TJ Falls to 14th in the Nation Per US News

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

I don't think it is common to send kids to private school after K-8 public. "Wealthy white families" seem to either be in private school already or are satisfied with the public school options in their area. Are there a lot of "wealthy white families" going K-8 public then passing on McLean or Langley High School to go to Potomac? Isn't high school is an expansion year mostly because there are a lot of private K-8 schools.

What was the eligibility criteria back then?
It seems to me that if the eligibility criteria was very low this might indicate unrealistic hopefulness on the part of the asian parents than disdain from the white parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

I don't think it is common to send kids to private school after K-8 public. "Wealthy white families" seem to either be in private school already or are satisfied with the public school options in their area. Are there a lot of "wealthy white families" going K-8 public then passing on McLean or Langley High School to go to Potomac? Isn't high school is an expansion year mostly because there are a lot of private K-8 schools.

What was the eligibility criteria back then?
It seems to me that if the eligibility criteria was very low this might indicate unrealistic hopefulness on the part of the asian parents than disdain from the white parents.

Yes, most of the kids we know in private for HS now were in public k-8. A few moved for 6th. Many kids also want to stay with their friends at their base school.

There are only a few K-8s.

IIRC, the eligibility criteria included enrollment in Alg 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, or above.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmits2011.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

I don't think it is common to send kids to private school after K-8 public. "Wealthy white families" seem to either be in private school already or are satisfied with the public school options in their area. Are there a lot of "wealthy white families" going K-8 public then passing on McLean or Langley High School to go to Potomac? Isn't high school is an expansion year mostly because there are a lot of private K-8 schools.

What was the eligibility criteria back then?
It seems to me that if the eligibility criteria was very low this might indicate unrealistic hopefulness on the part of the asian parents than disdain from the white parents.

Yes, most of the kids we know in private for HS now were in public k-8. A few moved for 6th. Many kids also want to stay with their friends at their base school.

There are only a few K-8s.

IIRC, the eligibility criteria included enrollment in Alg 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, or above.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmits2011.html

Algebra in 8th grade? That's available to anyone that wants it right?

There is no way that the majority of private school kids in high school were public school kids in 8th grade.
Do you mean that the new kids in private high schools all came from public schools?
I only have Potomac to judge from but it does not appear to be the case here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

I don't think it is common to send kids to private school after K-8 public. "Wealthy white families" seem to either be in private school already or are satisfied with the public school options in their area. Are there a lot of "wealthy white families" going K-8 public then passing on McLean or Langley High School to go to Potomac? Isn't high school is an expansion year mostly because there are a lot of private K-8 schools.

What was the eligibility criteria back then?
It seems to me that if the eligibility criteria was very low this might indicate unrealistic hopefulness on the part of the asian parents than disdain from the white parents.

Yes, most of the kids we know in private for HS now were in public k-8. A few moved for 6th. Many kids also want to stay with their friends at their base school.

There are only a few K-8s.

IIRC, the eligibility criteria included enrollment in Alg 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, or above.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmits2011.html

Algebra in 8th grade? That's available to anyone that wants it right?

There is no way that the majority of private school kids in high school were public school kids in 8th grade.
Do you mean that the new kids in private high schools all came from public schools?
I only have Potomac to judge from but it does not appear to be the case here.

I didn't say that.

Over their PK-12 experiences, my kids have attended a mix of public/private. Out of all of the people we know who are/were in private for 9-12, most of them were in public K-8. A few left in middle school because it was easier to get in at that point than for HS and they knew they wanted private for HS. MANY white, affluent families with kids in public k-8 do apply to private for 9-12. Or their kids want to stay with the base school because they want to stay with their friends, don't want a long commute, don't want to grind for 4 yrs, and/or don't want to diminish their chances for top colleges. There aren't a ton applying to TJ. Mostly just the kids who are super into STEM at an early age.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WSJ Article "The Roots of STEM Excellence"

It should be one of the nation’s highest educational priorities to get its most brilliant STEM students into those elite universities. Until a few years ago, the California Institute of Technology was the model.
...

The record of achievement among Caltech graduates and faculty speaks for itself—46 Nobel Laureates, 66 awarded National Medals of Science and 75 elected to the National Academy of Sciences, all generated by a school that enrolls only about 1,000 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students at a time.
..

