TJ Falls to 14th in the Nation Per US News

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Switch it to the PSAT or use SOLs. Acknowledge that tests are needed and useful.

They can be useful, but only when considered in context. Test scores without context are obscurative, not illumnating.

It is also true that there are students who simply do not display their talent level in a testing situation and format, which is okay because test taking as a skill has no application beyond academia.

I am a phenomenal test taker and there is literally no area of my life where I can apply that skill to make the world a better place.

Tests may have been overrated in the past, but recently many people now undervalue the importance of tests. Tests are one of the best predictors we have of academic performance. It’s imperfect, but so is everything else.

Schools shouldn’t use a test as the only measure, but there should still be a test. There is a reason many elite universities reinstated the SAT shortly after dropping it.

But again, you are circling back to academic performance as the end-all-be-all.

Honestly - who cares about academic performance? Colleges don’t get donations based on the GPAs of their students, either incoming or outgoing. They get donations and prestige because of what the kids actually DO whether it’s during their tenure or after.

This is why athletes get preference.

Academic performance absolutely should matter. That is why the elite schools reinstated the SAT. It matters.

Should it be the end-all-be-all of everything? Maybe not. You’re putting words in my mouth. But it matters, and schools need to measure it. Tests are one of the best ways to do it.

You didn’t make an argument for *why* it should matter. I’m being serious when I ask - when it comes to what a student does in college and gets out of it, who on earth cares what their grades are?

We just assume that it matters somehow… and yes, I get using high school grades for college admissions on some level, but you’re using exam performance’s ability to correlate with college GPA as an excuse to keep them top of mind - and college GPAs are largely irrelevant beyond a certain age/experience threshold. Unless you’re staying on the academic treadmill in grad school.

GPAs don’t tell us about intelligence - they tell us who is good at doing school and cares enough to do their best at it. Exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known. Both of these things set children up to inhabit the world that currently exists, rather than to invent the world of the future. They set us up to be solid doctors who can apply existing knowledge to known and understood situations, but not to solve the next great unknown medical challenge.

But standardized test scores do.

No, they really don't. At best they give you a snapshot of what a student has been exposed to - as I said, exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known.

There is a distinct difference between knowledge and intelligence - very mediocre, workaday people can make themselves useful in life by gathering a large amount of knowledge.... for now.

We are rapidly approaching an event horizon where machines can synthesize knowledge reliably better than humans can, and where machines can perform mechanical tasks better and more consistently than humans can.

Generative AI remains behind in the creation of new, useful knowledge, and this will continue to be the case for some time until that which is "useful" is redefined.

We are approaching the end of the phase of human existence where the ability to spew back information is of societal value beyond quiz shows like "Jeopardy". (By the way, pretty sure that top-end AI would massacre humans in that game nowadays - anyone remember the Watson series?)

I believe that college still has tremendous value, but increasingly grades and even degrees do not - that is, for their own sake. As long as you have the requisite content area knowledge at some point, it matters less and less whether or not you can prove it in a vacuum.

Yes, they really do. We have known that we can measure intelligence with standardized tests this since before WWII.
Almost every standardized test has a G load and measures intelligence. Some have ore than others and tests specifically designed to test IQ are the best at doing so.

You seem to be trying to distinguish between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence without really understanding what they are.

The SAT is a better and less biased predictor of college performance than pretty much any other measure we have.

And again - no one cares about college performance. It's not 1968 anymore and we've moved past believing that IQ tests measure anything of consequence besides someone's ability to prepare for an IQ test. Thank the prep industry for making previously worthwhile tools completely valueless.

I understand perfectly what they are, and critically, that crystallized intelligence, while useful and necessary for menial and mid-level associative tasks, is rapidly becoming obsolete in the absence of fluid intelligence.

The exceptional schools of tomorrow will seek to identify, develop and cultivate that fluid intelligence and it is there that I hope to see TJ strive in its new era. Test scores might decline but impact would skyrocket, and that's a tradeoff we should all celebrate.

All employers care about college GPA.

Almost every scientific paper on the subject reinforces the notion that IQ tests a real thing that has real consequences in lifetime outcomes.

You STILL don't know what crystallized intelligence is.
Crystallized intelligence is what you get when you combine fluid intelligence with experience.
All the knowledge in the world does not equate to crystallized intelligence if there is no actual intelligence there.

If the exceptional schools of tomorrow are going to seek and cultivate fluid intelligence, then they will need testing to do it.

Categorically false except to say that they care about it for *some* jobs.

