, students and their families can meet one-on-one with our admissions counselors and financial aid advisors to learn more about admissions, academic programs, financial aid, housing and student services at Texas A&M.

Many of the marketing and educational strategies of these centers target underrepresented students, but all include the underlying desire to recruit the most skilled and talented students to Texas A&M, regardless of whether they are prospective new freshmen, or transfer, graduate and international students.

An important element in accomplishing our mission is the process we use in admitting students into our freshman class. We have three categories under which students are admitted into Texas A&M after graduating from high school:

• Students in the top 10% of their high school graduating class;
• Students in the top 25% of their high school graduating class with at least a 1,300 on the SAT or a 30 on the ACT; and a
• Holistic review, in which we take into consideration other types of personal achievement as well as other distinguishing characteristics, both of which could suggest a high probability of success in college.

Based on this admission process, 46% of our entering freshmen are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. Of all educational predictors, class rank has been proven to be a strong predictor of success in college, and the same holds true for us at Texas A&M. These students perform somewhat better than their cohorts, achieving mean GPRs of 3.0 vs. 2.7. Also, 93% of our top 10% students go on to become sophomores, compared with 90% of their cohorts.

We believe that to the extent the top 10% rule may be helping us achieve our mission of being accessible to young people of all geographic, ethnic, and economic backgrounds who have scholastic promise, the ability to utilize the top 10% as one avenue for admissions is desirable.

Although we pursue the most scholastically capable and well-rounded students in our recruiting efforts, it is impossible to discern whether our student demographics are exclusively a result of the top 10% rule. However, we do know from personal testimonies that it is a significant incentive to some students, especially those who are the first in their families to go to college. High school students in Texas know that if they are in the top 10% of their graduating class, they can go to a top tier institution such as Texas A&M, regardless of where they live, their economic status, or the color of their skin.

Texas A&M's goal is to become one of the top 10 public institutions of higher education in the country. We want Texas A&M to be an elite academic institution, but we are also proud of our land-grant heritage and our commitment to access and affordability. To borrow a quote from our student body president, Connor Prochaska, "Texas A&M will not likely ever be the cheapest in the state, but we definitely want Texas A&M to be the best overall value."

I am eager to continue to work hard as President of Texas A&M, and in partnership with our colleagues at the University of Texas and other state universities, to ensure that we continue to provide a quality education to young people in Texas who exhibit scholastic promise.

Thank you for your time today, and for your continued support of higher education.