TJ admissions change from Merit to Essay impact to Asian American Students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point of being a fantastic, brilliant student in the sciences, if you don't have the capacity to communicate that knowledge with the rest of the world? If you can't write an academic essay, that's a pretty big waste of scientific talent. Makes perfect sense to require that skill.

That is a skill normally taught in high school. Foolish to grade on this to get accepted to high school.

Have you paid no attention to your DC at all? They have been teaching this skill to students throughout grade school and middle school. How well a student picks it up varies. But some of them certainly get it.

Somehow students who fell behind in math and science and also didn't care of those subjects can suddenly write convincingly that they would excel in a STEM HS.

Honors algebra in 8th grade isn't exactly falling behind. It's slightly better than average.

On the plus side a lot of asian kids are getting better at writing. And when they get too good, they will change the test again to eliminate the unfair advantage that comes with hard work and study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This part is true.

"Admissions changed to Essay based, and increased enrollment of 8th grade algebra1 students”

If you didn’t enroll Algebra 1 in 7th grade, then it tells us that you failed to meet the benchmark score on the Iowa test and failed to achieve an advanced pass on the SOL. One thing FPCS knows for sure is that most of those students who enrolled in entry level math 7 honors are definitely non-Asian. Therefore, even without knowing your background, they do know where your background excels. They can recruit from just about any school across the county and be certain that those applicants who present Geometry HN or higher at the time of application are mostly likely Asians. So, skim from the bottom and not from the top. No need to rely exclusively on the applicants zip code. They can just look at the math course in 7th grade.

Is it a coincidence that Algebra 1 offers went up and Asian American student quota came down?

Merit Test based Admissions:
Class of 2019, Asian American 70.20%; algebra 1 offers 5%
Class of 2020, Asian American 71.34%; algebra 1 offers 5%
Class of 2021, Asian American 74.90%; algebra 1 offers 4%
Class of 2023, Asian American 72.87%; algebra 1 offers 4%
Class of 2024, Asian American 73.05%; algebra 1 offers 4%

Admissions changed to Essay based, and increased enrollment of 8th grade algebra1 students:
Class of 2025, Asian American 54.36%; algebra 1 offers =31%
Class of 2026, Asian American 59.82%; algebra 1 offers >25%
Class of 2027, Asian American 61.64%; algebra 1 offers >25%
Class of 2028, Asian American 57.27%; algebra 1 offers >25%

Page 10 has Algebra1 numbers:
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/BWE23Y004896/$file/TJ%20White%20Paper%2011.17.2020.pdf
Increase in Algebra 1 admits:
https://fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

You seem to be equating URM with Algebra 1 and Asian with not-Algebra 1. Actually, the admissions process was designed to select for location - and not all middle schools push Algebra in 7th grade. Many highly discourage it, in Fairfax and other districts. The new admissions process does not select for race, it selects for location, for all the middle schools in Nova.

Ask yourself this question: Would the location have been selected if that criterion resulted in Asian representation increasing from 70+ percent to say 85+ percent?

Maybe, if we lived in a different district with those demographics. Friend, you seem to be thinking that everything is about race. There were a lot of stated and unstated reasons for the admissions change. If you are going to ignore all of them, then you'll be having a conversation with yourself.

The internal emails made it pretty clear this was in fact largely about race. You are lying to yourself if you think otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The average number of Asian students per admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change was 330. The average since the change was 321.

So, on average, there are 9 fewer Asian kids per class after the change.

Nine.

Where are you getting these numbers.

From the class of 2024 (the last year under the old system) to the class of 2025 (the first year of the new system)
Asian kids went from 355 to 299 a reduction of 56
Black kids went from 7 to 39 an increase of 32
Hispanic kids went from 16 to 62 an increase of 46
White kids went from 86 to 123 and increase of 37

If you go back to the class of 2011 TJ is largely white.
Noone seemed bothered by the incredibly low number of black and hispanic students then.
It only started bothering people when TJ became largely asian.

This is what Derrick bell called interest convergence.
White people suddenly found the wisdom of moving away from objective measures of merit when their kids were the ones being excluded by merit.