And while we're at it, it is not the job of STEM schools or STEM colleges to optimize lifetime outcomes. It is their job to optimize their impact on the world. It is then the job of STEM corporations to optimize their bottom lines in accordance with an incentive structure that hopefully correlates profit with impact - but the schools get donations when they graduate innovators, not code monkeys.

OK, so which jobs don't care about GPA?

DP. First job out of college? Sure. Many do consider it. Second job? Third? Barely any.

We are literally talking about the first job out of college.

Indeed. And before too long people don’t care about that either. They care how you approached your first job out of college far more than what that job was. And as long as it’s remotely connected with your intended industry, you’re probably going to be okay.

The parents on this thread have done a phenomenal job of making my point for me - their shortsighted behaviors raise their child’s floor on some level, but severely curtail their child’s ceiling.

The obsession with the first job out of college as the alpha and omega is just hilarious.

Your first job out of college has a significant effect on your career prospects.

[Anonymous]

Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night too think you're JMU great can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to equity trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations ain't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in traditional ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night to think your JMU grad can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to head trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations don't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in nontraditional ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night too think you're JMU great can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to equity trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations ain't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in traditional ways.

1) Equity trader at Jane Street is not a position to aspire to. Congratulations - you’re going to make a ton of money helping other people make a ton of money. At best, you will complete your life with minimal impact and set your kids up to be trust fund babies.

2) JMU grads can absolutely work their way up into meaningful positions of impact - but I appreciate your acknowledgment that access to elite educational opportunities can make an impact on how seriously one is taken in some fields due to backwards thinking. As long as this type of thinking persists in legacy industries, there is a need for programs that allow qualified students from non traditional backgrounds to have access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Switch it to the PSAT or use SOLs. Acknowledge that tests are needed and useful.

They can be useful, but only when considered in context. Test scores without context are obscurative, not illumnating.

It is also true that there are students who simply do not display their talent level in a testing situation and format, which is okay because test taking as a skill has no application beyond academia.

I am a phenomenal test taker and there is literally no area of my life where I can apply that skill to make the world a better place.

Tests may have been overrated in the past, but recently many people now undervalue the importance of tests. Tests are one of the best predictors we have of academic performance. It’s imperfect, but so is everything else.

Schools shouldn’t use a test as the only measure, but there should still be a test. There is a reason many elite universities reinstated the SAT shortly after dropping it.

But again, you are circling back to academic performance as the end-all-be-all.

Honestly - who cares about academic performance? Colleges don’t get donations based on the GPAs of their students, either incoming or outgoing. They get donations and prestige because of what the kids actually DO whether it’s during their tenure or after.

This is why athletes get preference.

Academic performance absolutely should matter. That is why the elite schools reinstated the SAT. It matters.

Should it be the end-all-be-all of everything? Maybe not. You’re putting words in my mouth. But it matters, and schools need to measure it. Tests are one of the best ways to do it.

You didn’t make an argument for *why* it should matter. I’m being serious when I ask - when it comes to what a student does in college and gets out of it, who on earth cares what their grades are?

We just assume that it matters somehow… and yes, I get using high school grades for college admissions on some level, but you’re using exam performance’s ability to correlate with college GPA as an excuse to keep them top of mind - and college GPAs are largely irrelevant beyond a certain age/experience threshold. Unless you’re staying on the academic treadmill in grad school.

GPAs don’t tell us about intelligence - they tell us who is good at doing school and cares enough to do their best at it. Exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known. Both of these things set children up to inhabit the world that currently exists, rather than to invent the world of the future. They set us up to be solid doctors who can apply existing knowledge to known and understood situations, but not to solve the next great unknown medical challenge.

But standardized test scores do.

No, they really don't. At best they give you a snapshot of what a student has been exposed to - as I said, exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known.

There is a distinct difference between knowledge and intelligence - very mediocre, workaday people can make themselves useful in life by gathering a large amount of knowledge.... for now.

We are rapidly approaching an event horizon where machines can synthesize knowledge reliably better than humans can, and where machines can perform mechanical tasks better and more consistently than humans can.

Generative AI remains behind in the creation of new, useful knowledge, and this will continue to be the case for some time until that which is "useful" is redefined.

We are approaching the end of the phase of human existence where the ability to spew back information is of societal value beyond quiz shows like "Jeopardy". (By the way, pretty sure that top-end AI would massacre humans in that game nowadays - anyone remember the Watson series?)

I believe that college still has tremendous value, but increasingly grades and even degrees do not - that is, for their own sake. As long as you have the requisite content area knowledge at some point, it matters less and less whether or not you can prove it in a vacuum.

