How does one prep place account for 25% of TJ Admissions?

[Anonymous]

It looks like Curie removed the 8/17 facebook post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like Curie removed the 8/17 facebook post.

Nothing is ever truly gone. The list of 133 names is still out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Wow, I'm one of the PP's who said not every TJ student preps. This is very eye-opening for me, although I still maintain that not everyone preps. I didn't even know places like this exist. Maybe more people prep than I thought, but I hope this doesn't make everyone think that everyone preps. I know plenty who didn't.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

If over 90% of students are Indian, the results will also reflect the same. There was an academy that had majority Chinese (Sunshine?), results there will also reflect the same. I have heard all the teachers are non-Indian except for the guy who runs the center. So if someone was mistreated he/she should have reported and got a resolution.

[Anonymous]

Prep don't prep. However as the parent of a kid who did not prep and got into TJ and loved it, it seemed more often than not that the kids that prepped continued to need tutors/were more likely to cheat according to my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prep don't prep. However as the parent of a kid who did not prep and got into TJ and loved it, it seemed more often than not that the kids that prepped continued to need tutors/were more likely to cheat according to my kid.

Yup, my asian kid got admitted to TJ without any prep and thrived.

[Anonymous]

Prep or no prep there should be representative racial diversity at a public school.

You cannot expect someone to rise through the ranks if you don't give them the same opportunities. But, I guess for many parents here and in Fairfax, that's not a value they espouse. I'd like to see equal opportunities in a public magnet. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prep or no prep there should be representative racial diversity at a public school.

You cannot expect someone to rise through the ranks if you don't give them the same opportunities. But, I guess for many parents here and in Fairfax, that's not a value they espouse. I'd like to see equal opportunities in a public magnet. Period.

and starts with AAP. Equal opportunities and diversity for AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

This post is directly from Curie.

[Anonymous]

No, I am not from Curie.
My DD is a rising 7th grader and I attended their open house. I also have lot of friends who have sent their kids to Curie. I have decided not to send due to multiple reasons
1. The amount of work the kids attending Curie are expected to put in is huge.
2. Spending all of 7th grade and half of 8th grade with TJ in mind does not make sense
3. Don't see the drive in my DD to put her through this.
4. We might do some self-prep in 8th grade and if she makes it great, otherwise she will go to base school which is good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

This post is directly from Curie.

You are doing a heck of a job marketing this prep center. Are you the new marketing person for this business?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prep or no prep there should be representative racial diversity at a public school.

You cannot expect someone to rise through the ranks if you don't give them the same opportunities. But, I guess for many parents here and in Fairfax, that's not a value they espouse. I'd like to see equal opportunities in a public magnet. Period.

and starts with AAP. Equal opportunities and diversity for AAP.

How do you practically do that other than enforcing race based quotas? Parents with resources White, Asian or any other race will find ways to have a leg up on the competition by helping their kids prepare at home and/or getting outside coaching help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

Well, it is possible that since most kids are of Indian descent and many kids may know each other pretty well and not really get a chance to interact with others. I am not sure if this constitutes as not being treated well. The owner is a retired Indian math professor and his teaching style and accent may be normal to Indian parents or their kids, but probably does not sit well with others and may even perceive this as being rude etc. Indian teachers have softened quite a bit these days, but until 90s, teacher were were treated like gods and used to yield a lot of power over students and their parents. However, there are non Indian origin instructors at this prep center, but not sure if they adjusted their teaching style to cater to Indian students as well . Though, the prep center does not explicitly say it, the instructors generally assume that kids are already in AAP and if not it will be difficult to catch up on their math instruction. So, if you consider most (400+?) of the Indian kids many of whom are already in AAP or GT, go to this prep center for enrichment or TJ prep, then it is not a huge surprise for a quarter of those kids to qualify for TJ or AET. However, I do wish, if the tests could not be prepped or there is another away to identify the talent or interest in STEM based education. But, in my opinion, any standardized test can be and will be prepped and you see the same (prep centers and books) for ACT/SAT/GRE/GMAT/MCAT/LSAT etc and I do not see a way around it. Some prep centers figure out test preparation better than others and then you see discrepancy like this one, which causes un rest in kids and parents and then mistakenly assume or blame it as cheating, even there is none. If you truly thing there is cheating, please pursue this matter with school.

