Fairness of TJHSST admission assessment

[Anonymous]

In last Saturday's TJ admission assessment, technical issues happened in several test sites. Some test sites reported lose of internet connectivity, and the assessment has to be paused for half hour, and some test sites the pop up autosave window was causing troubles, and some applicants lost what they have written so they have to retake the assessment. My DS said he wasn't sure if he had all the content saved because he was not able to go to the review steps. The admission office did send out an email later and asked the parents to report the issue if they were experiencing such problem.

My question is, is the admission assessment evaluates the applicants completely equally? For the sites that extended for 30 minutes, this did give the applicants to think about the essay more time, and for those who get interrupted, no body knows that they have written were submitted completely. If TJHSST wants to assess the students, all the students should be given same conditions.

Another question is how the admission evaluate the student's academic standing within school? So students have already finished pre-calculus and even higher, but they are having same GPA as other students, and some might get lower GPA like A- because they did not turn in homework on time. How did the students are being identified as top 1.5% rank? I am sure TJ admission won't know the student well, and now the recommendation letter is not required.

[Anonymous]

It isn't fair. My child had the pop up window and said that 10 minutes was lost and the child needed every second to do the test and could have used more time.

This site got an email and it sure seemed like if you said you were impacted you could retake. My child was impacted but felt like the whole process was so stressful and chose not to try again. Meanwhile some kids were saying they were trying again bc they now knew what types of questions and would do better on a retake.

It is a bit frustrating.

[Anonymous]

We got an email from admission office they have reviewed my child's answer and replied that it doesn't seem my child's answer got impacted, and they did not mentioned a retake. What's the base they made such judgement? If any of the site got impact, then all should give an option for an retake.

[Anonymous]

So you got an email that already mentioned that your child was not impacted. We got asking if we got impacted. DC wanted to take the test again asnDC thought same questions would come. Did we miss a chance. Though I wasn’t in favor of retaking as DC wasn’t impacted and also felt that we should give a final good bye to this stress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn't fair. My child had the pop up window and said that 10 minutes was lost and the child needed every second to do the test and could have used more time.

This site got an email and it sure seemed like if you said you were impacted you could retake. My child was impacted but felt like the whole process was so stressful and chose not to try again. Meanwhile some kids were saying they were trying again bc they now knew what types of questions and would do better on a retake.

It is a bit frustrating.

That is cheating. All the kids at that site should be given option to retake the essay exam. I hope TJ give different question who chooses to retake the exam. It will be not fair to those kids who did not have to retake exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It isn't fair. My child had the pop up window and said that 10 minutes was lost and the child needed every second to do the test and could have used more time.

This site got an email and it sure seemed like if you said you were impacted you could retake. My child was impacted but felt like the whole process was so stressful and chose not to try again. Meanwhile some kids were saying they were trying again bc they now knew what types of questions and would do better on a retake.

It is a bit frustrating.

That is cheating. All the kids at that site should be given option to retake the essay exam. I hope TJ give different question who chooses to retake the exam. It will be not fair to those kids who did not have to retake exam.

I agreed! I am going to send an inquiry to the admission office about this. It is not fair to the kids who doesn't have the equal opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Didn't they make the test so easy now that it is just performative?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It isn't fair. My child had the pop up window and said that 10 minutes was lost and the child needed every second to do the test and could have used more time.

This site got an email and it sure seemed like if you said you were impacted you could retake. My child was impacted but felt like the whole process was so stressful and chose not to try again. Meanwhile some kids were saying they were trying again bc they now knew what types of questions and would do better on a retake.

It is a bit frustrating.

That is cheating. All the kids at that site should be given option to retake the essay exam. I hope TJ give different question who chooses to retake the exam. It will be not fair to those kids who did not have to retake exam.

It seems like a test within a test to better identify the kids who could adapt to adversity and thus make it at TJ.

[Anonymous]

One more indication that TJ has jumped the shark. The admissions process was imperfect to begin with, became more subjective, and now appears to have additional potential flaws. No doubt they'll keep looking for ways to admit the kids they want to admit to advance the narrative they want to advance, but it's all getting a bit sad.

[Anonymous]

No idea if the kids actually retook or were allowed to my child just said they might try.

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day, there are more students in the region who are qualified for and would benefit from a TJ education than there are available seats. No matter what admissions process they use, someone will not get in and that person will feel aggrieved as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another question is how the admission evaluate the student's academic standing within school? So students have already finished pre-calculus and even higher, but they are having same GPA as other students, and some might get lower GPA like A- because they did not turn in homework on time. How did the students are being identified as top 1.5% rank? I am sure TJ admission won't know the student well, and now the recommendation letter is not required.

If your child is getting lower grades than they otherwise might because they aren’t keeping up with a middle school workload, that does not bode well for their ability to manage the rigors of a TJ course load.

And how many applicants have already finished pre-calculus by 8th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It isn't fair. My child had the pop up window and said that 10 minutes was lost and the child needed every second to do the test and could have used more time.

This site got an email and it sure seemed like if you said you were impacted you could retake. My child was impacted but felt like the whole process was so stressful and chose not to try again. Meanwhile some kids were saying they were trying again bc they now knew what types of questions and would do better on a retake.

It is a bit frustrating.

That is cheating. All the kids at that site should be given option to retake the essay exam. I hope TJ give different question who chooses to retake the exam. It will be not fair to those kids who did not have to retake exam.

It seems like a test within a test to better identify the kids who could adapt to adversity and thus make it at TJ.

I know right!

[Anonymous]

Maybe they should take paper and pencil tests....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, there are more students in the region who are qualified for and would benefit from a TJ education than there are available seats. No matter what admissions process they use, someone will not get in and that person will feel aggrieved as a result.

Yep. The best use of the time for the loud, resourced, aggrieved individuals is either to advocate for their taxes to be used to build another STEM magnet school in the western part of the county or perhaps to de-allocate seats to the non-FCPS jurisdictions and force them to compete for the unallocated slots.