"Based on the known distribution of math talent at the highest level and sex differences in occupational preferences, the students in these elite STEM departments will be more than 90% Asian or white and more than 80% male. But some things are more important than having the correct demographic mix. Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is one of them."

People don't realize how important it is to human civilization to nurture the far right tail of the IQ distribution.
Having fusion energy 10 years sooner will make concerns about global warming almost evaporate.
AI and Robotics will make a lot of dangerous jobs (and traffic accidents) a thing of the past.
We aren't going to protest our way out of the really big problems, we are going to science our way out of it. We are going to think our way out of it.

If we are concerned about the achievement gap then close the achievement gap.
We know how to do it, we've known how to do it for years but we don't do it on the left because we don't want to tell URM to work harder and the right doesn't really care enough about closing the achievement gap to dedicate the effort and resources.
Don't undermine merit and PRETEND you've closed the achievement gap that's the worst of both worlds.

Yet many people here still think cheating is merit.

That's frequently driven by white supremacist impulses.

They have to justify why non-white people are doing better than them at something in spite of the incredibly racist society they pretend exists in america (sure there's some but not like they say).

The white supremacists on the left have always been there, but they only have permission to be racist against model minorities. That's why you see gaza protests.

Stop being a cheater apologist! This is clearly driven by the fact that many students were gaming the admissions by purchasing access to the test answers. I get it, but pretending that's merit is as ridiculous as it is misguided.

The allegation that student were purchasing access to the test answers has been made several times. Could you please provide some evidence that this occurred?

Hi Jeff. Thanks for jumping in here, as there's been a lot of maligning of this story since it was broken about four years ago.

It is a little bit misleading for anyone to suggest that "students were purchasing access to the test answers". That's a pretty large rhetorical jump from what has been confirmed by multiple TJ students posting publicly on Facebook both under their names and anonymously, which is best summarized as:

"TJ students in the Classes of 2023 and 2024 report that when they took the Quant-Q exam as part of the TJ admissions process, they had already seen some of the longform multi-layered questions verbatim during their prep work at Curie Learning Centers."

This is problematic only because the makers of the Quant-Q exam pose it as a secured exam, publish no publicly available prep materials about the exam, and require literally everyone who sees the exam (including students) to sign an NDA promising not to discuss or share its contents.

https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/3294039000634689?ref=embed_post

The above is the post on TJ Vents that made the initial allegation that was confirmed in the comments and that spurred on a tremendous amount of conversation within the TJ community writ large. It is generally accepted within the TJ community, and those classes in particular, that this is a thing that happened - to the point where denial of it amounts to an admission that you don't really know what you're talking about.

The only purpose that I have in highlighting this issue is to discuss its contribution to the necessary removal of the exam (and, concurrently, the application fee) from the TJ admissions process. It is not to cast aspersions on Curie, or Indian students and families, or Asian-Americans more broadly, and it bothers me that some folks who generally I agree with have gone on those needless tangents. What happened wasn't really illegal (I don't think the NDA would have been enforceable or actionable) - it just highlighted the weakness of using a standardized exam to try to select students for educational opportunities when a $5,000 boutique course exists to try to create imbalances in that process.

"Buying answers" is a damaging heuristic that doesn't really help anyone.

[Anonymous]

Great post^^!

The whole point is people were paying for prep courses to gain a leg up on an admissions process that was designed to find natural talent not grinder skills. So the board blew it up and likely over corrected in the process. But the x% per MS is the best part of it and that is not going anywhere. Hopefully in a few more years they will tweak it again though to use base MS not attending MS (to fix AAP center problems) and re-add teacher recc’s to make it more likely they pick the top kids at each MS. But they should never go back to considering extracurriculars - that was super unfair in my view.

[Anonymous]

With the current race quota based admissions, there is huge talent gap between the bottom couple hundred students, who would have never gotten in on merit basis, and the top hundred kids who are enrolled in most advanced post-AP courses and research.

Sad part is the bottom hundred kids are not only enrolled in minimum rigor courses but also are being convinced to accept Cs and Ds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP.

The concern that many people in the community had, including school board members, was that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions, including the Quant-Q, which is an NDA-protected test.

Copied from my “roundup thread”.

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

This whole post can be boiled down to “someone on Facebook said it happened.”

Not even that.

No one claims to have bought test answers.