The class of 2028 has 140 white kids, 315 asian kids, 41 hispanic kids and only 19 black kids. But mission accomplished, that is a good improvement from the 86 white kids that got in under the old system.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Any parents of kids who took the Quant Q during the years the school wàs using it who could ask their kids if they signed an NDA before taking the test?

My kid was already at TJ when they changed to the Quant Q. He remembers talk about the applicants having to sign a statement but says he cant remember for certain and can’t swear to it. He does remember having to sign honor code statements when taking certain tests in classes and that some teachers collected tests after kids saw their scores and talked to the kids about not sharing questions with anyone, inside or outside the school.

On the roundup thread I posted a link and language that test takers agree to before the test.

As I posted above, that language was not about test questions but the design.

Regardless,it's clear that many test takers reported these questions back to the prep center to help improve their question bank.

who are the test takers? what's the prep center?

No one knows about this fictitious story, but for this one poster who appears afraid of naming the prep center.

It’s no big secret. Curie and probably other test prep companies.

Details in the roundup thread.

Which Curie? Is it Curie Learning that continues to send the same hundred each year, even after admissions change? How is that possible?

Well, this entire Curie mention seems like either a brilliant marketing tactic or a fictional story made up by a delusional Curie loather. Most likely the latter.

As I've said many times, I do not care how much success Curie has in separating Indian families from their hard-earned money in an attempt to keep up with the rest of their community and get a leg up on everyone else.

All I care about is that that behavior is not specifically rewarded by the TJ Admissions process, and inarguably it no longer is. We won, and the Supreme Court ended the conversation earlier this year. And if Curie won too because of greater exposure, that's fine. I genuinely don't care.

Kids from disadvantaged economic circumstances now have access to TJ where they didn't before - to include plenty of Asian kids. As long as that is the case, I will consider my personal crusade a success and there's nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.

This is exactly why they need a more robust application that holistically evaluates courses taken, test scores, teacher recommendations, grades, essays, and achievements, but still with regional allocation of spots. The easiest way to find the overly prepped kids is to look for the ones with inconsistent packets. If a kid at a high SES school has extremely high grades and test scores, as well as very polished essays, but the kid's actual achievements and teacher recommendations point to a kid who is at best above average, then it's a pretty strong indicator that the kid is overly prepped. Likewise, if the kid is taking Algebra II or pre-calc in 8th grade, but hasn't managed to accomplish anything in AMCs or Mathcounts, and doesn't have a teacher that is raving about the kid, then the kid is likely a product of prep and not talent.

PP and I appreciate your response. I generally agree with you. What's critical in all of the above is that each of those individual metrics needs to be part of a genuinely holistic evaluation process and not one that uses a points-based rubric to rank students. Its aim should be to put together the strongest class possible by bringing together students from different backgrounds, of different interests and goals, and with different strengths, but with the shared aim of being a part of an exceptional educational community and contributing significantly to it.

There also needs to be a very clear option for students to resign from the process without their parents being made aware of it. While this is less the case now than it used to be, there have always been a core group of students at TJ that do not want to be there. We need to give these kids a chance to opt out without subjecting them to potential abuse in the home. TJ should be about the student's ambitions, not the parents'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average number of Asian students per admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change was 330. The average since the change was 321.

So, on average, there are 9 fewer Asian kids per class after the change.

Nine.

Where are you getting these numbers.

From the class of 2024 (the last year under the old system) to the class of 2025 (the first year of the new system)
Asian kids went from 355 to 299 a reduction of 56
Black kids went from 7 to 39 an increase of 32
Hispanic kids went from 16 to 62 an increase of 46
White kids went from 86 to 123 and increase of 37

If you go back to the class of 2011 TJ is largely white.
Noone seemed bothered by the incredibly low number of black and hispanic students then.
It only started bothering people when TJ became largely asian.

This is what Derrick bell called interest convergence.
White people suddenly found the wisdom of moving away from objective measures of merit when their kids were the ones being excluded by merit.

The class of 2028 has 140 white kids, 315 asian kids, 41 hispanic kids and only 19 black kids. But mission accomplished, that is a good improvement from the 86 white kids that got in under the old system.