Yes, they really do. We have known that we can measure intelligence with standardized tests this since before WWII.
Almost every standardized test has a G load and measures intelligence. Some have ore than others and tests specifically designed to test IQ are the best at doing so.

You seem to be trying to distinguish between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence without really understanding what they are.

The SAT is a better and less biased predictor of college performance than pretty much any other measure we have.

And again - no one cares about college performance. It's not 1968 anymore and we've moved past believing that IQ tests measure anything of consequence besides someone's ability to prepare for an IQ test. Thank the prep industry for making previously worthwhile tools completely valueless.

I understand perfectly what they are, and critically, that crystallized intelligence, while useful and necessary for menial and mid-level associative tasks, is rapidly becoming obsolete in the absence of fluid intelligence.

The exceptional schools of tomorrow will seek to identify, develop and cultivate that fluid intelligence and it is there that I hope to see TJ strive in its new era. Test scores might decline but impact would skyrocket, and that's a tradeoff we should all celebrate.

All employers care about college GPA.

Almost every scientific paper on the subject reinforces the notion that IQ tests a real thing that has real consequences in lifetime outcomes.

You STILL don't know what crystallized intelligence is.
Crystallized intelligence is what you get when you combine fluid intelligence with experience.
All the knowledge in the world does not equate to crystallized intelligence if there is no actual intelligence there.

If the exceptional schools of tomorrow are going to seek and cultivate fluid intelligence, then they will need testing to do it.

Categorically false except to say that they care about it for *some* jobs.

And while we're at it, it is not the job of STEM schools or STEM colleges to optimize lifetime outcomes. It is their job to optimize their impact on the world. It is then the job of STEM corporations to optimize their bottom lines in accordance with an incentive structure that hopefully correlates profit with impact - but the schools get donations when they graduate innovators, not code monkeys.

OK, so which jobs don't care about GPA?

DP. First job out of college? Sure. Many do consider it. Second job? Third? Barely any.

We are literally talking about the first job out of college.

No, we are talking about: “no one cares about college performance” and
“all employers care about college GPA”. Not just the first job.

And that is in context of jobs you get coming out of college.

No, that is a moment in time. The conversation is broader, discussing life after college, contributions to the world, donations back to colleges, etc.

You may be fixated on that very first job out of college but no one looks back and measures their success by their first job.

And I say this as someone who attended top undergrad/grad programs and had an elite job coming out of grad school. Thirty years later, the top players in my field have a wide variety of backgrounds. And I don’t know the first job for most of them.

Career “success” is driven by different factors than academic success. Obviously.

One of my college buddies was recruited by a firm that greatly valued athletes for their dedication and work ethic. GPA was a factor as well, but only to a point. They weren’t simply hiring the kids with the highest GPAs. And all of those kids with mediocre GPAs ended up with a job as well.

So, no, not all employees care about college GPA.

[Anonymous]

Employers^ (typing while eating lunch!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night too think you're JMU great can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to equity trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations ain't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in traditional ways.

This was very, very true up until about the mid-‘90s. It has gotten less true every five years since then and the pace has accelerated in each increment. There’s a reason why people are (incorrectly, in my view) questioning the value of college altogether right now.

In STEM, the real top end value is in creating and harnessing the next big thing, not in mastering the last big thing. Legacy academic attitudes focus on the latter when the former is where the real progress lies - and that’s getting more true every day.

And by the way - you don’t have to even get a job at a major firm to make something incredible and change the world anymore. Tech is democratized more than ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night too think you're JMU great can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to equity trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations ain't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in traditional ways.

1) Equity trader at Jane Street is not a position to aspire to. Congratulations - you’re going to make a ton of money helping other people make a ton of money. At best, you will complete your life with minimal impact and set your kids up to be trust fund babies.

2) JMU grads can absolutely work their way up into meaningful positions of impact - but I appreciate your acknowledgment that access to elite educational opportunities can make an impact on how seriously one is taken in some fields due to backwards thinking. As long as this type of thinking persists in legacy industries, there is a need for programs that allow qualified students from non traditional backgrounds to have access.

And yet it is one of the most desired employers for the most competitive college grads... because you can make over 200K fresh out of college.
Pretty much every selective employer uses the same rubric.
They hire smart people.

JMU grads can have fine lives but they will normally not find themselves in a position to make a large impact outside their household.

Hiring smart people is not backward thinking, it is how we built civilizations that don't collapse under the weight of their own virtue signalling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Switch it to the PSAT or use SOLs. Acknowledge that tests are needed and useful.