Do you acknowledge that many people in the community, including school board members, were concerned that wealthy kids obtained an unfair advantage because their families could afford to get access to previous test questions?

White people are always concerned when their kids start to lose seats to asian kids.
If wealth was the driver of who got into TJ, TJ would be predominantly white.
There was no unfair advantage with the SHSAT because anyone with $20 and an amazon account could get a Barrons or Princeton review book.
FCPS created the problem with their weird notion that ambush testing was somehow a good thing.

False.

Wealthy white families recognize that TJ is a grind that diminishes their kids’ chances to get into a top college.

Do you think the WISC and CoGAT are “ambush testing”? Do you think it’s ok for families to prep for those?

This is of course bullshit. White families didn't leave, they got crowded out.
White families didn't pass on TJ any more than they passed on medical school, investment banking, ivy+, or anything else
TJ used to be predominantly white and they didn't leave of their own accord

This is what is known as sour grapes. White families with mediocre kids pretending that they aren't going to TJ or ivy+ because they CHOOSE not to go to TJ or ivy+ They never had the choice
TJ and ivy+ isn't the goal of life but pretending that white families have gone from almost 100% of TJ and almost 100% of ivy+ to 20% of TJ before the admissions change looks like a coping mechanism

I know several white Arlington families this year that had kids get in and turn it down. There were numerous reasons why they ended up declining, but they did indeed decline.

In my circles of affluent white families (many with T10 undergrad/grad parents), parents explicitly said they didn’t want their kids to have a grueling HS experience. And that TJ would actually hurt their kids’ chances at top colleges. All that work for no benefit. The exceptions were a couple super nerdy STEM kids who thrived at TJ.

Very few families seriously considered TJ. Many families did look at private schools though.

That PP doesn’t have a clue about wealthy white families.

PP here. You think people have been sending their kids to public school from k-8 and then send their kids to private school for 9-12?

Do you know how many TJ parents I know that acted all non-committal about wanting their kids to go to TJ until they got in? Noone wants to look like they really wanted to go but their kid got rejected.

Yes, many parents send their kids to private for 9-12 and never even apply to TJ.

There are several 9-12 private schools and 9th is a big expansion year for the pk-12 schools. Who do you think is filling those seats?

On a previous thread, I looked at the numbers for class of 2015:
56% of all Asian 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
99% of those students applied

45% of all white 8th graders in FCPS were eligible to apply to TJ
only 49% of those students applied

Unless they have a super STEM kid, white families tend to prefer their base school or private.

I don't think it is common to send kids to private school after K-8 public. "Wealthy white families" seem to either be in private school already or are satisfied with the public school options in their area. Are there a lot of "wealthy white families" going K-8 public then passing on McLean or Langley High School to go to Potomac? Isn't high school is an expansion year mostly because there are a lot of private K-8 schools.

What was the eligibility criteria back then?
It seems to me that if the eligibility criteria was very low this might indicate unrealistic hopefulness on the part of the asian parents than disdain from the white parents.

Yes, most of the kids we know in private for HS now were in public k-8. A few moved for 6th. Many kids also want to stay with their friends at their base school.

There are only a few K-8s.

IIRC, the eligibility criteria included enrollment in Alg 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, or above.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmits2011.html

Algebra in 8th grade? That's available to anyone that wants it right?

There is no way that the majority of private school kids in high school were public school kids in 8th grade.
Do you mean that the new kids in private high schools all came from public schools?
I only have Potomac to judge from but it does not appear to be the case here.

I didn't say that.

Over their PK-12 experiences, my kids have attended a mix of public/private. Out of all of the people we know who are/were in private for 9-12, most of them were in public K-8. A few left in middle school because it was easier to get in at that point than for HS and they knew they wanted private for HS. MANY white, affluent families with kids in public k-8 do apply to private for 9-12. Or their kids want to stay with the base school because they want to stay with their friends, don't want a long commute, don't want to grind for 4 yrs, and/or don't want to diminish their chances for top colleges. There aren't a ton applying to TJ. Mostly just the kids who are super into STEM at an early age.

Oh you were just giving your personal experience? Anecdote isn't data.

This attitude you seem to think exists among white people didn't seem to exist 15 years ago when whites were the majority.
This attitude seesm to have developed after they got crowded out.

