Concerns about TJ Admissions

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is currently in 8th grade, and went to our school's TJ info session last night. After listening to the presentation, I had a couple of concerns.

According to the presenter, the only official records that the admissions people are allowed to take into consideration are grades and experience factors. Everything else is on the essays. No test scores or teacher recommendations. We were counseled that if our child has noteworthy STEM-related achievements or experiences, they should write about it in their reflections essays. This made me wonder - what's to keep children from flat-out lying and inventing a fantastical tale of grand STEM accomplishment? It sounds like the admissions group isn't allowed to cross-check them and cannot even rely on the endorsement of trusted sources like teachers.

Second, I'm somewhat concerned that so much of the admissions process relies on essays. I've been on plenty of hiring committees where some people love a candidate while others consider it awful, and it all hinges on a few relatively mundane lines in their cover letter. I've also had research paper where one reviewer calls the work remarkable and novel, while another recommends it for rejection. It seems like a lot hinges on something that can be taken very subjectively, and the fate of our children depends a lot on having the luck to land sympathetic reviewers.

The presenter refused to comment on the specifics of the process, in terms of how each piece of information is taken into account. This is understandable. However, I'm worried that the information that they have to start with isn't enough to ensure a fair process.

Oh it's super easy. They take the top kids from every school.

They randomly select kids from every school.

Randomly select and still be the 5th HS rank in the US, what a skill in cherry picking those kids!!

This is based on the following data (Randomly select class did not contribute to the ranking yet. Future rankings good/bad will have their contributions):

Category (%ge weight in ranking) - Data based on
---------------------------------------------------------------
College Readiness (30%) - Based on 12th grade class of 2022-23
College Curriculum Breadth (10%) - Based on 12th grade classs of 2022-23
State Assessment Proficiency (20%)- Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
State Assessment Performance (20%)- Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
Underserved Student Performance (10%) - Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
Graduation Rate (10%)- Based on ninth grade in the 2019-2020

Reference: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

Remember last year when the rank drop to 14, y’all foaming at the mouth blaming the new admission.
You need consistency.

DP

I've been consistently saying that USNWR is meaningless.

The best measure is SAT scores, always has been.
I don't know why the pro-testing crowd runs away from using test scores as a metric of how good the admissions process is.
It's almost like they don't actually believe the logical conclusion of their own arguments.
We don't have that data yet but the PSAT scores suggest that we can expect SAT scores at TJHSST to drop by over 100 points.

Like it or not, almost every other country in the world uses a single test or a series of tests to determine who gets into which college.
Like it or not, "diversity" is not common at school in most other countries.
Affirmative action exists but it is not for the sake of diversity, it is to correct for social "injustice." We don't it for sociasl jsutice, we do it to get mediocre rich black immigrants like Claudine Gay into Ivy league schools to assuage a national white guilt.

SAT scores are good at measuring one thing - how good a student is at taking the SAT.

You can be absolutely stone-cold brilliant and be relatively unspectacular at taking the SAT - or any standardized exam - for any number of reasons.

Test-taking ability (which is a requirement for essentially any timed standardized exam) has precisely *one* real-world application, and that's to get a person admitted to a selective school. There is no other value to it whatsoever to the student.

Want to use them as one aspect of a broad holistic assessment to help establish a narrative about students with additional context? Sure, fine by me, as long as the scores are permanently sealed except to the admissions officers. But as long as that data is going to be abused by folks with an axe to grind, exam scores do more harm than good to institutions seeking to admit a well-balanced class that serves the interests of an elite academic environment.

Being good at the SAT measures much more than the ability to take the SAT. There is no question about the validity of standardized testing, especially at the high end.

It is rare to be "stone cold brilliant" and bad at standardized tests.

Test taking ability measures cognitive ability. It's literally the reason they were invented.

That "one aspect" of a broad "holistic" assessment is the ONLY assessment used in most countries (in many countries, the equivalent of AP exams are also used). Holistic assessments are only used here because it created the subjectivity necessary to keep jews out of harvard and it is used now to create the subjectivity necessary to admit people on the basis of race, gender sexuality, sexual identity, wealth, poverty, privilege and oppression.

Somebody lied to you and told you tests weren't very useful and you believed them because test results were inconvenient to your narrative.

I mean, yeah. Subjectivity is an element of basically every selection process of consequence once these kids become adults - and the younger a student is, the more necessary an understanding of their circumstances is to projecting their potential.

And besides, it's no academic institution's job to simply identify and select the "best" students - their job is to create an exceptional learning environment that is likely to produce some sort of outcome that serves the institution (for private entities) or the community (for public ones like TJ). Because Fairfax County runs TJ and its admissions process, it is FCPS's job to determine what TJ's job is. And they've determined, for better or worse, that TJ's existence best serves the STEM community in Northern Virginia by bringing in students from every area middle school and allowing for legitimate, fair access for students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds (which objectively did not exist before).

Folks who assert that the job is to define and identify the "best" in some manner are imputing an objective that does not exist and has never existed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is currently in 8th grade, and went to our school's TJ info session last night. After listening to the presentation, I had a couple of concerns.

According to the presenter, the only official records that the admissions people are allowed to take into consideration are grades and experience factors. Everything else is on the essays. No test scores or teacher recommendations. We were counseled that if our child has noteworthy STEM-related achievements or experiences, they should write about it in their reflections essays. This made me wonder - what's to keep children from flat-out lying and inventing a fantastical tale of grand STEM accomplishment? It sounds like the admissions group isn't allowed to cross-check them and cannot even rely on the endorsement of trusted sources like teachers.