To provide some background - education in India (may be true for other asian countries) is hyper competitive and it is not easy to stand out among population of over 1 billion without ton of hard work. Public schools in India are pretty bad and private education can get very expensive. The placement tests are rampant and are required for every level of education (even for elementary schools) and school based education does not necessarily prepare kids for all kinds of placement tests or competitions they are forced to take for schools and even jobs. So, you see prep centers everywhere for every kind of placement test and Indian parents were quite used to this growing up. Most of the Indian parents you see in the US likely have STEM background and probably worked hard to stand out in their schools and came to US to pursue higher education (compete for scholarships) and/or job opportunities. They know how important education had been for them and tend to push their kids to do the same. So, asian parents do not hesitate spending money on kids education or enrichment and buying homes in better school districts even if it requires them to cut down on vacations or other expenses. This is generally true for first generation asians, but tend to get normalized in future generations. We know, if parents (not just asians) have STEM background or work in related fields, kids are naturally exposed to math and science early and will have resources and opportunities to purse their interests in these areas. So, it is not a surprise that first generation asian kids tend to do well in school (especially math/science) but at the same time not so well in sports or other extra curricular activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

Well, it is possible that since most kids are of Indian descent and many kids may know each other pretty well and not really get a chance to interact with others. I am not sure if this constitutes as not being treated well. The owner is a retired Indian math professor and his teaching style and accent may be normal to Indian parents or their kids, but probably does not sit well with others and may even perceive this as being rude etc. Indian teachers have softened quite a bit these days, but until 90s, teacher were were treated like gods and used to yield a lot of power over students and their parents. However, there are non Indian origin instructors at this prep center, but not sure if they adjusted their teaching style to cater to Indian students as well . Though, the prep center does not explicitly say it, the instructors generally assume that kids are already in AAP and if not it will be difficult to catch up on their math instruction. So, if you consider most (400+?) of the Indian kids many of whom are already in AAP or GT, go to this prep center for enrichment or TJ prep, then it is not a huge surprise for a quarter of those kids to qualify for TJ or AET. However, I do wish, if the tests could not be prepped or there is another away to identify the talent or interest in STEM based education. But, in my opinion, any standardized test can be and will be prepped and you see the same (prep centers and books) for ACT/SAT/GRE/GMAT/MCAT/LSAT etc and I do not see a way around it. Some prep centers figure out test preparation better than others and then you see discrepancy like this one, which causes un rest in kids and parents and then mistakenly assume or blame it as cheating, even there is none. If you truly thing there is cheating, please pursue this matter with school.

To provide some background - education in India (may be true for other asian countries) is hyper competitive and it is not easy to stand out among population of over 1 billion without ton of hard work. Public schools in India are pretty bad and private education can get very expensive. The placement tests are rampant and are required for every level of education (even for elementary schools) and school based education does not necessarily prepare kids for all kinds of placement tests or competitions they are forced to take for schools and even jobs. So, you see prep centers everywhere for every kind of placement test and Indian parents were quite used to this growing up. Most of the Indian parents you see in the US likely have STEM background and probably worked hard to stand out in their schools and came to US to pursue higher education (compete for scholarships) and/or job opportunities. They know how important education had been for them and tend to push their kids to do the same. So, asian parents do not hesitate spending money on kids education or enrichment and buying homes in better school districts even if it requires them to cut down on vacations or other expenses. This is generally true for first generation asians, but tend to get normalized in future generations. We know, if parents (not just asians) have STEM background or work in related fields, kids are naturally exposed to math and science early and will have resources and opportunities to purse their interests in these areas. So, it is not a surprise that first generation asian kids tend to do well in school (especially math/science) but at the same time not so well in sports or other extra curricular activities.

* The reason, it is difficult to stand out in India is not just 1B population, there are also race and gender based quotas in both education and jobs, corrupt politics and government, economic inequality etc. So, even a good student needs to perform exceptionally to overcome all this and succeed. Just to give a perspective, if an engineering/medical program has a capacity of 100 students, if a student without quotas needs to score within top 25 in the placement test. The better ranked universities have much higher competition. Since kids/parents perceive education as the only path to success and there is very little room for failure, pretty much every student goes to a prep center (and good prep centers conduct their own placement tests due to limited capacity and also check if students can be prepped at their level) and prep centers are a huge business in India. I only hope US doesn't end up like India in the name of diversity.

[Anonymous]

PP 15:50 here, I understand the need for magnet programs and need to promote advanced STEM education. TJ has a great reputation and though the curriculum can be intense for some kids, but those who are into STEM do enjoy it, but it might be for all and parents shouldn't force kids into it. My older kid really wants to go to TJ, but I am not sure if he has the commitment to work hard and he cannot handle the stress well, so I am not sure if it will be a good fit even if he gets in. In the long run, it might not really matter much which school do you go to as long as you enjoy what you do. And it might look better on paper and help with college admissions to near top of the class in regular high school than in the bottom half of the class in a magnet school.

Also, both my kids are in AAP, but I do not like the program and the way it segregates the kids from 3rd grade. AAP kids think they are smarter than others, which is not a good thing for kids this young. My younger kid is happy that she got into AAP, but hates that many of her good friends are not going to be in her class and thinks that it is not going to be fun anymore. But, in general, she performs/learns well above her grade level and gets bored easily. Lets see how it goes. Oh well!

[Anonymous]

Sometimes people say or think they've been given the exact test if they're just very well prepared and have seen questions like that before in other tests.