Court: TJ's New Admission Policy Does Not Discriminate

[Anonymous]

Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

We also had to work our backsides off to earn the money to buy the test answers too!@

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who say that Asian Americans get in largely because of their test scores and not well rounded applications which may be why others get admitted are doing a great disservice to all the Asian American students who participate in activities such as Advanced music, Quiz bowl, Science Bowl, Robotics teams, DECA, History Bowl, Volunteering etc.... on top of good grades and excellent test scores. They do all this and are still at a disadvantage because they are Asian American.

This is simply not true. The students who are at a disadvantage are the ones who have the excellent test scores and NOT all of these other things. And it's a greater number than you would expect.

But it's worth mentioning as well... You're only going to see a small number of students admitted who have each of those activities on their resume. Elite universities don't need hundreds of kids who participate in DECA - they need a few. Same for all of the others you mentioned.

TJ isn’t an elite university nor is it realistic to think a public school system with 200 schools can replicate the secondary school equivalent of one when using an increasingly opaque and subjective admissions process. At worst, the SB may be deemed to have violated the Constitution in adopting the current process; at best, they will have led a large segment of the community to believe they do not accord Asian children the same respect they accord other children and refuse to treat them as individuals.

There is no sense in which FCPS would have "led" a large segment of the community to believe that they don't respect Asian children.

It bears repeating - AGAIN - that Asian students were the only cohort in the new process who fared significantly better against their percentage of the applicant pool than they should have expected. They continue to constitute a majority of offers - and a significant majority, at that - even though they are no longer a majority of applicants.

If FCPS is intentionally keeping Asian students down in the new process, they're doing an awful job of it.

You think you're so smart with all those facts and reasoning!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s good to know we have a Supreme Court that will soon address such blatantly anti-Asian admissions practices.

I know it's terrible this race-blind process admits mainly Asians discriminates!

If some people are unhappy now, they'll be thrilled with the court's decision that ushers in geographic quotas as the new normal.

I hate to break it to you, but soft geographical quotas are already the norm at most elite schools. Turns out, it’s really good for business for students in all parts of the country to believe that they have a shot to go to their school.

No surprise there. I knew everyone who is anyone does this already because it helps create a diverse class, but most of the posters here don't and have all these crazy expectations that things will be more to their liking.

Harvard sent out mailers to states that don't send a lot of kids inviting students to apply. They sent the mailers to kids who scored at least 1300, but to Asian kids they sent it to those who scored at least 1450.

It was in the case record.
How do you know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who say that Asian Americans get in largely because of their test scores and not well rounded applications which may be why others get admitted are doing a great disservice to all the Asian American students who participate in activities such as Advanced music, Quiz bowl, Science Bowl, Robotics teams, DECA, History Bowl, Volunteering etc.... on top of good grades and excellent test scores. They do all this and are still at a disadvantage because they are Asian American.

This is simply not true. The students who are at a disadvantage are the ones who have the excellent test scores and NOT all of these other things. And it's a greater number than you would expect.

But it's worth mentioning as well... You're only going to see a small number of students admitted who have each of those activities on their resume. Elite universities don't need hundreds of kids who participate in DECA - they need a few. Same for all of the others you mentioned.

TJ isn’t an elite university nor is it realistic to think a public school system with 200 schools can replicate the secondary school equivalent of one when using an increasingly opaque and subjective admissions process. At worst, the SB may be deemed to have violated the Constitution in adopting the current process; at best, they will have led a large segment of the community to believe they do not accord Asian children the same respect they accord other children and refuse to treat them as individuals.

There is no sense in which FCPS would have "led" a large segment of the community to believe that they don't respect Asian children.

It bears repeating - AGAIN - that Asian students were the only cohort in the new process who fared significantly better against their percentage of the applicant pool than they should have expected. They continue to constitute a majority of offers - and a significant majority, at that - even though they are no longer a majority of applicants.

If FCPS is intentionally keeping Asian students down in the new process, they're doing an awful job of it.

You think you're so smart with all those facts and reasoning!

