The University of Texas at Austin Second in Nation with Graduates Accepted for Teach for America Program

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin ranks second in the nation's top 20 large-sized colleges and universities contributing graduating seniors to Teach for America's 2009 corps.

This fall, 71 graduates from The University of Texas at Austin will begin teaching in urban and rural public schools across the country through the Teach for America program. The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor ranked first in the large-sized institutions category with 80 graduates participating. Other high-ranking universities included Cornell University, third with 66 graduates, University of California-Berkeley, fourth with 62, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, fifth with 56.

Teach for America is the national corps of recent college graduates who commit to teach for at least two years in urban and rural public schools. During the 2008-09 academic year, Teach for America received a record 35,000 applications from graduating seniors, postgraduates and professionals. About 4,100 new corps members will start this fall teaching in schools across the country.

A spokesman for Teach for America said the 2009 corps earned an average grade-point average of 3.6 and a combined SAT score of 1333, and 89 percent held leadership positions as undergraduates. Admission to the teacher corps was even more selective than in previous years. At more than 130 colleges and universities, more than 5 percent of the senior class applied, including 11 percent of all seniors at Ivy League universities. Nearly 4 percent of seniors from The University of Texas at Austin applied.