How does TJ admissions figure out the top 1.5 percent?

[Anonymous]

How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

It’s the however many students - 5-12, depending on the school - have the highest combined applicant rating once all of the different areas have been subscored and any experience factors have been added.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

It’s the however many students - 5-12, depending on the school - have the highest combined applicant rating once all of the different areas have been subscored and any experience factors have been added.

So, therefore, quite likely not the top 1.5% in terms of academic talent at many of the middle schools.

[Anonymous]

The applicants are all scored based on their GPA, essays, and experience factors. They don’t look at specific classes, so a kid with a 4.0 in all AAP classes and honors precalc earns the same score as a kid with a 4.0 in 2 honors classes, one non honors class, and Algebra I honors. Essays are by far the most heavily weighted, and they will be a fairly trivial problem solving essay and some portrait of a graduate essays. If 1.5% corresponds to 8 spots, then the 8 applicants with the highest scores will be offered TJ spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

It’s the however many students - 5-12, depending on the school - have the highest combined applicant rating once all of the different areas have been subscored and any experience factors have been added.

So, therefore, quite likely not the top 1.5% in terms of academic talent at many of the middle schools.

May or may not be. “Quite likely” and “many” are doing a lot of work in that sentence.

As much as many don’t want to admit it, academic talent is a fairly difficult thing to measure. Advancement and potential are very different things.

[Anonymous]

"Students will be evaluated on their grade point average (GPA);
a student portrait sheet where they will be asked to demonstrate Portrait of a Graduate attributes and 21st century skills;
a problem-solving essay;
and experience factors,
including students who are economically disadvantaged,
English language learners,
or special education students."



https://www.fcps.edu/registration/thomas-jefferson-high-school-science-and-technology-admissions/tjhsst-freshman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The applicants are all scored based on their GPA, essays, and experience factors. They don’t look at specific classes, so a kid with a 4.0 in all AAP classes and honors precalc earns the same score as a kid with a 4.0 in 2 honors classes, one non honors class, and Algebra I honors. Essays are by far the most heavily weighted, and they will be a fairly trivial problem solving essay and some portrait of a graduate essays. If 1.5% corresponds to 8 spots, then the 8 applicants with the highest scores will be offered TJ spots.

In other words, TJ is not necessarily admitting the best/brightest 550 kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

I don’t know how they are figuring it out. I know they are getting it wrong at Longfellow. My kid was not in the 1.5%. Fine. Perfect GPA but I can believe that there were many in this situation and they came up with some process to select. I can accept my kid didn’t make the cut. But there are kids in my child’s math and science classes at McLean that absolutely should have been at the county STEM magnet. If these kids are not top 1.5%, nobody is.

It doesn’t matter though. Lots of great opportunities at the base school and hopefully kids for whom the TJ offerings are critical will get a chance to experience it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The applicants are all scored based on their GPA, essays, and experience factors. They don’t look at specific classes, so a kid with a 4.0 in all AAP classes and honors precalc earns the same score as a kid with a 4.0 in 2 honors classes, one non honors class, and Algebra I honors. Essays are by far the most heavily weighted, and they will be a fairly trivial problem solving essay and some portrait of a graduate essays. If 1.5% corresponds to 8 spots, then the 8 applicants with the highest scores will be offered TJ spots.

In other words, TJ is not necessarily admitting the best/brightest 550 kids

To be fair, they never have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

I don’t know how they are figuring it out. I know they are getting it wrong at Longfellow. My kid was not in the 1.5%. Fine. Perfect GPA but I can believe that there were many in this situation and they came up with some process to select. I can accept my kid didn’t make the cut. But there are kids in my child’s math and science classes at McLean that absolutely should have been at the county STEM magnet. If these kids are not top 1.5%, nobody is.

It doesn’t matter though. Lots of great opportunities at the base school and hopefully kids for whom the TJ offerings are critical will get a chance to experience it.