This line of reasoning assumes that the expectation of a getting an offer is equal for all applicants, so any subset of applicants (e.g. partitioned by race) should have offers proportional to the subset's proportion of applications. That's completely ignores the fact that some subsets are more qualified than other subsets. For instance, Asians represent 0.1% of the NFL draft applicant pool and represent 0.5% of the actual draft class (about 1 per year). If we use PP's reasoning above, then Asians are OVERREPRESENTED in the NFL, because their offer rate is much greater than their application rate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is exactly why schools are going away from using standardized exams even when they might be of some use in building a class - because the data gets twisted and misused to create a false narrative.

From my work in admissions, it is broadly true - not with respect to EVERY student, but broadly - that the strongest part of the application for many Asian-American applicants are their exam scores. This is less the case for other groups by a significant margin. Consequently, because what gets those students into the school is their exam scores, Asian Americans who are admitted tend to have higher exam scores than other groups. For others it might be their essays, or their community service, or their course rigor compared to availability, but for Asian students AS A GROUP, it is their exam scores.

And this shouldn’t be surprising given the pride with which parents on these fora and others discuss their children’s exam performance.

But the end result is that bad-faith actors look at comparative exam scores and see that, for example, the average Asian student at Harvard got a 1480 (I’m making this up) while the average white kid there got a 1420 and they use that as evidence of discrimination… when the reality is that the Asian students more frequently were admitted because of their exam scores while other students were perhaps admitted in spite of their exam scores and because of some other outstanding trait.

They are going away from standardized exams because they don't want to make it obvious they are discriminating based on race.
At Harvard it was the admissions officers lowering the personality scores for Asian students. The alumni interviewers were giving high grades.

Lawrence Summers suggested testing affirmative action empirically by doing two sets of admissions groups and seeing the outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what you get for voting for these left wing extremists to the school board. Serves them right.

+1

This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone. First they supported quotas. The courts struck down quotas so they pivoted to affirmative action. And the latest rebranding is DE&I. It's amazing the arguments they will use to justify a racist policy. "It's about creating an inclusive environment." "They bring a different perspective and that makes the team stronger." "Race is just one of the many factors we take into account during the hiring and promotions process."

They are as bad as the crazies still counting ballots to prove Trump won. They have been buying into propoganda for so long that they can't even think clearly or objectively. I can't, for the life of me, understand why nobody on the left (even moderates) ever questions the idea that all aspects of society must have proportional racial representation. It's a very strange goal and if you told someone from another country about our policies, they would look at you like you are crazy.

Precisely what bothers you about an inclusive environment that brings together differing perspectives?

Nothing. If you can do it without discriminating against people, go for it. The problem is that when liberals say they want "differing perspectives," it's code for we want more black people. Your race tends to be a rather insignificant factor when it comes to differing perspectives. Diversity in terms of work experience, ideology, military vs civilian, US vs international, and education are huge factors that really sets people apart and can strenthen a team. Your race, not so much.

Blacks have long been discriminated against in the TJ admissions process and will probably still be discriminated against with the changes, even though their numbers have slightly increased. The Asians are hating on them, even though it’s not them that are making the changes. The powers that be are just not okay with the gamesmanship that has resulted in the school not getting the best students and not getting more white students.

Citation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who say that Asian Americans get in largely because of their test scores and not well rounded applications which may be why others get admitted are doing a great disservice to all the Asian American students who participate in activities such as Advanced music, Quiz bowl, Science Bowl, Robotics teams, DECA, History Bowl, Volunteering etc.... on top of good grades and excellent test scores. They do all this and are still at a disadvantage because they are Asian American.

This is simply not true. The students who are at a disadvantage are the ones who have the excellent test scores and NOT all of these other things. And it's a greater number than you would expect.

But it's worth mentioning as well... You're only going to see a small number of students admitted who have each of those activities on their resume. Elite universities don't need hundreds of kids who participate in DECA - they need a few. Same for all of the others you mentioned.

TJ isn’t an elite university nor is it realistic to think a public school system with 200 schools can replicate the secondary school equivalent of one when using an increasingly opaque and subjective admissions process. At worst, the SB may be deemed to have violated the Constitution in adopting the current process; at best, they will have led a large segment of the community to believe they do not accord Asian children the same respect they accord other children and refuse to treat them as individuals.