They can be useful, but only when considered in context. Test scores without context are obscurative, not illumnating.

It is also true that there are students who simply do not display their talent level in a testing situation and format, which is okay because test taking as a skill has no application beyond academia.

I am a phenomenal test taker and there is literally no area of my life where I can apply that skill to make the world a better place.

Tests may have been overrated in the past, but recently many people now undervalue the importance of tests. Tests are one of the best predictors we have of academic performance. It’s imperfect, but so is everything else.

Schools shouldn’t use a test as the only measure, but there should still be a test. There is a reason many elite universities reinstated the SAT shortly after dropping it.

But again, you are circling back to academic performance as the end-all-be-all.

Honestly - who cares about academic performance? Colleges don’t get donations based on the GPAs of their students, either incoming or outgoing. They get donations and prestige because of what the kids actually DO whether it’s during their tenure or after.

This is why athletes get preference.

Academic performance absolutely should matter. That is why the elite schools reinstated the SAT. It matters.

Should it be the end-all-be-all of everything? Maybe not. You’re putting words in my mouth. But it matters, and schools need to measure it. Tests are one of the best ways to do it.

You didn’t make an argument for *why* it should matter. I’m being serious when I ask - when it comes to what a student does in college and gets out of it, who on earth cares what their grades are?

We just assume that it matters somehow… and yes, I get using high school grades for college admissions on some level, but you’re using exam performance’s ability to correlate with college GPA as an excuse to keep them top of mind - and college GPAs are largely irrelevant beyond a certain age/experience threshold. Unless you’re staying on the academic treadmill in grad school.

GPAs don’t tell us about intelligence - they tell us who is good at doing school and cares enough to do their best at it. Exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known. Both of these things set children up to inhabit the world that currently exists, rather than to invent the world of the future. They set us up to be solid doctors who can apply existing knowledge to known and understood situations, but not to solve the next great unknown medical challenge.

But standardized test scores do.

No, they really don't. At best they give you a snapshot of what a student has been exposed to - as I said, exam scores tell us who can parrot back information that is known.

There is a distinct difference between knowledge and intelligence - very mediocre, workaday people can make themselves useful in life by gathering a large amount of knowledge.... for now.

We are rapidly approaching an event horizon where machines can synthesize knowledge reliably better than humans can, and where machines can perform mechanical tasks better and more consistently than humans can.

Generative AI remains behind in the creation of new, useful knowledge, and this will continue to be the case for some time until that which is "useful" is redefined.

We are approaching the end of the phase of human existence where the ability to spew back information is of societal value beyond quiz shows like "Jeopardy". (By the way, pretty sure that top-end AI would massacre humans in that game nowadays - anyone remember the Watson series?)

I believe that college still has tremendous value, but increasingly grades and even degrees do not - that is, for their own sake. As long as you have the requisite content area knowledge at some point, it matters less and less whether or not you can prove it in a vacuum.

Yes, they really do. We have known that we can measure intelligence with standardized tests this since before WWII.
Almost every standardized test has a G load and measures intelligence. Some have ore than others and tests specifically designed to test IQ are the best at doing so.

You seem to be trying to distinguish between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence without really understanding what they are.

The SAT is a better and less biased predictor of college performance than pretty much any other measure we have.

And again - no one cares about college performance. It's not 1968 anymore and we've moved past believing that IQ tests measure anything of consequence besides someone's ability to prepare for an IQ test. Thank the prep industry for making previously worthwhile tools completely valueless.

I understand perfectly what they are, and critically, that crystallized intelligence, while useful and necessary for menial and mid-level associative tasks, is rapidly becoming obsolete in the absence of fluid intelligence.

The exceptional schools of tomorrow will seek to identify, develop and cultivate that fluid intelligence and it is there that I hope to see TJ strive in its new era. Test scores might decline but impact would skyrocket, and that's a tradeoff we should all celebrate.

All employers care about college GPA.

Almost every scientific paper on the subject reinforces the notion that IQ tests a real thing that has real consequences in lifetime outcomes.

You STILL don't know what crystallized intelligence is.
Crystallized intelligence is what you get when you combine fluid intelligence with experience.
All the knowledge in the world does not equate to crystallized intelligence if there is no actual intelligence there.

If the exceptional schools of tomorrow are going to seek and cultivate fluid intelligence, then they will need testing to do it.

Categorically false except to say that they care about it for *some* jobs.