Even with 99% of asians applying and only a self selected crowd of less than half the eligible white kids applying, asian kids got in at higher rates than white kids.
Whites didn't leave TJ, they were crowded out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WSJ Article "The Roots of STEM Excellence"

It should be one of the nation’s highest educational priorities to get its most brilliant STEM students into those elite universities. Until a few years ago, the California Institute of Technology was the model.
...

The record of achievement among Caltech graduates and faculty speaks for itself—46 Nobel Laureates, 66 awarded National Medals of Science and 75 elected to the National Academy of Sciences, all generated by a school that enrolls only about 1,000 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students at a time.
..

"Based on the known distribution of math talent at the highest level and sex differences in occupational preferences, the students in these elite STEM departments will be more than 90% Asian or white and more than 80% male. But some things are more important than having the correct demographic mix. Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is one of them."

People don't realize how important it is to human civilization to nurture the far right tail of the IQ distribution.
Having fusion energy 10 years sooner will make concerns about global warming almost evaporate.
AI and Robotics will make a lot of dangerous jobs (and traffic accidents) a thing of the past.
We aren't going to protest our way out of the really big problems, we are going to science our way out of it. We are going to think our way out of it.

If we are concerned about the achievement gap then close the achievement gap.
We know how to do it, we've known how to do it for years but we don't do it on the left because we don't want to tell URM to work harder and the right doesn't really care enough about closing the achievement gap to dedicate the effort and resources.
Don't undermine merit and PRETEND you've closed the achievement gap that's the worst of both worlds.

Yet many people here still think cheating is merit.

That's frequently driven by white supremacist impulses.

They have to justify why non-white people are doing better than them at something in spite of the incredibly racist society they pretend exists in america (sure there's some but not like they say).

The white supremacists on the left have always been there, but they only have permission to be racist against model minorities. That's why you see gaza protests.

Stop being a cheater apologist! This is clearly driven by the fact that many students were gaming the admissions by purchasing access to the test answers. I get it, but pretending that's merit is as ridiculous as it is misguided.

The allegation that student were purchasing access to the test answers has been made several times. Could you please provide some evidence that this occurred?

Hi Jeff. Thanks for jumping in here, as there's been a lot of maligning of this story since it was broken about four years ago.

It is a little bit misleading for anyone to suggest that "students were purchasing access to the test answers". That's a pretty large rhetorical jump from what has been confirmed by multiple TJ students posting publicly on Facebook both under their names and anonymously, which is best summarized as:

"TJ students in the Classes of 2023 and 2024 report that when they took the Quant-Q exam as part of the TJ admissions process, they had already seen some of the longform multi-layered questions verbatim during their prep work at Curie Learning Centers."

This is problematic only because the makers of the Quant-Q exam pose it as a secured exam, publish no publicly available prep materials about the exam, and require literally everyone who sees the exam (including students) to sign an NDA promising not to discuss or share its contents.

https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/3294039000634689?ref=embed_post

The above is the post on TJ Vents that made the initial allegation that was confirmed in the comments and that spurred on a tremendous amount of conversation within the TJ community writ large. It is generally accepted within the TJ community, and those classes in particular, that this is a thing that happened - to the point where denial of it amounts to an admission that you don't really know what you're talking about.

The only purpose that I have in highlighting this issue is to discuss its contribution to the necessary removal of the exam (and, concurrently, the application fee) from the TJ admissions process. It is not to cast aspersions on Curie, or Indian students and families, or Asian-Americans more broadly, and it bothers me that some folks who generally I agree with have gone on those needless tangents. What happened wasn't really illegal (I don't think the NDA would have been enforceable or actionable) - it just highlighted the weakness of using a standardized exam to try to select students for educational opportunities when a $5,000 boutique course exists to try to create imbalances in that process.

"Buying answers" is a damaging heuristic that doesn't really help anyone.

The SHSAT worked just fine for years before they switched to Quant Q and their promises of unpreppable exams.
It was probbaly unpreppable the very first year it was given because noone had seen it before.
So, if what you say is true, then we would have seen a jump in free and reduced lunch kids in 2018 (the very first year quant Q was used). Did we see that jump?
No, we saw a drift towards an admission pool that looked a bit more like the applicant pool but nothing like what you are claiming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great post^^!