White people didn't "find the wisdom of moving away from objective measures of merit". They stopped applying to the school because increasingly it had a reputation (fairly or unfairly) for producing one-dimensional students.

Look at the number of white applicants over the years and you'll see my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average number of Asian students per admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change was 330. The average since the change was 321.

So, on average, there are 9 fewer Asian kids per class after the change.

Nine.

Where are you getting these numbers.

From the class of 2024 (the last year under the old system) to the class of 2025 (the first year of the new system)
Asian kids went from 355 to 299 a reduction of 56
Black kids went from 7 to 39 an increase of 32
Hispanic kids went from 16 to 62 an increase of 46
White kids went from 86 to 123 and increase of 37

If you go back to the class of 2011 TJ is largely white.
Noone seemed bothered by the incredibly low number of black and hispanic students then.
It only started bothering people when TJ became largely asian.

This is what Derrick bell called interest convergence.
White people suddenly found the wisdom of moving away from objective measures of merit when their kids were the ones being excluded by merit.

The class of 2028 has 140 white kids, 315 asian kids, 41 hispanic kids and only 19 black kids. But mission accomplished, that is a good improvement from the 86 white kids that got in under the old system.

I averaged the number of Asian students in the admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change and then for the years after the change. I can post detailed #s the next time I’m on my computer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average number of Asian students per admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change was 330. The average since the change was 321.

So, on average, there are 9 fewer Asian kids per class after the change.

Nine.

However the overall Asian student percent has gone done. The total number of seats were expanded, but Asian students were solely excluded from participating in the expanded seat assignment. Why wilfully exclude the 1000+ declined Asian applicants from not receiving a single seat from the expanded seat quota?

You're making up fake data to be outraged about. The admissions roughly track the applicant pool. The admissions change was supposed to change interest in the school and increase the underrepresented applicants by geographic as well as racial and SES demographic. And it did. More underrepresented applicants applied and were admitted. That doesn't mean that the represented demographic was excluded.

Fake data? The number of asians has gone down on an absolute basis despite an increase in the school size while the absolute number of every other racial group including whites has gone up.

I agree that the distribution of acceptances is proportional to the distribution of applicants and I guess that's what makes me think they achieved their goal of a lottery by another means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average number of Asian students per admitted class for the 10 years prior to the change was 330. The average since the change was 321.

So, on average, there are 9 fewer Asian kids per class after the change.

Nine.

However the overall Asian student percent has gone done. The total number of seats were expanded, but Asian students were solely excluded from participating in the expanded seat assignment. Why wilfully exclude the 1000+ declined Asian applicants from not receiving a single seat from the expanded seat quota?

You're making up fake data to be outraged about. The admissions roughly track the applicant pool. The admissions change was supposed to change interest in the school and increase the underrepresented applicants by geographic as well as racial and SES demographic. And it did. More underrepresented applicants applied and were admitted. That doesn't mean that the represented demographic was excluded.

+1
They were expanded the size of the class to minimize the impact on groups sending a lot of kids already while creating space for new groups to also go. That’s a positive thing.

Exactly.

They expanded the class to include more students from across the county. The “impact” to Asian students was almost negligent.

Nine fewer students on average.

There was a 56 student difference year over year when they implemented the change.

If you go back 10 years before the change, there were about as many white students as asian students. Just not as many asians around back then. You gotta compare apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s why it happened to diversify and create equality.

Anonymous wrote:Merit Test based Admissions:
Class of 2019, Asian American students received 70.20%
Class of 2020, Asian American students received 71.34%
Class of 2021, Asian American students received 74.90%
Class of 2023, Asian American students received 72.87%
Class of 2024, Asian American students received 73.05%

Admissions changed to Essay based, and increased enrollment of 8th grade algebra1 students:
Class of 2025, Asian American students received 54.36%
Class of 2026, Asian American students received 59.82%
Class of 2027, Asian American students received 61.64%.
Class of 2028, Asian American students received 57.27%

https://www.fcps.edu/news/offers-extended-thomas-jefferson-high-school-science-and-technology-class-2028

Wow, it may be a slip, but exactly does a school system create equality? Changing the standards for admission may allow some heretofore students in and keep others out, but some students will always perform better than others. There is no such thing as "equality" in performance at TJ or elsewhere.