And while we're at it, it is not the job of STEM schools or STEM colleges to optimize lifetime outcomes. It is their job to optimize their impact on the world. It is then the job of STEM corporations to optimize their bottom lines in accordance with an incentive structure that hopefully correlates profit with impact - but the schools get donations when they graduate innovators, not code monkeys.

OK, so which jobs don't care about GPA?

DP. First job out of college? Sure. Many do consider it. Second job? Third? Barely any.

We are literally talking about the first job out of college.

No, we are talking about: “no one cares about college performance” and
“all employers care about college GPA”. Not just the first job.

And that is in context of jobs you get coming out of college.

No, that is a moment in time. The conversation is broader, discussing life after college, contributions to the world, donations back to colleges, etc.

You may be fixated on that very first job out of college but no one looks back and measures their success by their first job.

And I say this as someone who attended top undergrad/grad programs and had an elite job coming out of grad school. Thirty years later, the top players in my field have a wide variety of backgrounds. And I don’t know the first job for most of them.

Career “success” is driven by different factors than academic success. Obviously.

One of my college buddies was recruited by a firm that greatly valued athletes for their dedication and work ethic. GPA was a factor as well, but only to a point. They weren’t simply hiring the kids with the highest GPAs. And all of those kids with mediocre GPAs ended up with a job as well.

So, no, not all employees care about college GPA.

Here is the comment that set off this conversation about GPA:

"I'm asserting that college GPA really doesn't matter for much of anything except as a gateway to grad school"

Here is the response:

"And if you think college GPA is only useful for grad school then why are there GPA requirements for in campus interviewing?"

This conversation is about the value of GPA and the common understanding was that we were talking about that first job coming out of college.
Where do you get the impression that this conversation about GPA extended beyond that first job out of college.
Did you think that I was arguing that people cared about Amy Coney Barett's GPA in college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe what you want. If it helps you sleep at night too think you're JMU great can work his way up from loan officer at capital one to equity trader at Jane Street, don't let me stop you. But you are lying to yourself if you think these organizations ain't care about your academic performance when they hire you.

This is true at every elite employer from law firms to investment banks to consulting companies to tech. If you're not smart in the traditional ways, you will have a hard time getting opportunities to show that you are smart in traditional ways.

This was very, very true up until about the mid-‘90s. It has gotten less true every five years since then and the pace has accelerated in each increment. There’s a reason why people are (incorrectly, in my view) questioning the value of college altogether right now.

In STEM, the real top end value is in creating and harnessing the next big thing, not in mastering the last big thing. Legacy academic attitudes focus on the latter when the former is where the real progress lies - and that’s getting more true every day.

And by the way - you don’t have to even get a job at a major firm to make something incredible and change the world anymore. Tech is democratized more than ever.

People are questioning the value of college because most college degrees offer very little net value.
If you are a literature major at a private college ranked below 200 or so, it's hard to see how you are going to make that degree pay off without going to grad school.

The "top end" value in stem is the next big thing?
We already know what the next big things are.
Do you think they just started working on AI when chat gpt came out. They've been working on AI for a decade.
The next big thing is being developed righty now by people that are already working on the current big thing.

There are very few people that are not working at a major firm (or being financed by one) that change the tech world.
And they do not generally finance JMU grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly - what is the point of doing this assessment AFTER they have been admitted?

Its easy to say 'go back to base' but in reality - its a very hard thing to do and a vast majority dont go back to base and just will suffer thr 4 years at TJ.

Right now the racial make up of the student body is:

ASIAN 1,278
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 118
HISPANIC OR LATINO 155
TWO OR MORE 118
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 437

If everyone that was accepted went to and stayed at TJ the student body would look like this:

ASIAN 1,284
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 127
HISPANIC OR LATINO 181
TWO OR MORE 122
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 485

So ignoring the froshmores (I know there are a lot of them but there seems to be almost zero information about them).

We see a large gap among hispanic students (about 26 students) who presumably returned to their base school and white students (about 48 students). I suspect that a lot of asians are leaving and getting replaced by froshmores. The black kids are gutting it out.

Bring back a more objective test. I agree the old process was crooked - kids shared the questions at Curie and those who went there had an advantage.

So maybe just use the 8/9 grade PSAT question paper as admissions criterion. It will surface the top kids ready for TJ and will not be subject to question leaks at Curie.

The problem is that any sort of testing is going to select for asians. Whenever you see people trying to eliminate testing (or any other objective measure of merit), they are trying to avoid over-selecting asians. It's not that they don't want asians, they just don't want so many asians that everyone else gets crowded out. So you reduce standards and make the admissions more random. Once testing (or any other objective merit based criteria) becomes a significant part of the admissions decision you end up with too many asians.

