Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I saw this play out, on a smaller scale, this year for TJ admissions. Our next door neighbors DD & our DD applied. Our neighbor, 1st generation Asian, did 3 years of 4 hour a week drill and kill on the TJ entrance test. I'm sure her test scores were great. But, she did that to the exclusion of everything else. She dropped her instrument in 8th grade so that she could study more (when I asked her why Sshe wasn't at the first concert of the year she said, "my parents thought I needed to focus on TJ this year") and had no other extracurriculars to take her focus away from studying for the TJ test.
Meanwhile, DD doubled down on her music 8th grade year, and joined a community music group in addition to playing in school. And did a very demanding academic extracurricular, where he received regional awards. DD carried a 3.9 in MS (one A-). I'm sure our neighbor carried this or a 4.0. DD got a good, but not off the charts, score on the math section of the TJ test (aced the verbal). Our neighbor probably had a higher score, at least in math (I didn't ask). But DD was admitted and our neighbor was not.
I feel awful for our neighbor, who is a really nice kid. But I think her parents did her a disservice. When it came time for essays, which count as much or more than the test, there was nothing there. And I think DD will go to TJ, counting with her instrument, continue with her extracurricular, and contribute a lot to classroom discussion and the TJ community. Even if our neighbor had a higher math score, I think this was the right result. The Asian American group suing TJ (which is 79% Asian) believe that admission should be based solely on the math section of the TJ test. It is just two completely different viewpoints.
Yes, there are two different viewpoints, but that's not the main complaint by Asian Americans.
Let's use the example of your first generation Asian neighbor, and let's say he WON'T get in. What Asian Americans are complaining about is, why is
that, when another African American boy from the same neighborhood and with the same exact lack of worthy extracurriculars and with 10% worse scores is ADMITTED?
It's clear racial bias, all because supposedly a) all Asians are the same and b) all of them, regardless of country/ religion/ language/ SES are "overrepresented."