Colleges say yes to all IWA graduates, not just top 10 percent

For years, the buzz for Texas students looking to attend a state college or university has been to make it into the top 10 percent of their class for automatic acceptance.  

The Incarnate Word Academy (IWA) 2012 graduating class has shown that the limitations of the top 10 percent rule are not an obstacle.  

Not only did 100 percent of IWA seniors graduate this past spring, but also 100 percent of those seniors were accepted into college. 

As families seek to ensure that their children are accepted into the college or university of their choice, many consider the top 10 percent rule an option. This sometimes results in shuffling a student from school to school and may add additional stress to a young high school student’s life. 

The idea that only the top 10 percent of high school graduates are guaranteed college acceptance is merely an assumption, according to IWA President Charles Imbergamo. 

“In fact, it was not only the top 10 percent of IWA students who were accepted into the colleges of their choice within the state of Texas, many others in the senior class were overwhelmingly accepted into sought-after state universities,” Imbergamo said.

IWA’s graduating class of 2012 achieved acceptance to a wide range of schools including large state universities such as the University of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas State and the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

In-state private and religious universities, such as Trinity, Baylor, Texas Christian, University of the Incarnate Word and Concordia also accepted IWA graduates from the class of 2012. 

The same holds true for nationally recognized private universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, Cornell and Vanderbilt, as well as small, private universities such as Lewis and Clark, Sewanee and Washington and Lee. 

More than 32 percent of students were accepted to Texas A&M, 21 percent were accepted to the University of Texas and 13 percent were accepted to Baylor University. 

In addition to breaking free of the 10 percent rule, IWA students received $3.3 million in college scholarship offers, and this number continues to rise.

 “When students are provided an environment in which the individual gifts of every child are recognized and celebrated, their ability to achieve is limitless,” Imbergamo said.