Official TJ Admissions Decisions Results for the Class of 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: undervalues diversity.

Valuing diversity is something people emphasized to cover that they were engaged in deliberate discrimination.
They did it even more after courts started declaring that quotas are illegal.

Valuing diversity is something people emphasized to combat deliberate discrimination.

fixed it for you

Care to be specific about the referenced deliberate discrimination?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

Yep. Old TJ is dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

You left out the prep requirement for the old process. That's kind of an elephant in the room since it was the biggest factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

You left out the prep requirement for the old process. That's kind of an elephant in the room since it was the biggest factor.

We were comparing elements of the old and new selection process. It is clear the process has been diluted big time.

And you come up with something extraneous.
But but they had to prepare as if preparing for something is a bad thing. I really don't think you want to talk elephants in the room because you can dish some nonsense but won't be able to take the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

You left out the prep requirement for the old process. That's kind of an elephant in the room since it was the biggest factor.

We were comparing elements of the old and new selection process. It is clear the process has been diluted big time.

And you come up with something extraneous.
But but they had to prepare as if preparing for something is a bad thing. I really don't think you want to talk elephants in the room because you can dish some nonsense but won't be able to take the truth.

Amen brother...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

There is no lottery aspect to the new process. Students are evaluated first against one another within their own school to satisfy the geographical representation requirements, and then against the rest of the population for unallocated seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

There is no lottery aspect to the new process. Students are evaluated first against one another within their own school to satisfy the geographical representation requirements, and then against the rest of the population for unallocated seats.

The PP likes to spread misinformation in the hopes of stirring up dissent. There are many parents who liked being able to easily game the system by simply investing in prep. These changes make that harder.

[Anonymous]

There are again the dog whistles.

"Manufactured passion," "artificial advancements," "lack of foundational understanding of core concepts"

Bad, bad Asians.

Do they need VMPI and heterogeneous classrooms, perhaps?

I'm working with TJ students coming out of TJ and I've seen a steady decline over the last decade. I conclude this is because they came in less prepared and never had the chance to make it up. In a competitive discipline like STEM, learning takes time. If you don't start until 9th or 10th grade in seriousness, you stay behind your peers by 2-3 years in 12th grade, and then really all the way through college into grad school. (Exceptions not withstanding.) Objective statistics bear that out, too. Look at the decline in the number of students that are USACO finalists (you can look up what that is).

[Anonymous]

They would much rather dilute TJ with some mediocre students from Holmes MS and Poe MS to shut up Ricardy Anderson and her cronies in Mason than worry about whether TJ students are actually strong at STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are again the dog whistles.

"Manufactured passion," "artificial advancements," "lack of foundational understanding of core concepts"

Bad, bad Asians.

Do they need VMPI and heterogeneous classrooms, perhaps?

I'm working with TJ students coming out of TJ and I've seen a steady decline over the last decade. I conclude this is because they came in less prepared and never had the chance to make it up. In a competitive discipline like STEM, learning takes time. If you don't start until 9th or 10th grade in seriousness, you stay behind your peers by 2-3 years in 12th grade, and then really all the way through college into grad school. (Exceptions not withstanding.) Objective statistics bear that out, too. Look at the decline in the number of students that are USACO finalists (you can look up what that is).

Whoa dude...don't be going all logical on me. And stop with the analysis already. Woke peeps won't be able to follow along...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are again the dog whistles.

"Manufactured passion," "artificial advancements," "lack of foundational understanding of core concepts"

Bad, bad Asians.

Do they need VMPI and heterogeneous classrooms, perhaps?

I'm working with TJ students coming out of TJ and I've seen a steady decline over the last decade. I conclude this is because they came in less prepared and never had the chance to make it up. In a competitive discipline like STEM, learning takes time. If you don't start until 9th or 10th grade in seriousness, you stay behind your peers by 2-3 years in 12th grade, and then really all the way through college into grad school. (Exceptions not withstanding.) Objective statistics bear that out, too. Look at the decline in the number of students that are USACO finalists (you can look up what that is).

Well. If there’s been a steady decline over the last decade, I guess the change in admissions doesn’t matter all that much. Eyeroll. Not losing sleep over the “steady decline” of TJ. Great school. Great teachers. Great curriculum. Kids will be fine. Even if they have fewer USACO finalists. Second eyeroll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are again the dog whistles.

"Manufactured passion," "artificial advancements," "lack of foundational understanding of core concepts"

Bad, bad Asians.

Do they need VMPI and heterogeneous classrooms, perhaps?

I'm working with TJ students coming out of TJ and I've seen a steady decline over the last decade. I conclude this is because they came in less prepared and never had the chance to make it up. In a competitive discipline like STEM, learning takes time. If you don't start until 9th or 10th grade in seriousness, you stay behind your peers by 2-3 years in 12th grade, and then really all the way through college into grad school. (Exceptions not withstanding.) Objective statistics bear that out, too. Look at the decline in the number of students that are USACO finalists (you can look up what that is).

Well. If there’s been a steady decline over the last decade, I guess the change in admissions doesn’t matter all that much. Eyeroll. Not losing sleep over the “steady decline” of TJ. Great school. Great teachers. Great curriculum. Kids will be fine. Even if they have fewer USACO finalists. Second eyeroll.

If only you had learned logic instead of eye rolling.

1. Steady decline over last decade. Could be much worse with an admission test less process.
2. Data is showing decline. Is the data right? kids being 'fine' or not is not material.

Please like let the teenagers do the eye roll. Literally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

There is no lottery aspect to the new process. Students are evaluated first against one another within their own school to satisfy the geographical representation requirements, and then against the rest of the population for unallocated seats.

The PP likes to spread misinformation in the hopes of stirring up dissent. There are many parents who liked being able to easily game the system by simply investing in prep. These changes make that harder.

