In the Beginning...UT, on the seventh day....

[EastStang]

An interesting article about how UT covers up its messes.

http://www.empowertexans.com/features/ut-cover-up/

I am of course not surprised at all.

[Stallion]

This is from a right ring former A&M Corp of Cadet with a clear political agenda funded by a powerful conservative organization. He is part of the UT power struggle which he describes in the article. He's a participant acting as an observer. I'm not taking sides in the power struggle-I went to high school with Wallace Hall and know him well-but realize this is a highly partisan attack piece.

[StallionsModelT]

"late one night while the t-sips were in bed".........

[orguy]

This is from a right ring former A&M Corp of Cadet with a clear political agenda funded by a powerful conservative organization. He is part of the UT power struggle which he describes in the article. He's a participant acting as an observer. I'm not taking sides in the power struggle-I went to high school with Wallace Hall and know him well-but realize this is a highly partisan attack piece.

The majority of those ball squeezing 'cadet' pretty boys never even serve in the military but they sure are active in just about anything that is deemed "powerful conservative". Likely a UT reject who is bitter that he had to attend that big cow college in the middle nowhere.

[Topper]

This guy may be coming at the problem from a severe slant, but the whole power structure at UT lacks any sort of meaningful oversight. The only time a hint at the truth comes out is when they get too greedy and start undermining one another. UT is more of an ongoing, publicly funded construction project than the first class university it is charted to be. If they were half as interested in academics as they are doling out overpriced construction projects to their cronies, UT would rival Cal Berkeley.

[gostangs]

They have a case of cronyism in just about everything they do - and probably needed the kick in the pants delivered by Hall. Usually these sort of squabbles do end up with some reform - if for no other reason just because some light gets shown on the issue. Messy - but effective.

[tristatecoog]

Certainly y'all know this goes on at every school. It even, or especially, goes on at our military academies.

Zaffirini is a UT ex and is using her power, ostensibly on behalf of a donor. Branch is a good guy but I imagine he's written many letters on behalf of UT applicants as well. Four of his five kids went there.

Special admissions happen with athletes all the time. If Wallace Hall is truly interested in UT's reputation, make sure that athletes have requirements in the same ballpark as regular students. I suppose Wallace is beyond reproach himself, but this is how people get elected to regent seats in the first place (i.e., big donations to the governor).

[orguy]

This guy may be coming at the problem from a severe slant, but the whole power structure at UT lacks any sort of meaningful oversight. The only time a hint at the truth comes out is when they get too greedy and start undermining one another. UT is more of an ongoing, publicly funded construction project than the first class university it is charted to be. If they were half as interested in academics as they are doling out overpriced construction projects to their cronies, UT would rival Cal Berkeley.

Rival Cal someday? Dream on for UT folk. Some of UT's graduate engineering programs are world class and come close to Cal but on the undergraduate/overall academic reputation scale UT will never approach schools like Cal, Michigan or Virgina. Too many cultural differences between Texas and those states. Texas as a state places low priority on education in general imho.

And are not all large state schools chartered to be "first class"?

[tristatecoog]

Why is Virginia much culturally different than Texas? The state seems to give preferential treatment to UVa but maybe that was historically.

I believe UT was given 2/3rds of the original PUF funds and A&M got 1/3. With quite a few billion in endowment money, it seems like UT ought to be higher ranked. Isn't their endowment larger than the UC endowment? If so, I wonder if they could free up some of those funds or if it's all accounted for. I'm looking forward to the year when SMU beats UT in the US News rankings.

[Pony^]

Why is Virginia much culturally different than Texas? The state seems to give preferential treatment to UVa but maybe that was historically.

I believe UT was given 2/3rds of the original PUF funds and A&M got 1/3. With quite a few billion in endowment money, it seems like UT ought to be higher ranked. Isn't their endowment larger than the UC endowment? If so, I wonder if they could free up some of those funds or if it's all accounted for. I'm looking forward to the year when SMU beats UT in the US News rankings.

So, you know, the 2/3rds of the PUF you attribute to UT is shared among all of the schools in the UT system. Further, since it is a permanent fund, the funds can't be "freed up;" the "earnings" on the fund are "available" to support the various schools in the UT System.

California has a larger population than Texas and Berkeley has a smaller student population than UT. Also, Berkeley has far greater discretion in student admissions than does UT.

In what ways do you contend that Virginia gives UVa preferential treatment over the College of William and Mary or Virginia Tech?

UVa takes about 1/3 of its students from out of state, UT is limited to 10 percent. Somewhat like Texas, UVa has political pressure to take students from throughout the state which hurts its ranking. UVa turns down many better qualified students from Northern Virginia (Washington D.C. suburbs) in order to admit students from the rest of the state. Also, UVa is a much smaller school than UT. UVa's president did spend most of her career at UT.

[EastStang]

UVA is also about 75 years older than UT. Its culture developed in the uniquely old South of tobacco and bourbon. UT developed in the burgeoning SW where everyone was from somewhere else. UVA academically is possibly the second best state school in Virginia (William and Mary in some polls claims that honor). Also, everything in Virginia is old. It was the capital of the South in the Civil War. There is a monument to everything. George Washington literally slept here. Also, the current state of Virginia has two Virginia's. Everything North of Fredericksburg is pretty much a DC suburb. Everything south and west of there is Virginia. So, UVa gets the suburban brains with the down state gentryed.

[tristatecoog]

Great info re: UVa. I love the campus! I read that UVa is more like a public Northwestern and W&M is more like UChicago. 24K students vs. 8K at W&M. Despite a similar size, W&M isn't much like SMU. Maybe more like Emory?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/col ... s-uva.html

I heard UC had to accept the top 4% in high school classes but that was a few years ago. Yes, Berkeley is much smaller than UT and is more exclusive. It's the top target school in the system but others are highly rated too and get lots of attention (LA, SD, Davis, etc.).

Good points about the "permanent" university fund. Isn't the UT system endowment MUCH larger than the UC endowment? I remember when the UT system was second only to Harvard's. I looked it up and UT's system endowment is now #3, A&M is #7 and UC is #14. So, when doing less with more...

http://www.examiner.com/article/just-th ... ments-2014

[EastStang]

Having attended both W&M and SMU, no that are not similar except in size. William and Mary is very academically minded with high degree of difficulty classes. A "C" is an average grade at W&M, a "B" is an average grade at SMU (and UVa). SMU and UVa are similar in the party atmosphere. W&M folk party, but its not as engrained in the culture and kind of haphazard. Also W&M women are from the top of their class academically, nuff said there.