The racial disparity existed before Quant Q. It existed before Curie. They used to use the SHSAT way back when and then started engaging in experimentation to try and get different racial results.

At least this way the pool of admitted students looks more diverse even if the diverse kids don't actually matriculate. The freshman class

Does it occur to you that the bolded statement is racist?

Something like 1 or 2% of other groups get above a 1500 on the SATs.
Aboust 10% of asians get above a 1500 on the SAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly - what is the point of doing this assessment AFTER they have been admitted?

Its easy to say 'go back to base' but in reality - its a very hard thing to do and a vast majority dont go back to base and just will suffer thr 4 years at TJ.

Right now the racial make up of the student body is:

ASIAN 1,278
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 118
HISPANIC OR LATINO 155
TWO OR MORE 118
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 437

If everyone that was accepted went to and stayed at TJ the student body would look like this:

ASIAN 1,284
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 127
HISPANIC OR LATINO 181
TWO OR MORE 122
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 485

So ignoring the froshmores (I know there are a lot of them but there seems to be almost zero information about them).

We see a large gap among hispanic students (about 26 students) who presumably returned to their base school and white students (about 48 students). I suspect that a lot of asians are leaving and getting replaced by froshmores. The black kids are gutting it out.

Bring back a more objective test. I agree the old process was crooked - kids shared the questions at Curie and those who went there had an advantage.

So maybe just use the 8/9 grade PSAT question paper as admissions criterion. It will surface the top kids ready for TJ and will not be subject to question leaks at Curie.

The problem is that any sort of testing is going to select for asians. Whenever you see people trying to eliminate testing (or any other objective measure of merit), they are trying to avoid over-selecting asians. It's not that they don't want asians, they just don't want so many asians that everyone else gets crowded out. So you reduce standards and make the admissions more random. Once testing (or any other objective merit based criteria) becomes a significant part of the admissions decision you end up with too many asians.

The racial disparity existed before Quant Q. It existed before Curie. They used to use the SHSAT way back when and then started engaging in experimentation to try and get different racial results.

At least this way the pool of admitted students looks more diverse even if the diverse kids don't actually matriculate. The freshman class

Does it occur to you that the bolded statement is racist?

How is the statement racist? It's an (unfortunate) fact. You might venture into the realm of racism by offering opinions on why the test gap exists, but it certainly exists.

See https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity and look at the "Wide race gaps in SAT math scores" chart.

38% of Asians score in 700-800 range on SAT math. That falls to 9% for Whites, 2% for Hispanics, and 1% for Blacks. If you were to pick an objective test for entry into TJ -- a STEM school -- you would pick some type of test that would have approximately the same distribution, and Asian students would be overrepresented. The only way to narrow the gap is to do something other than merit testing, with merit being STEM ability as opposed to something else. Pretending the facts are any different is ignoring reality.

The numbers you cite are not necessarily related to ability. If you want a school to educate kids with STEM ability, there are better ways to identify those kids than with a standardized test that can be gamed.

Not really. Standardized tests are pretty much the best way to identify the smart kids at any sort of scale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly - what is the point of doing this assessment AFTER they have been admitted?

Its easy to say 'go back to base' but in reality - its a very hard thing to do and a vast majority dont go back to base and just will suffer thr 4 years at TJ.

Right now the racial make up of the student body is:

ASIAN 1,278
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 118
HISPANIC OR LATINO 155
TWO OR MORE 118
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 437

If everyone that was accepted went to and stayed at TJ the student body would look like this:

ASIAN 1,284
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 127
HISPANIC OR LATINO 181
TWO OR MORE 122
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 485

So ignoring the froshmores (I know there are a lot of them but there seems to be almost zero information about them).

We see a large gap among hispanic students (about 26 students) who presumably returned to their base school and white students (about 48 students). I suspect that a lot of asians are leaving and getting replaced by froshmores. The black kids are gutting it out.

Bring back a more objective test. I agree the old process was crooked - kids shared the questions at Curie and those who went there had an advantage.

So maybe just use the 8/9 grade PSAT question paper as admissions criterion. It will surface the top kids ready for TJ and will not be subject to question leaks at Curie.

The problem is that any sort of testing is going to select for asians. Whenever you see people trying to eliminate testing (or any other objective measure of merit), they are trying to avoid over-selecting asians. It's not that they don't want asians, they just don't want so many asians that everyone else gets crowded out. So you reduce standards and make the admissions more random. Once testing (or any other objective merit based criteria) becomes a significant part of the admissions decision you end up with too many asians.

