Reply to New TJ Lawsuit Filed 3/10/21 by Pacific Legal Foundation

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Why? Not everyone has the same extracurricular opportunities or desires. Why look at things like  science Olympiad placement when 1) not all teams are treated the same or perform the same, and 2) not all students who would be interested or willing to participate are able to due to family constraints?[/quote]

because it's another proxy for kids whose parents have been working towards TJ since they were born- it's a great compromise for them. [/quote]

To the 2nd PP:  No.  It's because at some point, elite means elite.  It means that the kid is actually performing at an extraordinarily high level.  It shouldn't mean that the kid may or may not have unrealized potential that hasn't actually manifested in any way, but the kid writes a good essay and gets good grades, so good enough.  For what it's worth, very few of the highly prepped kids have particularly impressive achievements, so this wouldn't actually help them.  It's much easier to prep for a single standardized test than it is to achieve at very high levels on things like AMCs.

To the first PP:  It doesn't have to be math or science, but the kid should demonstrate some sort of significant achievement in something.  Maybe it's receiving a high placement on an essay contest or earning debate awards.  For the kids who don't have means, I'm fully in favor of pushing more resources into the FARMS schools to ensure that high performing kids have the opportunity to pursue things like math contests, science olympiad, robotics, etc.  At some point, though, the kids need to perform at an elite level to go to the elite school.

It's kind of like picking an orchestra.  Some kids are naturally quite talented.  Others have been taking private lessons for a very long time.  Some only have had school lessons, but have the talent and drive to do well.  Others don't.  When they pick the kids for the highest orchestra, they're going to pick the kids who are the best at playing their instruments.  No one is going to insist that a kid who is playing at a high level doesn't deserve the spot since he's just privileged, practices too much, and has been taking lessons for too long.  [/quote]

It's all a balancing act. The job of any admissions office is to take all of the relevant information about a student, construct a narrative about that student, and use that narrative to determine what that student's overall contribution to the school environment will be.

Exam performance is just that - exam performance. It's no more and no less.

The comment about the FARMS-heavy schools ignores the fact that for many of those students, the resource that they and their family do not have at their disposal is [i]time[/i]. Time to join afterschool clubs, time on weekends to get to and participate in competitions, etc etc etc.

So can you have some kids at TJ who are the Science Olympiad and MathCounts and AMC wizards? Sure! But a truly complete academic experience requires including other segments of the population that may not have had access to those same experiences.[/quote]

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