Previously, both schools were members of the now-defunct Texas Christian Interscholastic League ( TCIL ); after that league's demise and their inability to gain admittance into the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools ( TAPPS ) or Southwest Preparatory Conference ( SPC ), they decided to further pursue their decade-long battle of gaining membership into the UIL . They are so far the only private schools to be granted UIL membership, as the new UIL rules established after the Jesuit schools'entry prohibited those schools who were eligible for memberships in other similar associations ( such as TAPPS or the SPC ) to apply.