There is no sense in which FCPS would have "led" a large segment of the community to believe that they don't respect Asian children.

It bears repeating - AGAIN - that Asian students were the only cohort in the new process who fared significantly better against their percentage of the applicant pool than they should have expected. They continue to constitute a majority of offers - and a significant majority, at that - even though they are no longer a majority of applicants.

If FCPS is intentionally keeping Asian students down in the new process, they're doing an awful job of it.

You think you're so smart with all those facts and reasoning!

This line of reasoning assumes that the expectation of a getting an offer is equal for all applicants, so any subset of applicants (e.g. partitioned by race) should have offers proportional to the subset's proportion of applications. That's completely ignores the fact that some subsets are more qualified than other subsets. For instance, Asians represent 0.1% of the NFL draft applicant pool and represent 0.5% of the actual draft class (about 1 per year). If we use PP's reasoning above, then Asians are OVERREPRESENTED in the NFL, because their offer rate is much greater than their application rate!

Is your assertion that Asians are objectively more qualified to go to TJ than anyone else?

Your NFL example is tainted by small sample size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

Said the quiet part out loud here.

It is a pervasive attitude in certain cultures that elite school admission is an achievement of the parents and should be attributed mostly to parenting.

It’s so pervasive, in fact, that when you call it out on a forum such as this one, they don’t have the faintest idea of how it could possibly be considered problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what you get for voting for these left wing extremists to the school board. Serves them right.

+1

This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone. First they supported quotas. The courts struck down quotas so they pivoted to affirmative action. And the latest rebranding is DE&I. It's amazing the arguments they will use to justify a racist policy. "It's about creating an inclusive environment." "They bring a different perspective and that makes the team stronger." "Race is just one of the many factors we take into account during the hiring and promotions process."

They are as bad as the crazies still counting ballots to prove Trump won. They have been buying into propoganda for so long that they can't even think clearly or objectively. I can't, for the life of me, understand why nobody on the left (even moderates) ever questions the idea that all aspects of society must have proportional racial representation. It's a very strange goal and if you told someone from another country about our policies, they would look at you like you are crazy.

Precisely what bothers you about an inclusive environment that brings together differing perspectives?

Nothing. If you can do it without discriminating against people, go for it. The problem is that when liberals say they want "differing perspectives," it's code for we want more black people. Your race tends to be a rather insignificant factor when it comes to differing perspectives. Diversity in terms of work experience, ideology, military vs civilian, US vs international, and education are huge factors that really sets people apart and can strenthen a team. Your race, not so much.

Blacks have long been discriminated against in the TJ admissions process and will probably still be discriminated against with the changes, even though their numbers have slightly increased. The Asians are hating on them, even though it’s not them that are making the changes. The powers that be are just not okay with the gamesmanship that has resulted in the school not getting the best students and not getting more white students.

Citation?

DP. More Asian students were admitted to the Class of 2025 - the first under the new admissions process supposedly tainted by anti-Asian racism - than there had been Black students admitted to TJ in its entire 35 year history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what you get for voting for these left wing extremists to the school board. Serves them right.

+1

This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone. First they supported quotas. The courts struck down quotas so they pivoted to affirmative action. And the latest rebranding is DE&I. It's amazing the arguments they will use to justify a racist policy. "It's about creating an inclusive environment." "They bring a different perspective and that makes the team stronger." "Race is just one of the many factors we take into account during the hiring and promotions process."

They are as bad as the crazies still counting ballots to prove Trump won. They have been buying into propoganda for so long that they can't even think clearly or objectively. I can't, for the life of me, understand why nobody on the left (even moderates) ever questions the idea that all aspects of society must have proportional racial representation. It's a very strange goal and if you told someone from another country about our policies, they would look at you like you are crazy.

Precisely what bothers you about an inclusive environment that brings together differing perspectives?

Nothing. If you can do it without discriminating against people, go for it. The problem is that when liberals say they want "differing perspectives," it's code for we want more black people. Your race tends to be a rather insignificant factor when it comes to differing perspectives. Diversity in terms of work experience, ideology, military vs civilian, US vs international, and education are huge factors that really sets people apart and can strenthen a team. Your race, not so much.