You are witnessing the effects of equity politics in public schools.
If selection were objective and based on merit based criteria, then students with advanced academic abilities in math & science would have been selected for TJ. Since selection shifted to a namesake essay evaluation with concealed subjective ranking, there is no way for FCPS to know who they are selecting and which qualified student is left behind. Yet, this subjective selection has a targeted purpose, which is to claim achievement of predetermined diversity mix, even it means excluding a qualified student due to color of their skin and including an under qualifed student based on their different skin color.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The applicants are all scored based on their GPA, essays, and experience factors. They don’t look at specific classes, so a kid with a 4.0 in all AAP classes and honors precalc earns the same score as a kid with a 4.0 in 2 honors classes, one non honors class, and Algebra I honors. Essays are by far the most heavily weighted, and they will be a fairly trivial problem solving essay and some portrait of a graduate essays. If 1.5% corresponds to 8 spots, then the 8 applicants with the highest scores will be offered TJ spots.

In other words, TJ is not necessarily admitting the best/brightest 550 kids

Except they are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Students will be evaluated on their grade point average (GPA);
a student portrait sheet where they will be asked to demonstrate Portrait of a Graduate attributes and 21st century skills;
a problem-solving essay;
and experience factors,
including students who are economically disadvantaged,
English language learners,
or special education students."



https://www.fcps.edu/registration/thomas-jefferson-high-school-science-and-technology-admissions/tjhsst-freshman

They have to back door in racism somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

I don’t know how they are figuring it out. I know they are getting it wrong at Longfellow. My kid was not in the 1.5%. Fine. Perfect GPA but I can believe that there were many in this situation and they came up with some process to select. I can accept my kid didn’t make the cut. But there are kids in my child’s math and science classes at McLean that absolutely should have been at the county STEM magnet. If these kids are not top 1.5%, nobody is.

It doesn’t matter though. Lots of great opportunities at the base school and hopefully kids for whom the TJ offerings are critical will get a chance to experience it.

Did they want to go? TJ has had declining applications for years - part of the purpose of the admissions change was to fix this but there isn't evidence that it has worked.

Also, magnet schools have never been big enough. Qualified students, and sometimes the most qualified students, aren't admitted. My brother was fortunate to go to a magnet high school in a different state, and it changed the course of his life, but there were other qualified students who weren't accepted to his school. C'est la vie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does TJ figure out whether a child is o within the top 1.5% in a specific middle school? Is it based on the 7th grade GPA?

I don’t know how they are figuring it out. I know they are getting it wrong at Longfellow. My kid was not in the 1.5%. Fine. Perfect GPA but I can believe that there were many in this situation and they came up with some process to select. I can accept my kid didn’t make the cut. But there are kids in my child’s math and science classes at McLean that absolutely should have been at the county STEM magnet. If these kids are not top 1.5%, nobody is.

It doesn’t matter though. Lots of great opportunities at the base school and hopefully kids for whom the TJ offerings are critical will get a chance to experience it.

You are witnessing the effects of equity politics in public schools.
If selection were objective and based on merit based criteria, then students with advanced academic abilities in math & science would have been selected for TJ. Since selection shifted to a namesake essay evaluation with concealed subjective ranking, there is no way for FCPS to know who they are selecting and which qualified student is left behind. Yet, this subjective selection has a targeted purpose, which is to claim achievement of predetermined diversity mix, even it means excluding a qualified student due to color of their skin and including an under qualifed student based on their different skin color.

Skin color is not the target. Geographic diversity is. If, coincidentally, the current state of housing costs in Fairfax County means there's a correlation to skin color then it is what it is but it is not deliberate.

The wealthy are free to move anywhere they want to in order to gain any advantage they deem necessary. The poor do not have that luxury and freedom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The applicants are all scored based on their GPA, essays, and experience factors. They don’t look at specific classes, so a kid with a 4.0 in all AAP classes and honors precalc earns the same score as a kid with a 4.0 in 2 honors classes, one non honors class, and Algebra I honors. Essays are by far the most heavily weighted, and they will be a fairly trivial problem solving essay and some portrait of a graduate essays. If 1.5% corresponds to 8 spots, then the 8 applicants with the highest scores will be offered TJ spots.

In other words, TJ is not necessarily admitting the best/brightest 550 kids

To be fair, they never have.

And there is no way calculate it.