Let’s face it. Being admitted to the University of Texas at Austin is tough—and getting tougher all the time. Virtually every college guide ranks admission to UT-Austin as “very difficult”—right up there with public schools like the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Virginia.

As most Texas college-bound high school seniors and their families know, back in 1998, the Texas Legislature passed a bill called the “Top 10% Plan.” This bill changed the way public universities in Texas select students for admission.

As its name implies, any student graduating in the top-10% of his or her high school class can attend any public university in the state, regardless of other criteria—even your SAT scores. For those students not in the top-10% of their graduating class, UT-Austin considers SAT scores and a variety of other factors. The UT web site states:

“We consider many factors as we review applications and make admissions decisions. In particular we’re looking for insight into two aspects of each applicant: academic achievement and personal achievement.“

The Texas Legislature passed the Top-10% Plan after a federal court ruled that the University of Texas law school’s admissions process was an illegal racial quota system. As a result of that case, the court forbid Texas colleges and universities from using racial and ethnic preferences in their admissions process.

But in 2003, in a pair of cases from the University of Michigan, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under certain circumstances, racial and ethnic preferences may be used by colleges and universities. These cases prompted the University of Texas at Austin to begin considering a students’ skin color and ancestry in making admission decisions.