The racial disparity existed before Quant Q. It existed before Curie. They used to use the SHSAT way back when and then started engaging in experimentation to try and get different racial results.

At least this way the pool of admitted students looks more diverse even if the diverse kids don't actually matriculate. The freshman class

Does it occur to you that the bolded statement is racist?

How is the statement racist? It's an (unfortunate) fact. You might venture into the realm of racism by offering opinions on why the test gap exists, but it certainly exists.

See https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity and look at the "Wide race gaps in SAT math scores" chart.

38% of Asians score in 700-800 range on SAT math. That falls to 9% for Whites, 2% for Hispanics, and 1% for Blacks. If you were to pick an objective test for entry into TJ -- a STEM school -- you would pick some type of test that would have approximately the same distribution, and Asian students would be overrepresented. The only way to narrow the gap is to do something other than merit testing, with merit being STEM ability as opposed to something else. Pretending the facts are any different is ignoring reality.

The numbers you cite are not necessarily related to ability. If you want a school to educate kids with STEM ability, there are better ways to identify those kids than with a standardized test that can be gamed.

I don't think that poster cares about that at all . They simply preferred a system that favored those with serious interest and financial means.

I'm the poster of the statistics. My post doesn't take any position on which system is the right one. I am merely pointing out the fact that any merit test you use for STEM will result in Asian overrepresentation. And by "merit test," I mean a test that measures current abilities.

As for the previous poster, of course the SAT tests current capabilities. It might not measure very well inherent ability to learn a subject over times (though, there is almost certainly a strong correlation). But the point is, if you are trying to come up with a test to measure current ability to succeed at a competitive STEM-focused school, that test will overrepresent Asians to a large degree. Now, once you can accept that fact, you can have a debate about whether anything should be done to racially balance and, if so, how that should be done -- whether earlier intervention, race plus factors, etc., etc.

The SAT can be gamed.

And yet it is a more reliable predictor of academic performance than any other measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly - what is the point of doing this assessment AFTER they have been admitted?

Its easy to say 'go back to base' but in reality - its a very hard thing to do and a vast majority dont go back to base and just will suffer thr 4 years at TJ.

Right now the racial make up of the student body is:

ASIAN 1,278
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 118
HISPANIC OR LATINO 155
TWO OR MORE 118
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 437

If everyone that was accepted went to and stayed at TJ the student body would look like this:

ASIAN 1,284
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 127
HISPANIC OR LATINO 181
TWO OR MORE 122
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 485

So ignoring the froshmores (I know there are a lot of them but there seems to be almost zero information about them).

We see a large gap among hispanic students (about 26 students) who presumably returned to their base school and white students (about 48 students). I suspect that a lot of asians are leaving and getting replaced by froshmores. The black kids are gutting it out.

Bring back a more objective test. I agree the old process was crooked - kids shared the questions at Curie and those who went there had an advantage.

So maybe just use the 8/9 grade PSAT question paper as admissions criterion. It will surface the top kids ready for TJ and will not be subject to question leaks at Curie.

The problem is that any sort of testing is going to select for asians. Whenever you see people trying to eliminate testing (or any other objective measure of merit), they are trying to avoid over-selecting asians. It's not that they don't want asians, they just don't want so many asians that everyone else gets crowded out. So you reduce standards and make the admissions more random. Once testing (or any other objective merit based criteria) becomes a significant part of the admissions decision you end up with too many asians.

The racial disparity existed before Quant Q. It existed before Curie. They used to use the SHSAT way back when and then started engaging in experimentation to try and get different racial results.

At least this way the pool of admitted students looks more diverse even if the diverse kids don't actually matriculate. The freshman class

Does it occur to you that the bolded statement is racist?

How is the statement racist? It's an (unfortunate) fact. You might venture into the realm of racism by offering opinions on why the test gap exists, but it certainly exists.

See https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity and look at the "Wide race gaps in SAT math scores" chart.

38% of Asians score in 700-800 range on SAT math. That falls to 9% for Whites, 2% for Hispanics, and 1% for Blacks. If you were to pick an objective test for entry into TJ -- a STEM school -- you would pick some type of test that would have approximately the same distribution, and Asian students would be overrepresented. The only way to narrow the gap is to do something other than merit testing, with merit being STEM ability as opposed to something else. Pretending the facts are any different is ignoring reality.

The numbers you cite are not necessarily related to ability. If you want a school to educate kids with STEM ability, there are better ways to identify those kids than with a standardized test that can be gamed.