Blacks have long been discriminated against in the TJ admissions process and will probably still be discriminated against with the changes, even though their numbers have slightly increased. The Asians are hating on them, even though it’s not them that are making the changes. The powers that be are just not okay with the gamesmanship that has resulted in the school not getting the best students and not getting more white students.

Citation?

DP. More Asian students were admitted to the Class of 2025 - the first under the new admissions process supposedly tainted by anti-Asian racism - than there had been Black students admitted to TJ in its entire 35 year history.

Yeah, if anything thing the admissions process is anti-Black and has been for 35 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

Said the quiet part out loud here.

It is a pervasive attitude in certain cultures that elite school admission is an achievement of the parents and should be attributed mostly to parenting.

It’s so pervasive, in fact, that when you call it out on a forum such as this one, they don’t have the faintest idea of how it could possibly be considered problematic.

They don’t work harder than any other culture and the only thing they are doing with backsides is kissing white mommy and daddy’s. They think that is supposed to elevate them to some sort white adjacency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

Said the quiet part out loud here.

It is a pervasive attitude in certain cultures that elite school admission is an achievement of the parents and should be attributed mostly to parenting.

It’s so pervasive, in fact, that when you call it out on a forum such as this one, they don’t have the faintest idea of how it could possibly be considered problematic.

They don’t work harder than any other culture and the only thing they are doing with backsides is kissing white mommy and daddy’s. They think that is supposed to elevate them to some sort white adjacency.

Have a coffee, dear. With lots of cream and sugar. You sound like you need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs on the scale??? Are you referring to working our backsides off so that the kids do well? Well, we have no choice because we cannot pay off the crew or lacrosse coach and we are not 6'5" or 300 lbs. in 5th grade and so don't get into Basketball or Football teams. We do what we can with the tools we have.

Said the quiet part out loud here.

It is a pervasive attitude in certain cultures that elite school admission is an achievement of the parents and should be attributed mostly to parenting.

It’s so pervasive, in fact, that when you call it out on a forum such as this one, they don’t have the faintest idea of how it could possibly be considered problematic.

Not sure it’s any more problematic than having one special school, doling out admissions to that school based on an arbitrary factor such as geography and whether some random admissions officer can discern certain applicants are “disadvantaged,” and then expecting other people to buy into the assertion that the kids who ended up there are superior in any meaningful way to other students.

The former relies on parents working hard to support their children; the latter relies on the state’s insistence that we suspend common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is exactly why schools are going away from using standardized exams even when they might be of some use in building a class - because the data gets twisted and misused to create a false narrative.

From my work in admissions, it is broadly true - not with respect to EVERY student, but broadly - that the strongest part of the application for many Asian-American applicants are their exam scores. This is less the case for other groups by a significant margin. Consequently, because what gets those students into the school is their exam scores, Asian Americans who are admitted tend to have higher exam scores than other groups. For others it might be their essays, or their community service, or their course rigor compared to availability, but for Asian students AS A GROUP, it is their exam scores.

And this shouldn’t be surprising given the pride with which parents on these fora and others discuss their children’s exam performance.

But the end result is that bad-faith actors look at comparative exam scores and see that, for example, the average Asian student at Harvard got a 1480 (I’m making this up) while the average white kid there got a 1420 and they use that as evidence of discrimination… when the reality is that the Asian students more frequently were admitted because of their exam scores while other students were perhaps admitted in spite of their exam scores and because of some other outstanding trait.

They are going away from standardized exams because they don't want to make it obvious they are discriminating based on race.
At Harvard it was the admissions officers lowering the personality scores for Asian students. The alumni interviewers were giving high grades.

Lawrence Summers suggested testing affirmative action empirically by doing two sets of admissions groups and seeing the outcomes.

That's all good and well, but since this is a race-blind process unlike Harvard, they can't exactly treat student scores differently based on race that they don't know. The idea that this process discriminates is bonkers. Asians are disproportionally represented even. So like a PP said if they're trying to keep Asians down, they're doing a terrible job.