Editor’s Note: Dr. Frank Ashley, Texas A&M’s director of admissions, sat down with 12th Man Magazine’s Homer Jacobs to discuss the process by which student-athletes are admitted into the university in this issue’s Q&A session:

Q: When you took over admissions a year and a half ago, what were your main goals for the department, and have you achieved them?

Ashley: I came in with the idea that nothing was really broken. It wasn’t like I was coming in to fix anything. It was, ‘What can I fine-tune or tweak to make it a better organization?’ For about the first six months, I did a lot of observing and did a lot of evaluating to see what were the good things and what needed tweaking.

I came up with a strategic plan, and that’s really what I’ve been working on for the last year. A couple of elements of that plan were, first of all, to increase the visibility of admissions and to educate the people about admissions around the campus and off the campus, too. It’s been under a veil of secrecy for so long. I’ve been called everything… I’m the gatekeeper or I work for the ‘office of denials.’ I’ve really tried to educate people to let them know what it takes to get into school at Texas A&M. And there are a lot of positives there. Really, about two-thirds of the people who apply are admitted to Texas A&M. We have a 66 percent acceptance rate, and when you look at some of the schools that Dr. (Ray) Bowen has alluded to in the Vision 2020 campaign, they don’t have an acceptance rate anywhere close to that.

Plus, the other universities don’t have the restraint of the top 10 percent rule (of automatic admission). Almost 52 percent of our admits are in the top 10 percent of their graduating class. That takes a lot off the top right there.

Q: With athletics and admissions, what are the main obstacles you see affecting A&M?

Ashley: I think the main problem if we have to work under the restraints of the NCAA. For a transfer, a student has to have a certain percentage of their degree plan completed before they can be admitted as a transfer student. One thing that Texas A&M doesn’t have that a lot of other universities have is a liberal arts degree or general studies degree where there are a lot of electives. If you look at all the degree programs we have on our campus, they are pretty much straightforward with very few electives. A student who is looking to transfer to Texas A&M – and this is any student – they have to look in our catalog because there’s not a lot of electives in a lot of curricula.

Whereas at some universities where they have a liberal arts or general studies degree, they may have 18-32 hours of courses that you could decide upon. If you’re at Podunk Junior College, and you’re just taking a bunch of courses to just play sports, you’re not going to have the percentage of courses you need to gain admittance.

Q: Do you want to fight that problem or can you fight that?

Ashley: You have to keep in mind that I came from the College of Education. There is one school of thought if we have a general studies or liberal arts degree, at least a kid will get a degree in something. One thing that we’re facing here, there are a lot of kids who are falling through the loops. There are kids with a 2.0 grade-point average, and they can’t major in certain programs. A liberal arts degree would allow those people to get a degree.

My main responsibility is to get students admitted, but another responsibility is to get students admitted who are going to be successful and graduate. If there’s not an avenue for those kids to graduate, it’s not fair.

Q: Is there a level playing field in the Big 12 when it comes to admissions for student-athletes, especially as junior college transfers?

Ashley: Everyone says it’s an admissions issue, but it’s bigger than admissions. If the NCAA says a transfer student has to have 30 percent of his degree completed, and you come to Texas A&M and there is really no fluff curricula, where can I put all his hours to where they would count toward a degree? That’s the problem the transfer students run into.

A perfect example is when I started the sports management program here. The program allows only six hours of electives. Back in the old days when you didn’t need the percentage of hours toward a degree, you could bring in JUCO players like crazy. I remember once looking at a junior college transfer when I was in the College of Education, and he had 18 hours of P.E. classes… he had 18 hours of one- and two-hour P.E. classes.

Q: When you look at cases like Ty Warren and Jesse King – who are student-athletes who came to A&M with shaky academic records, yet have thrived on campus academically – does it make you want to reassess the admissions policies of A&M or the NCAA?

Ashley: It’s a real thin line you walk right there. It hurts the school if you bring in a kid from a high school, and the kid is not successful. It hurts you two ways: You have a scholarship player who is not going to help you on the field or on the court because he’s not eligible. And it hurts you worse because you go back to that school to recruit, and those kids know if Johnny can’t make it at A&M – and if they weren’t as strong academically as he was – there’s no way they’re going to try and make it at A&M.

I really think the athletic department has done a great job in evaluating the academic credentials of the students they’re bringing in. I do know situations of where a coach has said he’d really like to bring a kid in, but doesn’t because he knows the kid won’t be successful.

Q: The diversity issues of A&M have been in the headlines lately. What are the perceptions of A&M with minority students in inner-city Dallas or Houston?

Ashley: We haven’t marketed our admissions department well in the past. There is a perception out there that A&M is this way or that way. I feel like that’s one of the biggest responsibilities I have – to market our department and market the university. When the issue of the cartoon in The Battalion came up, the African-American student coalition had a meeting, and I went to the meeting. I sat there, and nobody knew who I was. Right before I left the meeting, I stood up and introduced myself as Frank Ashley, director of admissions. There were 200 African-American students there, and they were shocked that an African-American was the director of admissions.

Parents ask me what is the best way to sell Texas A&M to their kids, and I tell them to get them here on campus. In recruiting, that’s why coaches try and talk the kids out of visiting A&M. Because the coaches know once the kids get here, they’re going to fall in love with the place.

We realize we have some problems here as far as diversity. We’re working on them. It’s like we have this huge aircraft carrier, and you can’t turn it on a dime. It’s one degree at a time to turn it.

Q: If you could speak out and tell a group of student-athletes about A&M and the misconceptions of its admission process or academic culture altogether, what would you say?

Ashley: I don’t think that people understand this idea about family, being an Aggie and being a part of the Aggie family. As with the cartoon problem… just like other families, we have disagreements. But one thing we do as a family is we get together and discuss it. I’m really proud to be part of this family right now. We have a problem, and we’re discussing it. That’s what makes this place unique. It’s not lip service.

Q: Can A&M compete in the upper division of the Big 12 in all sports with the admissions and academic policies currently in place?

Ashley: Once again, I don’t think it’s an admissions problem. I can admit anybody, but the question is, will that person be successful here? That’s the key thing to focus on. Do you want to admit people just to admit them or do you want to admit someone who has the potential to be successful? I don’t think you have to sacrifice academics for good athletics, and I don’t think you have to sacrifice good athletics for academics.