PP here. How is asking a clarifying question spreading misinformation. Seems like you are the one trying to manufacture news. It is much more easier to game the system with an essay claiming a lot of things and self declared adversity claims. Allows for far more subjectivity - which I guess was the intent with these changes in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those posters who try to make a case that there's such a thing as "truly gifted" and "truly deserving of a gifted education" despite having shown little interest in honing their STEM skills during their elementary school years have obviously never worked with STEM kids and have no clue what they're talking about.

By the time children are 11 or 12 years old those who are active in STEM (particularly in Math) have far outpaced those who are not; and whatever degree of innate giftedness (a vague and elitist concept, btw) really doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Nobody gives a crap about potential at this age anymore, it's the record of engagement and academic success that matters. As it should.

That's why TJ's change is so disturbing.

Going to build on some of the other responses to this nonsense.

One of the reasons that the changes at TJ are so important is the disincentivizing of extreme advancement in math for its own sake.

You can talk to any of the math teachers at TJ and they will tell you that there are far too many kids who are artificially advanced in math at the expense of a foundational understanding of core concepts. Sure, there are a few truly exceptional kids out there who really belong in, say, Calc BC or beyond in 9th grade - but for every one of those at TJ, there are 10-20 kids who have been made to appear to be one of those kids and are in way over their heads as a result.

"Honing their STEM skills". Give me a break. I've watched students develop an excellent STEM skill set for decades at TJ - kids that walked in as excellent students across the board but without a specialized set of "STEM skills" and discovered their passion for a specific STEM field while they were there - or (gasp) decided that their world-class STEM education was best leveraged in politics, or economics, or teaching, or any number of other tremendously important disciplines. This is why the freshman year includes Design and Tech and Research Statistics.

I agree that "innate giftedness" is pretty much BS, but there is a lot to be said for one's ability to contribute to the academic environment above and beyond just being hyper-advanced. And yeah, that's a subjective metric, but you know what? Every aspect of the rest of their adult lives will be centered around subjective evaluations, from team and club selections to college admissions to dating to job applications. And the world is trending further toward that direction as corporate cultures change.

Adapt or perish.

Subjective math. Yes of course. Adapt and perish is more like it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are obsessed with math advancement as the end-all-be-all of STEM aptitude. It's just not. There are so many factors that are far more important to and predictive of eventual success in STEM - like grit, determination, intellectual curiosity, and (perhaps most importantly) genuine passion for the subject matter.

And that genuine passion a) can and most frequently is acquired in high school and college and b) too often at TJ is manufactured by parents.

1. Math advancement is not end all be all of STEM aptitude. It is an important factor.
2. You are just stating the obvious. Of course grit, determination is important. And passion as long as it translates to work. I am passionate about playing the guitar but I don't practice doesn't cut it.
3. Agree that all parents can push too although I don't know what genuine passion is.

If your intention is to push some kids are unidimensional stereotype, shame on you.

I've been around TJ for long enough to know what I'm talking about. But - and this is important - the idea of the STEM "passion" being manufactured by parents is by no means limited to the Asian-American community at TJ. It goes across racial lines at the school and is a function of an admissions process that, in the past, deeply incentivized parents to make their children fit into a very narrow picture of what constitutes a potentially successful TJ student.

You can feel free to make this about Asian parents all you want - I'm not doing that. My point is that by and large, legitimate non-manufactured passion in STEM is not something that's measurable or identifiable in students who are 11 or 12 years old except in very rare instances, and as such trying to identify it at that age will create harmful unintended consequences like the ones that we've witnessed in Northern Virginia over the past dozen years, where you have tons of kids who are quitting activities that they genuinely enjoy in pursuit of the golden TJ ticket.

We need to STOP incentivizing behavior that pushes kids into narrow fields at such young ages. Parents can still do it if they want - their kids are theirs to parent as they so choose - but that behavior should not confer an advantage in any admissions process.

So the old process was bad (despite all the smart people at TJ) and new process great. Got it. What did the old process measure? And what does new process measure?

People at TJ didn't design the old process - the admissions office did, based on the directives that they got from the school board and the FCPS policies regarding TJ. So literally no one at TJ was involved with creating either the old admissions process or the new one. (I've said it before - if you're going to throw down with me, you'd better know what you're talking about)

The old process attempted to measure "academic achievement" by (in addition to their transcript) putting the kids through a three-section, three-hour exam that was unlike anything they would have encountered in their middle school careers - unless their parents had exposed them to it in another forum, usually at great cost in terms of hours and financial layout.

It also attempted to measure "passion for STEM" by having the students respond to a few essay questions and a problem-solving essay - which the new process also does. I will admit that, not having seen the questions on the new SIS sheet, I don't know how that piece is different from what it was before, and because of the intentional opacity of the admissions personnel and office, I don't know precisely how they've changed what they're looking for.

I will also say - as I've said previously - that I think that removing the teacher recommendations was a mistake. Even though these are subject to some level of bias, it is only the classroom teacher who can really provide a window into the student and the totality of their contributions to the academic environment.

I am quite certain that a re-engineered recommendation form, designed to take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete and purpose-built to for teachers to compare their students to one another, in addition to the option for teachers to write at length either positively or negatively on behalf of 5 students each, would accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this area and would go a long way toward identifying the students for whom TJ makes the most sense without overburdening the teachers at traditional TJ feeders.

Ok. So

Old process = academic achievement test +gpa + essays to show interest+ teacher recommendations.

New process = lottery after gpa criteria + essays to show interest + experience factors to demonstrate adversity.

Yeah?

Yep. Old TJ is dead.

Yep, the new TJ has more naturally gifted students and seems to be far less toxic.