A data-backed approach to understand the TJ Admissions Process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this is so confusing. English isn't my first language. I have an accent and people ask me where I am really from all the time. We try to speak to kids at home in a language other than English. My kids have an accent too that they try to hide. How many points do I get for experience? Or do I have to be only Latino or African origin for experience factor? Others don't really have experiences? Do I need to show an ancestry test - what if it shows African DNA. So many worms in can.

Is your family low income? Do you and your spouse have college degrees?

Those are two qualities that can make a difference in the opportunities children may have access to.

I thought we were looking at holistic experiences here. How low is low? should I keep it artificially low? what about other experiences? are they to be diminished or only certain races have valuable experiences? How do I qualify to be a certain race? DNA test? Skin color? You are confusing me more.

I think family income level and educational attainment of parents have a big effect on the experiences a child is exposed to as they grow up. Children whose parents have been to college have an advantage over children whose parents have not had the opportunity to go to college.

Kids can’t choose their parents and shouldn’t be penalized for having parents with less money and less education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this is so confusing. English isn't my first language. I have an accent and people ask me where I am really from all the time. We try to speak to kids at home in a language other than English. My kids have an accent too that they try to hide. How many points do I get for experience? Or do I have to be only Latino or African origin for experience factor? Others don't really have experiences? Do I need to show an ancestry test - what if it shows African DNA. So many worms in can.

Is your family low income? Do you and your spouse have college degrees?

Those are two qualities that can make a difference in the opportunities children may have access to.

I thought we were looking at holistic experiences here. How low is low? should I keep it artificially low? what about other experiences? are they to be diminished or only certain races have valuable experiences? How do I qualify to be a certain race? DNA test? Skin color? You are confusing me more.

I think family income level and educational attainment of parents have a big effect on the experiences a child is exposed to as they grow up. Children whose parents have been to college have an advantage over children whose parents have not had the opportunity to go to college.

Kids can’t choose their parents and shouldn’t be penalized for having parents with less money and less education.

Nor should they be rewarded for having parents who have less money and less education, which is what the "experience factors" are intended to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tjtestprep.com/data

The middle school you attend plays a very significant role in admissions

Carson, Longfellow, Kilmer, and Rocky Run MS now admit students at lower rates

This new admission process is totally unfair towards kids from AAP center schools. For example it is much more difficult to make the cut off in Carson (AAP center) than in Franklin (base school) due to higher competition. Except for may be 3 or 4 AAP kids from my kids elementary school, who chose to go to Franklin (for personal reasons), all of the 100+ kids from AAP class went to Carson, which is the default. I wish the admission process is based on 'base' middle school instead of the school they actually attend.

To understand the competition, I believe around 50% of my kids AAP class qualified for presidential medal (names announced at 6th grade graduation ceremony) where as the less than 10% of PBL class got it. In addition, AAP kids participate at much higher rate of participation in most of the STEM activities/fairs, digital leadership, writing etc compared non AAP kids.

For the sake of the argument, How do you feel NASA reserving 4 research slots to top two students from MIT and top two students from Liberty University with out taking individual merit into consideration? Do you consider it is fair to rest of the MIT class who also wanted to get into NASA but lose out to Liberty?

easy solution - don't go to a center. For the sake of argument, this is a public high school, not NASA

There are AAP center middle schools?

Yep, the hothouse flowers are kept away from the masses through 8th grade

Yep, all the middle schools that traditionally send more students to TJ are AAP center schools i.e., Carson, Longfellow etc. The new admission process is only fair if kids do have a choice to go to either base school or center school and all middle schools offer all the courses/electives/activities equally. Regarding earlier post about 'don't go to a center' - This would apply if your kid is in currently elementary school, which I assume is true and thats why you care less. What if your kid is already in the middle school? Do you want to change the school now? In any case, TJ doesn't matter in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this is so confusing. English isn't my first language. I have an accent and people ask me where I am really from all the time. We try to speak to kids at home in a language other than English. My kids have an accent too that they try to hide. How many points do I get for experience? Or do I have to be only Latino or African origin for experience factor? Others don't really have experiences? Do I need to show an ancestry test - what if it shows African DNA. So many worms in can.