Equity politics begins and ends with giveaways. The School Board can hand out a TJ offer to the underqualified under the guise of a reward, but they cannot compel a student to study after gaining admission to TJ.

Stop trashing these kids to push your politics. It's disgusting. All of the admitted students were qualified for TJ.

No, no they're not. Unless the qualification is that they are in the top 40% of the students in fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are two things that you can see pretty consistently on these fora:

You'll be called "racist" if you fail to rubber-stamp the idea that Asians are inherently smarter than every other demographic.

And you'll be called an "equity warrior" if you assert that poor kids, Black kids, or Hispanic kids have what it takes to succeed at a place like TJ.

The premises from which these folks operate who champion the old status quo are so outlandish, but if you question them, you're suddenly "anti-merit", as if the only possible way to achieve merit is through a standardized exam.

Asians aren't necessarily smarter. Just harder working. You can argue with the data but it's peer reviewed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060715/

Asians can be poor too and yet they still outperform on every academic front.

Take stuyvesant in NYC where asians have the highest poverty rate, significantly higher than blacks. Asians have a higher incidence of free and reduced lunch at the specialized high schools in nyc. And people still want to pretend that it's about wealth and income and not effort.

Asian americans also dominate the leaderboard of every STEM contest.
Here's the list of the Mathcounts top 56. https://www.mathcounts.org/sites/default/files/2024%20Final%20Standings%20Document_0.pdf There are maybe 3 or 4 non Asians on the list.
USAJMO is also mostly Asians: https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/AMC/usamo/2024%20USAJMO%20Awardees.docx.pdf
So is USAMO. https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/AMC/usamo/2024%20USAMO%20Awardees.docx%20%281%29.pdf
And USA Physics Olympiad: https://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2024/upload/2024-Medal-Listing.pdf
And USA Chemistry Olympiad:
https://www.acs.org/education/students/highschool/olympiad.html#:~:text=USNCO%20News&text=2023%20Team%20USA%20won%20four,%2C%20Alice%20Liu%20(silver).&text=348%20students%20from%2089%20countries,gold%20and%20two%20silver%20medals.
and even Bio Olympiad: https://www.usabo-trc.org/

That's not the same thing. There are billions of Asians and this only shows the top students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are two things that you can see pretty consistently on these fora:

You'll be called "racist" if you fail to rubber-stamp the idea that Asians are inherently smarter than every other demographic.

And you'll be called an "equity warrior" if you assert that poor kids, Black kids, or Hispanic kids have what it takes to succeed at a place like TJ.

The premises from which these folks operate who champion the old status quo are so outlandish, but if you question them, you're suddenly "anti-merit", as if the only possible way to achieve merit is through a standardized exam.

Asians aren't necessarily smarter. Just harder working. You can argue with the data but it's peer reviewed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060715/

Asians can be poor too and yet they still outperform on every academic front.

Take stuyvesant in NYC where asians have the highest poverty rate, significantly higher than blacks. Asians have a higher incidence of free and reduced lunch at the specialized high schools in nyc. And people still want to pretend that it's about wealth and income and not effort.

Asian americans also dominate the leaderboard of every STEM contest.
Here's the list of the Mathcounts top 56. https://www.mathcounts.org/sites/default/files/2024%20Final%20Standings%20Document_0.pdf There are maybe 3 or 4 non Asians on the list.
USAJMO is also mostly Asians: https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/AMC/usamo/2024%20USAJMO%20Awardees.docx.pdf
So is USAMO. https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/AMC/usamo/2024%20USAMO%20Awardees.docx%20%281%29.pdf
And USA Physics Olympiad: https://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2024/upload/2024-Medal-Listing.pdf
And USA Chemistry Olympiad:
https://www.acs.org/education/students/highschool/olympiad.html#:~:text=USNCO%20News&text=2023%20Team%20USA%20won%20four,%2C%20Alice%20Liu%20(silver).&text=348%20students%20from%2089%20countries,gold%20and%20two%20silver%20medals.
and even Bio Olympiad: https://www.usabo-trc.org/

That's not the same thing. There are billions of Asians and this only shows the top students.

