TJ Admissions Roundup

[Anonymous]

On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That makes more sense. The largest beneficiaries of the change in admissions were low-income Asian families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That was never stated by any school board official that I’m aware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That's only because you're a racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That makes more sense. The largest beneficiaries of the change in admissions were low-income Asian families.

You can select for poverty without removing objective measures of merit.
This wasn't about poverty.
This wasn't about merit.
This was about race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That was never stated by any school board official that I’m aware of.

It was in the 4th circuit opinion to the c4tj lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

The above post is very focused on financial poverty, which is one type of disadvantage. In the context being discussed here, less advantaged refers to being financially disadvantaged, yes, but also the disadvantage of having parents with less education or less interest in education.

Babies don’t choose their parents. It is not a level playing field when there are children with parents who pay for test prep and other children with parents who don’t have the same level of education or ability to support their kids educationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That makes more sense. The largest beneficiaries of the change in admissions were low-income Asian families.

You can select for poverty without removing objective measures of merit.
This wasn't about poverty.
This wasn't about merit.
This was about race.

You'd think that were true but under the old system, 99% of those who got in were from a small set of wealthy feeders, so that wasn't working

[Anonymous]

Why do people keep insisting that buying the test answers had merit?

[Anonymous]

The change was implemented during the mass hysteria generated with George Floyd news.

The school board took advantage of this to show off their woke credentials. Nothing more.

I have attended the school board meetings, they way they handled the QA and the misleading way they answered the questions, the last minute changes, etc. all are very indicative of the emphasis on race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

The above post is very focused on financial poverty, which is one type of disadvantage. In the context being discussed here, less advantaged refers to being financially disadvantaged, yes, but also the disadvantage of having parents with less education or less interest in education.

Babies don’t choose their parents. It is not a level playing field when there are children with parents who pay for test prep and other children with parents who don’t have the same level of education or ability to support their kids educationally.

Babies don't choose their innate intellect or internal motivation either and we don't level the playing field for those things.

At some point it really doesn't matter why one kid is smarter than the other, the curriculum designed for the smartest kids should be available to the smartest kids and not to some other kids that we think would have been the smartest kids if only they had wealthier parents, or more educated parents or more involved parents.

The poor kids at stuy sat the same test as the children of doctors and lawyers.
The poor kids aren't getting a preference at stuy.
This isn't a social experiment; this is education, and going to TJ isn't some prize, it is an opportunity.
An opportunity that you don't really benefit from if you aren't smart enough.
The poor kids at stuy may have had to overcome more to reach the same level of achievement as the middle class kids but they did it despite their poverty. In fact 40% of the kids at stuy are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

We can try to improve the world, but we can't pretend we live in an alternate world and say that the kid who studied hard and made sacrifices to achieve academic success is no better than a much less accomplished kid because that second kid's parents didn't care as much about his education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand, there might be lots of less advantaged kids who are more likely to find solutions to future problems because they are better at original thinking because they haven’t had everything handed to them by parents who are financially well off and/or focused on education.

I was the kid who was a NMF from a less advantaged family, so I know that kids like that need more support from the schools than kids who get plenty of support at home. As a society, it would be too bad to lose out on all that those kids can do in the future.

I don't doubt that less advantaged kids can achieve a lot.
I was not wealthy growing up, if you want to argue about who grew up poorer, we can have that debate but I think I met the threshold for growing up poor.
My family was on government assistance from time to time.
I know what government cheese, government peanut butter and government canned meat taste like.
I can tell you the denomination of a food stamp by its color.
But I also think that poor kids can meet objective measures of academic merit as well as anyone else.

There are three selective high schools in NYC whose alumni have won a ton of math and science prizes including 15 nobel prizes, a handful of wolf, field, abel, prizes in math, and a bunch of others.
These schools range from 40% to 60% free/reduced lunch.
Admissions to these schools is based on a single test.
The SHSAT is more or less the same test that TJHSST used until recently.
In this day and age of test prep, the population at these schools are significantly poorer than TJ and even more asian.

We know how to give preferences for poverty while preserving merit but we didn't do that at TJ because that was not the purpose of the change.
The purpose of the change was to reduce the asian population and increase the population of kids of other skin colors.
If we tried to preserve preferences for poverty while preserving merit, we would have seen an even larger concentration of asians as poor asians take a disproportionate number of spots meant for poor kids.

Are you sure about that? I thought the change was to address the rampant test buying and allow those who can't afford that a level playing field.

That makes more sense. The largest beneficiaries of the change in admissions were low-income Asian families.

You can select for poverty without removing objective measures of merit.
This wasn't about poverty.
This wasn't about merit.
This was about race.

You'd think that were true but under the old system, 99% of those who got in were from a small set of wealthy feeders, so that wasn't working

They weren't trying to select for poverty under the old system.
It's not like we were getting an even cross section of wealthy kids from McLean, Longfellow and Carson; we were getting mostly asian kids from McLean and Longfellow and Carson.
Rocky Run isn't wealthy.
Frost isn't really wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The change was implemented during the mass hysteria generated with George Floyd news.

The school board took advantage of this to show off their woke credentials. Nothing more.

I have attended the school board meetings, they way they handled the QA and the misleading way they answered the questions, the last minute changes, etc. all are very indicative of the emphasis on race.

I still remember when they asked why we were still using tests when the ivy league had stopped using tests.
I asked if the recent reintroduction of testing in the ivy league meant that testing would come back to tj admissions.
I don't expect a response.