Is your family low income? Do you and your spouse have college degrees?

Those are two qualities that can make a difference in the opportunities children may have access to.

I thought we were looking at holistic experiences here. How low is low? should I keep it artificially low? what about other experiences? are they to be diminished or only certain races have valuable experiences? How do I qualify to be a certain race? DNA test? Skin color? You are confusing me more.

I think family income level and educational attainment of parents have a big effect on the experiences a child is exposed to as they grow up. Children whose parents have been to college have an advantage over children whose parents have not had the opportunity to go to college.

Kids can’t choose their parents and shouldn’t be penalized for having parents with less money and less education.

Nor should they be rewarded for having parents who have less money and less education, which is what the "experience factors" are intended to do.

it's a recognition that they have less opportunities not a reward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tjtestprep.com/data

The middle school you attend plays a very significant role in admissions

Carson, Longfellow, Kilmer, and Rocky Run MS now admit students at lower rates

This new admission process is totally unfair towards kids from AAP center schools. For example it is much more difficult to make the cut off in Carson (AAP center) than in Franklin (base school) due to higher competition. Except for may be 3 or 4 AAP kids from my kids elementary school, who chose to go to Franklin (for personal reasons), all of the 100+ kids from AAP class went to Carson, which is the default. I wish the admission process is based on 'base' middle school instead of the school they actually attend.

To understand the competition, I believe around 50% of my kids AAP class qualified for presidential medal (names announced at 6th grade graduation ceremony) where as the less than 10% of PBL class got it. In addition, AAP kids participate at much higher rate of participation in most of the STEM activities/fairs, digital leadership, writing etc compared non AAP kids.

For the sake of the argument, How do you feel NASA reserving 4 research slots to top two students from MIT and top two students from Liberty University with out taking individual merit into consideration? Do you consider it is fair to rest of the MIT class who also wanted to get into NASA but lose out to Liberty?

easy solution - don't go to a center. For the sake of argument, this is a public high school, not NASA

There are AAP center middle schools?

Yep, the hothouse flowers are kept away from the masses through 8th grade

Yep, all the middle schools that traditionally send more students to TJ are AAP center schools i.e., Carson, Longfellow etc. The new admission process is only fair if kids do have a choice to go to either base school or center school and all middle schools offer all the courses/electives/activities equally. Regarding earlier post about 'don't go to a center' - This would apply if your kid is in currently elementary school, which I assume is true and thats why you care less. What if your kid is already in the middle school? Do you want to change the school now? In any case, TJ doesn't matter in the long run.

they only kids really disadvantaged are non-AAP kids at feeder schools. I think their caches effectively drop to zero

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this is so confusing. English isn't my first language. I have an accent and people ask me where I am really from all the time. We try to speak to kids at home in a language other than English. My kids have an accent too that they try to hide. How many points do I get for experience? Or do I have to be only Latino or African origin for experience factor? Others don't really have experiences? Do I need to show an ancestry test - what if it shows African DNA. So many worms in can.

Is your family low income? Do you and your spouse have college degrees?

Those are two qualities that can make a difference in the opportunities children may have access to.

I thought we were looking at holistic experiences here. How low is low? should I keep it artificially low? what about other experiences? are they to be diminished or only certain races have valuable experiences? How do I qualify to be a certain race? DNA test? Skin color? You are confusing me more.

I think family income level and educational attainment of parents have a big effect on the experiences a child is exposed to as they grow up. Children whose parents have been to college have an advantage over children whose parents have not had the opportunity to go to college.

Kids can’t choose their parents and shouldn’t be penalized for having parents with less money and less education.

what about height? I am short and it has made a huge difference to my access to opportunities. Unfortunately I passed on my shorty gene to my son and he'll face discrimination too. Should be get extra points in the social engineering equation? what about the rich black kid? should we have the poor white kid and not give any experience marks for the rich black kid? I think the formula will declare error there...I hope you all like where this is going

[Anonymous]

It’s a magnet school, and not all who want to can get in. It has always been that way. Only difference now is that you can not guarantee prepping (i.e. money) will get your kid in.

