In addition to the answers given so far, if your immediate goal is to make sure emacs opens up at the full height, you can set the fullscreen parameter of either the default-frame-alist or the initial-frame-alist, depending on whether or not you want all your frames to open at the full height, or just the first one:

(setq default-frame-alist '((fullscreen . fullheight)))
(setq initial-frame-alist '((fullscreen . fullheight)))

(If you've already got something in these alists, of course, use cons or append rather than a straight setq.)

In addition to the answers given so far, if your immediate goal is to make sure emacs opens up at the full height, you can set the fullscreen parameter of either the default-frame-alist or the initial-frame-alist, depending on whether or not you want all your frames to open at the full height, or just the first one:

(add-to-list 'initial-frame-alist '(fullscreen . fullheight))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(fullscreen . fullheight))