UT Austin is allowed to accept only the top 6%. It also creates weird incentives for students. A friend of mine works in the front office of a local high school and she knows a lot of students who have dropped electives such as band because it lowers their grade point. In Austin area schools AP courses are weighted on a 6.0 scale which makes the problem worse if you want broaden your education and take non-weighted classes.
Yeah this is a serious defect in the high school system. Other than our valedictorian with an Eidadic memory got too marks in all classes, the rest of us who did band, a non honors course, all 4 years suffered from not getting a the weighted boost and ended up ranked a few places lower than our peers who got the same 1 or 2 Bs but took honors theatre or honors debate even if they actually liked band or track team better.
The similar issue repeats itself in college where employers lkke McKinsey and Goldman prefilter for the 3.8+ gpa kids as a proxy for intellect/hard work. But this discourages the career minded students from going for the hardest classes with tough but intellectually stimulating professors and comes again down to who can figure out how to best cherry pick for easy grades.
That's the reason I like having some classes as pass or fail. It really encourages students to take some classes that are out of their comfort zone and try something different. Else they'll stick to the optimal path and might miss out on some things they might have been good at.