That still works for private schools though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this is so confusing. English isn't my first language. I have an accent and people ask me where I am really from all the time. We try to speak to kids at home in a language other than English. My kids have an accent too that they try to hide. How many points do I get for experience? Or do I have to be only Latino or African origin for experience factor? Others don't really have experiences? Do I need to show an ancestry test - what if it shows African DNA. So many worms in can.

Is your family low income? Do you and your spouse have college degrees?

Those are two qualities that can make a difference in the opportunities children may have access to.

I thought we were looking at holistic experiences here. How low is low? should I keep it artificially low? what about other experiences? are they to be diminished or only certain races have valuable experiences? How do I qualify to be a certain race? DNA test? Skin color? You are confusing me more.

I think family income level and educational attainment of parents have a big effect on the experiences a child is exposed to as they grow up. Children whose parents have been to college have an advantage over children whose parents have not had the opportunity to go to college.

Kids can’t choose their parents and shouldn’t be penalized for having parents with less money and less education.

Nor should they be rewarded for having parents who have less money and less education, which is what the "experience factors" are intended to do.

Is that what you really think? You truly don’t see that children with better off and better educated parents are exposed to different experiences and more opportunities than kids with less well off, less educated parents?

Do you really not see that kids can be equally intelligent, but kids who have been exposed to more opportunities might “look” more qualified than a kid with parents who never went to college and have less money? Shouldn’t the public schools be the very place where that bright but less well off kid gets the chance to be educated in a challenging and exciting way? In ways the child’s parents could never imagine the child needs?

[Anonymous]

what about height? I am short and it has made a huge difference to my access to opportunities. Unfortunately I passed on my shorty gene to my son and he'll face discrimination too. Should be get extra points in the social engineering equation? what about the rich black kid? should we have the poor white kid and not give any experience marks for the rich black kid? I think the formula will declare error there...I hope you all like where this is going

Race is not one of the experience factors. So, a rich, native English speaking, Black kid in an affluent neighborhood would not receive points under this system. A poor white kid would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Is that what you really think? You truly don’t see that children with better off and better educated parents are exposed to different experiences and more opportunities than kids with less well off, less educated parents?

Do you really not see that kids can be equally intelligent, but kids who have been exposed to more opportunities might “look” more qualified than a kid with parents who never went to college and have less money? Shouldn’t the public schools be the very place where that bright but less well off kid gets the chance to be educated in a challenging and exciting way? In ways the child’s parents could never imagine the child needs?

Please explain how poverty-level Asians are able to dominate Stuyvesant High, where admission looks at nothing but test results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tjtestprep.com/data

The middle school you attend plays a very significant role in admissions

Carson, Longfellow, Kilmer, and Rocky Run MS now admit students at lower rates

This new admission process is totally unfair towards kids from AAP center schools. For example it is much more difficult to make the cut off in Carson (AAP center) than in Franklin (base school) due to higher competition. Except for may be 3 or 4 AAP kids from my kids elementary school, who chose to go to Franklin (for personal reasons), all of the 100+ kids from AAP class went to Carson, which is the default. I wish the admission process is based on 'base' middle school instead of the school they actually attend.

To understand the competition, I believe around 50% of my kids AAP class qualified for presidential medal (names announced at 6th grade graduation ceremony) where as the less than 10% of PBL class got it. In addition, AAP kids participate at much higher rate of participation in most of the STEM activities/fairs, digital leadership, writing etc compared non AAP kids.

For the sake of the argument, How do you feel NASA reserving 4 research slots to top two students from MIT and top two students from Liberty University with out taking individual merit into consideration? Do you consider it is fair to rest of the MIT class who also wanted to get into NASA but lose out to Liberty?

easy solution - don't go to a center. For the sake of argument, this is a public high school, not NASA

There are AAP center middle schools?