Second, I'm somewhat concerned that so much of the admissions process relies on essays. I've been on plenty of hiring committees where some people love a candidate while others consider it awful, and it all hinges on a few relatively mundane lines in their cover letter. I've also had research paper where one reviewer calls the work remarkable and novel, while another recommends it for rejection. It seems like a lot hinges on something that can be taken very subjectively, and the fate of our children depends a lot on having the luck to land sympathetic reviewers.

The presenter refused to comment on the specifics of the process, in terms of how each piece of information is taken into account. This is understandable. However, I'm worried that the information that they have to start with isn't enough to ensure a fair process.

Oh it's super easy. They take the top kids from every school.

They randomly select kids from every school.

Randomly select and still be the 5th HS rank in the US, what a skill in cherry picking those kids!!

This is based on the following data (Randomly select class did not contribute to the ranking yet. Future rankings good/bad will have their contributions):

Category (%ge weight in ranking) - Data based on
---------------------------------------------------------------
College Readiness (30%) - Based on 12th grade class of 2022-23
College Curriculum Breadth (10%) - Based on 12th grade classs of 2022-23
State Assessment Proficiency (20%)- Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
State Assessment Performance (20%)- Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
Underserved Student Performance (10%) - Based on 2022-2023 state assessment data
Graduation Rate (10%)- Based on ninth grade in the 2019-2020

Reference: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

Remember last year when the rank drop to 14, y’all foaming at the mouth blaming the new admission.
You need consistency.

DP

I've been consistently saying that USNWR is meaningless.

The best measure is SAT scores, always has been.
I don't know why the pro-testing crowd runs away from using test scores as a metric of how good the admissions process is.
It's almost like they don't actually believe the logical conclusion of their own arguments.
We don't have that data yet but the PSAT scores suggest that we can expect SAT scores at TJHSST to drop by over 100 points.

Like it or not, almost every other country in the world uses a single test or a series of tests to determine who gets into which college.
Like it or not, "diversity" is not common at school in most other countries.
Affirmative action exists but it is not for the sake of diversity, it is to correct for social "injustice." We don't it for sociasl jsutice, we do it to get mediocre rich black immigrants like Claudine Gay into Ivy league schools to assuage a national white guilt.

SAT scores are good at measuring one thing - how good a student is at taking the SAT.

You can be absolutely stone-cold brilliant and be relatively unspectacular at taking the SAT - or any standardized exam - for any number of reasons.

Test-taking ability (which is a requirement for essentially any timed standardized exam) has precisely *one* real-world application, and that's to get a person admitted to a selective school. There is no other value to it whatsoever to the student.

Want to use them as one aspect of a broad holistic assessment to help establish a narrative about students with additional context? Sure, fine by me, as long as the scores are permanently sealed except to the admissions officers. But as long as that data is going to be abused by folks with an axe to grind, exam scores do more harm than good to institutions seeking to admit a well-balanced class that serves the interests of an elite academic environment.

Being good at the SAT measures much more than the ability to take the SAT. There is no question about the validity of standardized testing, especially at the high end.

It is rare to be "stone cold brilliant" and bad at standardized tests.

Test taking ability measures cognitive ability. It's literally the reason they were invented.

That "one aspect" of a broad "holistic" assessment is the ONLY assessment used in most countries (in many countries, the equivalent of AP exams are also used). Holistic assessments are only used here because it created the subjectivity necessary to keep jews out of harvard and it is used now to create the subjectivity necessary to admit people on the basis of race, gender sexuality, sexual identity, wealth, poverty, privilege and oppression.

Somebody lied to you and told you tests weren't very useful and you believed them because test results were inconvenient to your narrative.

I mean, yeah. Subjectivity is an element of basically every selection process of consequence once these kids become adults - and the younger a student is, the more necessary an understanding of their circumstances is to projecting their potential.

And besides, it's no academic institution's job to simply identify and select the "best" students - their job is to create an exceptional learning environment that is likely to produce some sort of outcome that serves the institution (for private entities) or the community (for public ones like TJ). Because Fairfax County runs TJ and its admissions process, it is FCPS's job to determine what TJ's job is. And they've determined, for better or worse, that TJ's existence best serves the STEM community in Northern Virginia by bringing in students from every area middle school and allowing for legitimate, fair access for students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds (which objectively did not exist before).

Folks who assert that the job is to define and identify the "best" in some manner are imputing an objective that does not exist and has never existed.

Merit principles would say otherwise and the education system of the vast majority of countries agree with the merit principle.

And besides the claim that "SAT scores are good at measuring one thing - how good a student is at taking the SAT."
This is false

The claim was that "You can be absolutely stone-cold brilliant and be relatively unspectacular at taking the SAT - or any standardized exam - for any number of reasons."
This is generally false.

Ultimately whatever they dop at TJ is a political question as long as what they are not doing does not violate the law. But the notion that is constantly repeated on this board that the ability to do well on standardized tests only measure the ability to do well on standardized tests, or that they only measure wealth or that they only measure things that are not associated with academic ability are dishonest attempts to undermine objective measures of merit because they don't like what the tests are saying about where the merit sits.

TJ is a governor's school and the objective of the governor's school is to serve gifted kids, not the best students based on their distribution among middle schools.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching-learning-assessment/specialized-instruction/governor-s-schools