I don't think that poster cares about that at all . They simply preferred a system that favored those with serious interest and financial means.

I'm the poster of the statistics. My post doesn't take any position on which system is the right one. I am merely pointing out the fact that any merit test you use for STEM will result in Asian overrepresentation. And by "merit test," I mean a test that measures current abilities.

As for the previous poster, of course the SAT tests current capabilities. It might not measure very well inherent ability to learn a subject over times (though, there is almost certainly a strong correlation). But the point is, if you are trying to come up with a test to measure current ability to succeed at a competitive STEM-focused school, that test will overrepresent Asians to a large degree. Now, once you can accept that fact, you can have a debate about whether anything should be done to racially balance and, if so, how that should be done -- whether earlier intervention, race plus factors, etc., etc.

The SAT can be gamed.

And yet it is a more reliable predictor of academic performance than any other measure.

You misspelled wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly - what is the point of doing this assessment AFTER they have been admitted?

Its easy to say 'go back to base' but in reality - its a very hard thing to do and a vast majority dont go back to base and just will suffer thr 4 years at TJ.

Right now the racial make up of the student body is:

ASIAN 1,278
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 118
HISPANIC OR LATINO 155
TWO OR MORE 118
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 437

If everyone that was accepted went to and stayed at TJ the student body would look like this:

ASIAN 1,284
BLACK (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 127
HISPANIC OR LATINO 181
TWO OR MORE 122
WHITE (NOT OF HISPANIC ORIGIN) 485

So ignoring the froshmores (I know there are a lot of them but there seems to be almost zero information about them).

We see a large gap among hispanic students (about 26 students) who presumably returned to their base school and white students (about 48 students). I suspect that a lot of asians are leaving and getting replaced by froshmores. The black kids are gutting it out.

Bring back a more objective test. I agree the old process was crooked - kids shared the questions at Curie and those who went there had an advantage.

So maybe just use the 8/9 grade PSAT question paper as admissions criterion. It will surface the top kids ready for TJ and will not be subject to question leaks at Curie.

The problem is that any sort of testing is going to select for asians. Whenever you see people trying to eliminate testing (or any other objective measure of merit), they are trying to avoid over-selecting asians. It's not that they don't want asians, they just don't want so many asians that everyone else gets crowded out. So you reduce standards and make the admissions more random. Once testing (or any other objective merit based criteria) becomes a significant part of the admissions decision you end up with too many asians.

The racial disparity existed before Quant Q. It existed before Curie. They used to use the SHSAT way back when and then started engaging in experimentation to try and get different racial results.

At least this way the pool of admitted students looks more diverse even if the diverse kids don't actually matriculate. The freshman class

Does it occur to you that the bolded statement is racist?

How is the statement racist? It's an (unfortunate) fact. You might venture into the realm of racism by offering opinions on why the test gap exists, but it certainly exists.

See https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity and look at the "Wide race gaps in SAT math scores" chart.

38% of Asians score in 700-800 range on SAT math. That falls to 9% for Whites, 2% for Hispanics, and 1% for Blacks. If you were to pick an objective test for entry into TJ -- a STEM school -- you would pick some type of test that would have approximately the same distribution, and Asian students would be overrepresented. The only way to narrow the gap is to do something other than merit testing, with merit being STEM ability as opposed to something else. Pretending the facts are any different is ignoring reality.

The numbers you cite are not necessarily related to ability. If you want a school to educate kids with STEM ability, there are better ways to identify those kids than with a standardized test that can be gamed.

I don't think that poster cares about that at all . They simply preferred a system that favored those with serious interest and financial means.

I'm the poster of the statistics. My post doesn't take any position on which system is the right one. I am merely pointing out the fact that any merit test you use for STEM will result in Asian overrepresentation. And by "merit test," I mean a test that measures current abilities.

As for the previous poster, of course the SAT tests current capabilities. It might not measure very well inherent ability to learn a subject over times (though, there is almost certainly a strong correlation). But the point is, if you are trying to come up with a test to measure current ability to succeed at a competitive STEM-focused school, that test will overrepresent Asians to a large degree. Now, once you can accept that fact, you can have a debate about whether anything should be done to racially balance and, if so, how that should be done -- whether earlier intervention, race plus factors, etc., etc.

The SAT can be gamed.

And yet it is a more reliable predictor of academic performance than any other measure.

You misspelled wealth.

Which word did I misspell?

Peer reviewed studies from Harvard and Brown conclude that test scores are equally predictive for poor and rich alike.
https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/test-scores/