Yep, the hothouse flowers are kept away from the masses through 8th grade

Yep, all the middle schools that traditionally send more students to TJ are AAP center schools i.e., Carson, Longfellow etc. The new admission process is only fair if kids do have a choice to go to either base school or center school and all middle schools offer all the courses/electives/activities equally. Regarding earlier post about 'don't go to a center' - This would apply if your kid is in currently elementary school, which I assume is true and thats why you care less. What if your kid is already in the middle school? Do you want to change the school now? In any case, TJ doesn't matter in the long run.

Families have a choice to send their kids to their base school or the AAP Center. If you choose to go tot he Center, then that is the school you are at and that is the group you are competing to be in that 1.5%. No one has to attend the AAP Center, it is a choice.

If this puts some pressure for parents to not send their kids to the Center and to stay at their base school, then ok. Hopefully that means that the cohort of bright, capable kids at the base school will grow and benefit the school as a whole. That is not a bad outcome. If you are moving your kid to the Center because you don’t like the after school options and and other opportunities at the base school, well, that probably points to why the base school doesn’t send as many kids to TJ. Arguing that your choice to leave the base school, in search of better opportunities at the AAP Center, kind of defeats the argument that all the MS are providing enough opportunities for kids to do well at TJ.

[Anonymous]

Kilmer is supposedly an AAP center and it did very poorly. Not sure why. An unusually bad cohort?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tjtestprep.com/data

The middle school you attend plays a very significant role in admissions

Carson, Longfellow, Kilmer, and Rocky Run MS now admit students at lower rates

This new admission process is totally unfair towards kids from AAP center schools. For example it is much more difficult to make the cut off in Carson (AAP center) than in Franklin (base school) due to higher competition. Except for may be 3 or 4 AAP kids from my kids elementary school, who chose to go to Franklin (for personal reasons), all of the 100+ kids from AAP class went to Carson, which is the default. I wish the admission process is based on 'base' middle school instead of the school they actually attend.

To understand the competition, I believe around 50% of my kids AAP class qualified for presidential medal (names announced at 6th grade graduation ceremony) where as the less than 10% of PBL class got it. In addition, AAP kids participate at much higher rate of participation in most of the STEM activities/fairs, digital leadership, writing etc compared non AAP kids.

For the sake of the argument, How do you feel NASA reserving 4 research slots to top two students from MIT and top two students from Liberty University with out taking individual merit into consideration? Do you consider it is fair to rest of the MIT class who also wanted to get into NASA but lose out to Liberty?

easy solution - don't go to a center. For the sake of argument, this is a public high school, not NASA

There are AAP center middle schools?

Yep, the hothouse flowers are kept away from the masses through 8th grade

Yep, all the middle schools that traditionally send more students to TJ are AAP center schools i.e., Carson, Longfellow etc. The new admission process is only fair if kids do have a choice to go to either base school or center school and all middle schools offer all the courses/electives/activities equally. Regarding earlier post about 'don't go to a center' - This would apply if your kid is in currently elementary school, which I assume is true and thats why you care less. What if your kid is already in the middle school? Do you want to change the school now? In any case, TJ doesn't matter in the long run.

Families have a choice to send their kids to their base school or the AAP Center. If you choose to go tot he Center, then that is the school you are at and that is the group you are competing to be in that 1.5%. No one has to attend the AAP Center, it is a choice.

If this puts some pressure for parents to not send their kids to the Center and to stay at their base school, then ok. Hopefully that means that the cohort of bright, capable kids at the base school will grow and benefit the school as a whole. That is not a bad outcome. If you are moving your kid to the Center because you don’t like the after school options and and other opportunities at the base school, well, that probably points to why the base school doesn’t send as many kids to TJ. Arguing that your choice to leave the base school, in search of better opportunities at the AAP Center, kind of defeats the argument that all the MS are providing enough opportunities for kids to do well at TJ.

the gen ed kids zoned for the center don't have a choice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Give it time, dear. NYC's Stuyvesant is like 75-80% Asian and the fact that half of them live at the poverty level doesn't stop the attacks claiming Asian privilege.