The whole point is people were paying for prep courses to gain a leg up on an admissions process that was designed to find natural talent not grinder skills. So the board blew it up and likely over corrected in the process. But the x% per MS is the best part of it and that is not going anywhere. Hopefully in a few more years they will tweak it again though to use base MS not attending MS (to fix AAP center problems) and re-add teacher recc’s to make it more likely they pick the top kids at each MS. But they should never go back to considering extracurriculars - that was super unfair in my view.

You mean like the black kid at woodson that developed a cancer treatment and didn't get into TJ?
Noone is selecting for "natural talent"
The best way to measure cognitive ability (short of individual assessments by a psychologist) is a standardized test. This is a fairly well established maxim and has never been refuted by a replicable psychology study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WSJ Article "The Roots of STEM Excellence"

It should be one of the nation’s highest educational priorities to get its most brilliant STEM students into those elite universities. Until a few years ago, the California Institute of Technology was the model.
...

The record of achievement among Caltech graduates and faculty speaks for itself—46 Nobel Laureates, 66 awarded National Medals of Science and 75 elected to the National Academy of Sciences, all generated by a school that enrolls only about 1,000 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students at a time.
..

"Based on the known distribution of math talent at the highest level and sex differences in occupational preferences, the students in these elite STEM departments will be more than 90% Asian or white and more than 80% male. But some things are more important than having the correct demographic mix. Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is one of them."

People don't realize how important it is to human civilization to nurture the far right tail of the IQ distribution.
Having fusion energy 10 years sooner will make concerns about global warming almost evaporate.
AI and Robotics will make a lot of dangerous jobs (and traffic accidents) a thing of the past.
We aren't going to protest our way out of the really big problems, we are going to science our way out of it. We are going to think our way out of it.

If we are concerned about the achievement gap then close the achievement gap.
We know how to do it, we've known how to do it for years but we don't do it on the left because we don't want to tell URM to work harder and the right doesn't really care enough about closing the achievement gap to dedicate the effort and resources.
Don't undermine merit and PRETEND you've closed the achievement gap that's the worst of both worlds.

Yet many people here still think cheating is merit.

That's frequently driven by white supremacist impulses.

They have to justify why non-white people are doing better than them at something in spite of the incredibly racist society they pretend exists in america (sure there's some but not like they say).

The white supremacists on the left have always been there, but they only have permission to be racist against model minorities. That's why you see gaza protests.

Stop being a cheater apologist! This is clearly driven by the fact that many students were gaming the admissions by purchasing access to the test answers. I get it, but pretending that's merit is as ridiculous as it is misguided.

The allegation that student were purchasing access to the test answers has been made several times. Could you please provide some evidence that this occurred?

Hi Jeff. Thanks for jumping in here, as there's been a lot of maligning of this story since it was broken about four years ago.

It is a little bit misleading for anyone to suggest that "students were purchasing access to the test answers". That's a pretty large rhetorical jump from what has been confirmed by multiple TJ students posting publicly on Facebook both under their names and anonymously, which is best summarized as:

"TJ students in the Classes of 2023 and 2024 report that when they took the Quant-Q exam as part of the TJ admissions process, they had already seen some of the longform multi-layered questions verbatim during their prep work at Curie Learning Centers."

This is problematic only because the makers of the Quant-Q exam pose it as a secured exam, publish no publicly available prep materials about the exam, and require literally everyone who sees the exam (including students) to sign an NDA promising not to discuss or share its contents.

https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/3294039000634689?ref=embed_post

The above is the post on TJ Vents that made the initial allegation that was confirmed in the comments and that spurred on a tremendous amount of conversation within the TJ community writ large. It is generally accepted within the TJ community, and those classes in particular, that this is a thing that happened - to the point where denial of it amounts to an admission that you don't really know what you're talking about.

The only purpose that I have in highlighting this issue is to discuss its contribution to the necessary removal of the exam (and, concurrently, the application fee) from the TJ admissions process. It is not to cast aspersions on Curie, or Indian students and families, or Asian-Americans more broadly, and it bothers me that some folks who generally I agree with have gone on those needless tangents. What happened wasn't really illegal (I don't think the NDA would have been enforceable or actionable) - it just highlighted the weakness of using a standardized exam to try to select students for educational opportunities when a $5,000 boutique course exists to try to create imbalances in that process.

"Buying answers" is a damaging heuristic that doesn't really help anyone.

