Politicians And Billionaires Caught Snaking Dumb Kids Into University Of Texas
Dozens of highly powerful Texan politicians and millionaires helped under-qualified students gain admittance into the University of Texas at Austin by writing letters to university officials.
While this type of thing happens everywhere, UT is catching some flack after The Dallas Morning News obtained records showing that over 250 letters were written on behalf of 73 students with high school GPAs below the 2.9 mark.
An investigation into the questionable UT admission process known as the Kroll report, conducted between 2009 and 2012, brought the aforementioned letters to the surface. In wake of the investigation, UT President Bill Powers stepped down from his position in June.
From The Dallas Morning News:
Among those who wrote directly to then-President Bill Powers and then-Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa, bypassing the admissions office, were famed golfer and UT grad Ben Crenshaw, former UT regent Scott Craven, Austin lawyer Roy Minton and Sens. Kevin Eltife and Carlos Uresti, records obtained by The Dallas Morning News show.
Dozens of other famous UT alumni also helped tip the scales. They include House Speaker Joe Straus, former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, former regents Jess Hay and Thomas Hicks, former chairman of the state University Coordinating Board Larry Temple and former UT quarterback Randy McEachern.
The letters often cite that the applicants were the children of family friends.
Letters of recommendation also came in from Tom Hicks (former owner of the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Stars) vouching for a kid whose grandparents “have been longtime and generous supporters of UT-Austin.” Advertising exec Roy Spence, whose firm came up with the wildly creative UT logo “We’re Texas,” threw a letter in there, too.
Check out this note penned by a dude named W.A. “Tex” Moncrief, a billionaire oil tycoon in Texas who’s donated tens of millions to the school:
Much like the measurements from the tip of the head to the base of the shaft, when you’ve got heaps of money, the numbers of a loosely-connected, underachieving high schooler’s GPA are automatically and drastically increased.
Read the rest of the letters below:
Grades mean next to shit when you’ve got connections. .
[via The Dallas Morning News]
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
10 years ago at 6:01 pmI really dont see what the big deal is
10 years ago at 6:02 pmHere’s why I’m not okay with this: There’s a kid at my school who received a similar recommendation from the school’s biggest ever donor (think in excess of 150 million dollars). He got in easily to my school but was rejected from plenty of other schools that are considerably easier to get into. He’s very obviously not as smart or even hardworking as his peers, seems to care less about going there, doesn’t fit with the culture, doesn’t participate in school life or take advantage of any of the school’s opportunities, and has said that he considered transferring. The school is a total mismatch for him. It’s not just about kids like him getting in over more qualified candidates. It can become a situation where neither the school nor the student who received the recommendation benefits from the connection.
That’s just my two cents.
10 years ago at 10:23 pmAmazing story; would read again.
10 years ago at 12:41 amI see this scenario from a different point of view…
Rich donor gives his word that student X is University material, probably knowing student X isn’t. University officials believe rich donor and accept said student. Rich donor is pleased they took his word when it’s pretty obvious the kid doesn’t belong. Rich donor continues donating millions of dollars, and the officials and students of the University all profit.
Student X graduates and gets placed at a top firm in his field because of who he knows.
Everyone wins.
10 years ago at 9:01 amExactly fuck wads….we’re talking about 73 students over a span of 3 years in an Undergrad population of over 39,500. Hell, you won’t even see them in the classrooms, just the bars.
10 years ago at 10:34 amCalling yourself “Tex”. TFM.
10 years ago at 6:05 pmEveryone knows the saying “It’s the hands you shake, not the grades you make” but honestly there is a limit to that. People who are unable to make a 2.9 in high school need to re-evaluate their lives and perhaps college is not the best place for them to go. I know some of you might not agree with me, but it is just blatantly unfair to use your parents’s connections and money to get you into college.
10 years ago at 6:19 pmOr know you’ll get into college with a shitty gpa so why try
10 years ago at 6:23 pmThere is a reason you didn’t get a bid to RΩR.
10 years ago at 6:24 pmNo one liked my comment and I am being made fun of for being bottom tier so this Monday is clearly going great.
10 years ago at 6:51 pmDont be such a bitch
10 years ago at 8:41 pmStfu bitch
10 years ago at 11:15 pmYou sound like an Arkansas student from Texas to me
10 years ago at 6:31 pmI’m from New York.
10 years ago at 6:40 pmWell, life isn’t fair. So don’t fucking cry about it.
10 years ago at 6:34 pmOozmakappa sounds like that nerd from my math class that was always jealous of my family connections and had no life.
10 years ago at 6:52 pmGtfo, math is cool
10 years ago at 10:20 pmIt’s not like high school grades matter anymore anyways. Any dumbfuck can just go to a community college for a year or two, get easy grades in core classes without even trying, and then transfer to a good school because they have money.
10 years ago at 7:03 pmPeople donate millions of dollars to schools help out the school by giving them more resources to hire faculty, build new buildings, give out more scholarships, and obviously help the athletics. I think schools letting a few kids in because huge donors and politicians who have the the power to increase the schools endowment ask them to is not a big deal especially for a school as big as UT.
10 years ago at 8:03 pmI agree with you 100%, for private schools. But public schools have an obligation to serve the great people of State X [Texas, in this case], and it seems like in this regard, UT failed its taxpayers and citizens.
10 years ago at 10:48 pmHigh school performance =/= intelligence. I had a 2.98 in HS because I was more focused on sports and other things than academics, but I always tested well and some of my AP classmates with 4.0s or close to it were butthurt when I got the higher scores on standardized tests. I just never read anything and always tried to do homework or study for tests the period before. I wasn’t going to get accepted to my first choice school but after 1 year of college I have a 3.8 and in great shape for transferring there. Intelligence is critical thinking + knowledge, and high school isn’t really a great indicator for either one.
10 years ago at 7:56 pmHeadline says billionaires, article says millionaires. Which is it, Cock boy?
10 years ago at 6:36 pmThis does not surprise nor upset me – and you’re a moron if you think it doesn’t happen at every school in the nation. As an university – one of your major jobs is to keep the big time donors happy and if that includes letting less than 3 percent of your incoming freshman class in even though they don’t seem to have ‘earned’ it – you are doing the right thing. It’s called doing business in the real world. This is not a philosophy class 101 discussion.
10 years ago at 6:39 pmExplains how I got in
10 years ago at 6:44 pmOh you must be the frattiest guy on here then
10 years ago at 7:16 pmGetting in because of who you know. TFM.
10 years ago at 6:57 pmYou’re profile picture is fucking creepy^
10 years ago at 7:30 pmJesus man…look who’s talking.
10 years ago at 10:31 amThis has been going on in schools across the country since the dawn of time. I love how people will get mad about a kid coming from a successful family and benefiting from the connections that stem from his family’s success, but when you call out the thouasands of kids who are in school due to some affirmative action measure based on something they were literally just born with such as race, no one bats an eye.
10 years ago at 7:36 pmAs a UT student, you have to be in the top 7% of your graduating class in state to get in, not have a 2.9. We’re a little more intelligent than that
10 years ago at 7:37 pmHA No you get automatic acceptance with that, but if you go to a shit school that means nothing.I graduated with a 4.65 and was not in the top 7 percent of my class. Accepted to UT, visited,hated it. Maybe I’m a little biased but…
10 years ago at 3:31 am