Folks on this board love to compare TJ to Stuyvesant despite the fact that the Asian American community in NYC is wildly different, demographically and economically, than the Asian American community in NoVa. You can't claim marginalization just because a some folks whose parents came from the same landmass than yours happen to be poor in a totally different city.

Sure, let's pretend that it's a complete coincidence that Asians dominate two of some of the most selective public schools in America. Yes, the Asians at Stuy have nothing in common with Asians at TJ.

Let's also pretend that the Asian domination at Stuy causes no controversy whatsoever, or that their poverty level shields them from the attacks from equity advocates.

Stuyvesant is basically proof that Asian Americans are not allowed to succeed. Asians Americans in NYC are poor as dirt. Yet, they still get vilified, and they still have a BOE that's hostile to them.

Would TJ and Stuyvesant get nearly as much hate if they were say 70% Latinos? I suspect not. Rather, I think the BOEs would be celebrating the success of Latinos in their school districts.

If Asian Americans at Stuyvesant can't be celebrated then under what scenario can the success of Asian Americans be celebrated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.tjtestprep.com/data

The middle school you attend plays a very significant role in admissions

Carson, Longfellow, Kilmer, and Rocky Run MS now admit students at lower rates

This new admission process is totally unfair towards kids from AAP center schools. For example it is much more difficult to make the cut off in Carson (AAP center) than in Franklin (base school) due to higher competition. Except for may be 3 or 4 AAP kids from my kids elementary school, who chose to go to Franklin (for personal reasons), all of the 100+ kids from AAP class went to Carson, which is the default. I wish the admission process is based on 'base' middle school instead of the school they actually attend.

To understand the competition, I believe around 50% of my kids AAP class qualified for presidential medal (names announced at 6th grade graduation ceremony) where as the less than 10% of PBL class got it. In addition, AAP kids participate at much higher rate of participation in most of the STEM activities/fairs, digital leadership, writing etc compared non AAP kids.

For the sake of the argument, How do you feel NASA reserving 4 research slots to top two students from MIT and top two students from Liberty University with out taking individual merit into consideration? Do you consider it is fair to rest of the MIT class who also wanted to get into NASA but lose out to Liberty?

easy solution - don't go to a center. For the sake of argument, this is a public high school, not NASA

There are AAP center middle schools?

Yep, the hothouse flowers are kept away from the masses through 8th grade

Yep, all the middle schools that traditionally send more students to TJ are AAP center schools i.e., Carson, Longfellow etc. The new admission process is only fair if kids do have a choice to go to either base school or center school and all middle schools offer all the courses/electives/activities equally. Regarding earlier post about 'don't go to a center' - This would apply if your kid is in currently elementary school, which I assume is true and thats why you care less. What if your kid is already in the middle school? Do you want to change the school now? In any case, TJ doesn't matter in the long run.

Families have a choice to send their kids to their base school or the AAP Center. If you choose to go tot he Center, then that is the school you are at and that is the group you are competing to be in that 1.5%. No one has to attend the AAP Center, it is a choice.

If this puts some pressure for parents to not send their kids to the Center and to stay at their base school, then ok. Hopefully that means that the cohort of bright, capable kids at the base school will grow and benefit the school as a whole. That is not a bad outcome. If you are moving your kid to the Center because you don’t like the after school options and and other opportunities at the base school, well, that probably points to why the base school doesn’t send as many kids to TJ. Arguing that your choice to leave the base school, in search of better opportunities at the AAP Center, kind of defeats the argument that all the MS are providing enough opportunities for kids to do well at TJ.

What if the student already made choice to go to center school last year or year before and currently in middle school? Isn’t it a lost opportunity for them? The ‘choice’ makes sense to students who are currently in elementary school. I wouldn’t be complaining if my kid is in elementary school as he would have had a option to go to base school if he wanted to.