Billions?
These are all Asian American teenagers. They’re dominating all other races in American competitions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ used to be the number 1 ranked high school in the entire USA.

Last year it dropped to number 5, following the school board’s politically-driven changes to the admissions policy.

This year TJ has dropped even further, to number 14.

It is sad to see how the school board worked to ruin TJ, in the foolish pursuit of “equity” (which won’t work and will only make things worse).

I wouldn't put too much stock in these silly rankings, but I can safely say that TJ is now better serving FCPS residents than it was when only kids who could afford outside prep were admitted.

If TJ admissions were a reflection of income then TJ would be predominantly white.
Are you under the impression that the asians in fairfax are wealthier than the white people in fairfax? GTFOH
Interestingly, the new admissions process has helped white students more than any other group.

This year, the class of 2028 had
315 asian kids
140 white kids
41 hispanic kids
19 black kids

Compared to the year before the change that is:
Decrease of 40 asian kids
Increase of 54 white kids
Increase of 25 hispanic kids
Increase of 12 black kids

There has been a larger absolute increase in the white population than the black and hispanic population combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ used to be the number 1 ranked high school in the entire USA.

Last year it dropped to number 5, following the school board’s politically-driven changes to the admissions policy.

This year TJ has dropped even further, to number 14.

It is sad to see how the school board worked to ruin TJ, in the foolish pursuit of “equity” (which won’t work and will only make things worse).

I wouldn't put too much stock in these silly rankings, but I can safely say that TJ is now better serving FCPS residents than it was when only kids who could afford outside prep were admitted.

TJ is a public school and is at the mercy of the majority. This is one reason why private school is better.

You think this is the will of the majority?

This is the will of the activist FCPS board and it's just not important enough to 995% of fairfax residents to vote out the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s why it happened to diversify and create equality.

Anonymous wrote:Merit Test based Admissions:
Class of 2019, Asian American students received 70.20%
Class of 2020, Asian American students received 71.34%
Class of 2021, Asian American students received 74.90%
Class of 2023, Asian American students received 72.87%
Class of 2024, Asian American students received 73.05%

Admissions changed to Essay based, and increased enrollment of 8th grade algebra1 students:
Class of 2025, Asian American students received 54.36%
Class of 2026, Asian American students received 59.82%
Class of 2027, Asian American students received 61.64%.
Class of 2028, Asian American students received 57.27%

https://www.fcps.edu/news/offers-extended-thomas-jefferson-high-school-science-and-technology-class-2028

Wow, it may be a slip, but exactly does a school system create equality? Changing the standards for admission may allow some heretofore students in and keep others out, but some students will always perform better than others. There is no such thing as "equality" in performance at TJ or elsewhere.

Equity politics begins and ends with giveaways. The School Board can hand out a TJ offer to the underqualified under the guise of a reward, but they cannot compel a student to study after gaining admission to TJ.

Stop trashing these kids to push your politics. It's disgusting. All of the admitted students were qualified for TJ.

The fact that under-qualified students were being admitted was reported by the principal who mentioned "9th grade students scoring below proficient on the initial Math Inventory", were being jump-started with ALEKS remedial in the third month itself. If admissions was merit based, why would remedial math be needed at the school start?

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/VAEDUFCPS/bulletins/38d509c

They are all well qualified.

Then why are they taking remedial classes?

They are really not academically competitive with their peers at TJ from prior years.

[Anonymous]

If TJ admissions were a reflection of income then TJ would be predominantly white.
Are you under the impression that the asians in fairfax are wealthier than the white people in fairfax? GTFOH

Nobody said this. The important point is that the admissions changes have made it possible for many more kids from lower income and/or less educated family situations to have the opportunity to attend TJ. That is what matters, not what race anyone happens to be.

Kids don’t get to choose their families. Are you mad that kids who happen to have less well off and/or less well educated parents are now attending TJ?