Background Summary
The “Top 10 Percent Law” is the common name for Texas House Bill 588, the state law passed in 1997 that guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class automatic admission to all state-funded universities.
Lawmakers approved a unique implementation of the law for UT Austin under Senate Bill 175 passed in May 2009. Under this law, 75 percent of the first-year in-state students must be automatically admitted. The law requires the university set the threshold for automatic admission on an annual basis to meet these requirements, with the decision being announced each fall for students entering their junior year of high school.
Currently, The University of Texas at Austin automatically admits eligible Texas students in the top 6% of their high school graduating class beginning in the summer and fall of 2022.
This is the same automatic admission threshold in use for the summer and fall of 2021 and spring of 2022.
In 2017, the university lowered the automatic admission rate from 7% to 6% in response to consistent growth in the number of Texas high school graduates and an increase in applications to UT Austin. From 2013 to 2017, applications to UT Austin rose from 38,000 to 51,000.
Statements
The Top 10 percent law has had a positive impact on increasing geographic diversity and providing more accessibility to UT Austin to students from all schools around the state. The university will work within any system lawmakers approve.
Resources
Texas Admissions: Undergraduate admissions information
Admissions Research (including reports to the State of Texas)
News
Growth in Texas Drives UT Austin Automatic Admission to Top 6 Percent – UT News – Sept. 15, 2017