I think you're confusing the data based on how it was shown. The classes of 2023 and 2024 had record highs in Asian students. The numbers of Asian kids per class at TJ dropped slightly for class of 2025 on (not a ton; just a bit). https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO: ![]() |
trying again...^
https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO: ![]() |
In the fall of 2021, TJ had 1809 students, 1303 of whom were Asian (72%). This fall TJ has 2111 students, 1278 of whom were Asian (61%). The goal was to decrease the percentage of Asian students, and the best way to do that was to make it more difficult to get in from the top feeders, which themselves were - and still are - heavily Asian. |
Sounds like you're a bit confused. The data clearly showed Asian enrollment at TJ was at a historic high. |
This is incredibly misleading. A while ago, someone posted the numbers that showed admissions vs. applications for the major demographic cohorts, and all were within a few percent of each other. Asians weren't the highest or the lowest. It looked incredibly fair and balanced. |
Yes, when they opened up TJ to more than just a few wealthy feeders, it also stoked more interest especially with groups who had been previously shut out. |
It looked a cross section of the applicant pool. Which would be fine is academic ability was evenly spread through the applicant pool. But it's not. |
Nobody was ever shut out, they just had to be the best. The single largest increase in racial groups under the new system was white kids. Were white kids shut out too? |
Parents are allowed to attend these sessions? My DD is an AAP student, recieved an email that they are eligible to apply, and attended an in-school session session about TJ but as far as I'm aware, there was no info session that parents were invited to. Does it depend on the school or should all feeder schools be offering this? |
Carson sent an email that included information about a TJ info session for families. We didn’t attend because we have a 7th grader and I know what the requirements are to apply. I assume that DS will want to attend next year and we will go. |
The goal was NOT to decrease the percentage of Asian students. The goal was to increase the percentage of students coming from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. It went without saying that there was a strong likelihood that the percentage of Asian students would decrease as a result of the changes, mostly because the explosion in Asian population at TJ from classes of 2010 to 2024 is almost entirely explainable by the mass migration of South Asian families to the Dulles corridor during that same time period. Which happened because you had the combining factors of the tech boom and the worldwide attention placed on TJ from being named America's top high school by USNWR. Those South Asian families are the single wealthiest demographic subgroup in Northern Virginia, and by a pretty healthy margin. And they were, as a cohort, extremely motivated to send their kids to TJ - no one argues this point. Now, we can have an argument about whether or not it is a noble endeavor to open access to TJ to students who happened to be born into suboptimal economic circumstances, when it was de facto closed to them before. But literally no part of this was EVER about reducing the percentage of Asian students. And yes, I acknowledge that they knew it was going to happen, not that it matters. That's what happens when you face a problem of overrepresentation - eliminating the cause of the overrepresentation will eliminate the overrepresentation. As I've said hundreds of times here, the fact that it impacts you doesn't make it about you, any more than UVA's decision to start admitting women in the 1970's was about men. And what makes this ever more exhausting is this disingenuous bad-faith attempt at victimhood by folks claiming to represent the "Asian community", as though that's some monolithic thing that exists. To the extent that there are any "victims" here, they are kids who almost uniformly come from very well-off families that will be able to secure internships, go to fantastic colleges (better than they'd get into if they went to TJ), and in most cases probably graduate without any student debt. The delta for these kids between their lives attending or not attending TJ is basically zero. |
They have a 32 minute video that says it all. I don’t even know why they pay someone to give the same presentation to every middle school in the county. That’s kind of a waste. |
Well, for one thing, that person answers questions. |
Every part! The conversation between board members mentions targeting Asians specifically. |
What middle schools don't have sufficient numbers of kids taking at least geometry? Even Whitman manages to have a geometry class |