Reply to What colleges are the rest of TJ students (not in the top 20%) going?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Last year had UVA (49), W&M (26), VA Tech (7), VCU (10), GMU (10).
I think the middle of the road kids get shut out at UVA and VA Tech and go to OOS schools - Purdue, UIUC, Michigan etc[/quote]

So you are saying VT only had 7 because they largely didn't admit TJ students?[/quote]

This is a big change from a generation ago. I'm a late-90s TJ grad and my memory is that about 100 people went to UVA, a quarter of the class. Another huge chunk went to VT too. I wonder when the UVa numbers dropped?[/quote]

Probably when the rest of VA started complaining! [/quote]

A much higher percentage of TJ students now go OOS.[/quote]

Are they going OOS by choice?[/quote]

In 2011, 193 reported they are attending UVA, W&M, and VT.  In 2022, that number had declined to 82, a decline of 58%, with each school down by more than 50%.  You can say it is because they are more selective, but I suspect some other dynamic is in play.  I don't think the same decline is happening at other NoVa schools.[/quote]

It's because the caliber of TJ students wasn't the same by 2022. The student body was more homogenous and with all the entrance exams favoring prep over ability there were fewer gifted students.[/quote]

I think [b]it's less that the caliber of TJ students had declined so much as it is that they were too similar, to your second point. It doesn't do UVA or any other elite school any favors to admit a bunch of kids who all look the same on paper and who are trying to accomplish the same goals through the same means.[/b] That's bad for business.

There have always been students at TJ who follow the relatively rigid model of (maximize math advancement) + (maximize AP classes) + (focus exclusively on STEM ECs) + (layer in something like Model UN or Debate) + (compete in national level STEM events) in order to optimize their college application. Those students did a lot better in the admissions game when there were 50 in every class instead of 250.

An amusing phenomenon at TJ is whenever a kid announces that they've been accepted to an Ivy or a Duke or a Stanford or an MIT, immediately they get hundreds of friend requests and follows with DMs asking them how they did it. You then have hundreds of TJ kids who are trying to follow the same path, only to be disappointed when they learn that there's no value for the college in admitting 100 carbon copies of the same kid with the same resume as the one they already took.

For years kids were convinced that Crew was the magic secret to getting into an Ivy because a couple of kids a dozen years ago got in as recruited athletes when they had (for TJ) relatively weak scores and GPAs. But those kids were 6'7 and could pull an erg faster than anyone in the area. That same logic doesn't help a 5'6 kid with no muscle tone get to Princeton.[/quote]

That sounds like the sorry defense of making Asians have much higher stats, etc. than other groups to be admitted.[/quote]

The defense of making Asians have much higher stats than other groups to be admitted is that frequently, their stats are the strongest part of an application otherwise lacking in heft. Put differently, when the only reason you're getting in is because of your test scores, your test scores on average are going to be significantly higher than other admitted students who got in for other reasons.

This is to be expected when your community goes on message boards like this one and crows about sending their kids to extra enrichment sessions while poo-pooing other valuable uses of kids' time. [/quote]

Actually, Asian applicants' application packages present the strongest test scores/GPA as well as the strongest leadership quality, EC activities, volunteering and service, strongest recommendations from teachers, very strong/strongest essays, strongest national/international awards etc. compared to other groups. Stop spreading disinformation. [/quote]

PP. You are correct with respect to test scores, GPA, and national/international awards, and that's all. In all of the other areas, you are incorrect.

Leadership quality: Asian students are well-noted for inventing leadership opportunities for themselves through the creation of new clubs and, in many cases, non-profit organizations that have no apparent plan beyond a student's high school years. Major red flag.

EC Activities: You're going to see a ton of Model UN, Debate, Orchestra, individual sports, and competitions, along with the aforementioned invented clubs. And an awful lot of breadth without depth, that comes through in the essays.

Volunteering and Service: This is straight-up false. To the extent that Asian students do volunteer, they tend to do so within their own communities and are frequently noted for helping those who don't need help - a great example is in tutoring for other high-income students. They don't tend to write well about these experiences because they're not actually passionate about anything other than using the volunteering opportunity as a springboard to college.

Recommendations from Teachers: By and large, recommendations from teachers about Asian students are broadly positive, but rarely enthusiastic.

Essays: They tend to lack authenticity and overwhelmingly sound designed to relitigate their resumes rather than shed light on the human being behind the achievements. They're dry and pre-packaged, and extremely difficult to distinguish from one another.

Are there exceptions? Certainly! Are there a lot of white kids who also fall into the above categories? Absolutely! But when you follow the above path, you'd better be the best of the best on that path, and more often than not you end up finding a lot of kids who are trying to be a cardboard cutout of someone else who was successful in the application process.

[/quote]
What a racist commentary. I hope you'll eat your words in a week once SCOTUS decides. [/quote]

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