The $5000 course is actually $300.
There is a $2000/semester class that ISN'T TJ test prep and more like a kumon. Are you confusing studying for test prep? They're different things, you know that right?
Kids aren't going to TJ test prep from 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the current race quota based admissions, there is huge talent gap between the bottom couple hundred students, who would have never gotten in on merit basis, and the top hundred kids who are enrolled in most advanced post-AP courses and research.

Sad part is the bottom hundred kids are not only enrolled in minimum rigor courses but also are being convinced to accept Cs and Ds.

TJ has a race-blind process which is required by US law, but if you know of something like race based quotas going on secretly, you can win a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With the current race quota based admissions, there is huge talent gap between the bottom couple hundred students, who would have never gotten in on merit basis, and the top hundred kids who are enrolled in most advanced post-AP courses and research.

Sad part is the bottom hundred kids are not only enrolled in minimum rigor courses but also are being convinced to accept Cs and Ds.

it's basically turning into a Charter School. The kids at the top are still stars but the kids at the bottom are drowning and 10% of them return to their base school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WSJ Article "The Roots of STEM Excellence"

It should be one of the nation’s highest educational priorities to get its most brilliant STEM students into those elite universities. Until a few years ago, the California Institute of Technology was the model.
...

The record of achievement among Caltech graduates and faculty speaks for itself—46 Nobel Laureates, 66 awarded National Medals of Science and 75 elected to the National Academy of Sciences, all generated by a school that enrolls only about 1,000 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students at a time.
..

"Based on the known distribution of math talent at the highest level and sex differences in occupational preferences, the students in these elite STEM departments will be more than 90% Asian or white and more than 80% male. But some things are more important than having the correct demographic mix. Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is one of them."

People don't realize how important it is to human civilization to nurture the far right tail of the IQ distribution.
Having fusion energy 10 years sooner will make concerns about global warming almost evaporate.
AI and Robotics will make a lot of dangerous jobs (and traffic accidents) a thing of the past.
We aren't going to protest our way out of the really big problems, we are going to science our way out of it. We are going to think our way out of it.

If we are concerned about the achievement gap then close the achievement gap.
We know how to do it, we've known how to do it for years but we don't do it on the left because we don't want to tell URM to work harder and the right doesn't really care enough about closing the achievement gap to dedicate the effort and resources.
Don't undermine merit and PRETEND you've closed the achievement gap that's the worst of both worlds.

Yet many people here still think cheating is merit.

That's frequently driven by white supremacist impulses.

They have to justify why non-white people are doing better than them at something in spite of the incredibly racist society they pretend exists in america (sure there's some but not like they say).

The white supremacists on the left have always been there, but they only have permission to be racist against model minorities. That's why you see gaza protests.

Stop being a cheater apologist! This is clearly driven by the fact that many students were gaming the admissions by purchasing access to the test answers. I get it, but pretending that's merit is as ridiculous as it is misguided.

The allegation that student were purchasing access to the test answers has been made several times. Could you please provide some evidence that this occurred?

Hi Jeff. Thanks for jumping in here, as there's been a lot of maligning of this story since it was broken about four years ago.

It is a little bit misleading for anyone to suggest that "students were purchasing access to the test answers". That's a pretty large rhetorical jump from what has been confirmed by multiple TJ students posting publicly on Facebook both under their names and anonymously, which is best summarized as:

"TJ students in the Classes of 2023 and 2024 report that when they took the Quant-Q exam as part of the TJ admissions process, they had already seen some of the longform multi-layered questions verbatim during their prep work at Curie Learning Centers."

This is problematic only because the makers of the Quant-Q exam pose it as a secured exam, publish no publicly available prep materials about the exam, and require literally everyone who sees the exam (including students) to sign an NDA promising not to discuss or share its contents.

https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/3294039000634689?ref=embed_post

The above is the post on TJ Vents that made the initial allegation that was confirmed in the comments and that spurred on a tremendous amount of conversation within the TJ community writ large. It is generally accepted within the TJ community, and those classes in particular, that this is a thing that happened - to the point where denial of it amounts to an admission that you don't really know what you're talking about.

The only purpose that I have in highlighting this issue is to discuss its contribution to the necessary removal of the exam (and, concurrently, the application fee) from the TJ admissions process. It is not to cast aspersions on Curie, or Indian students and families, or Asian-Americans more broadly, and it bothers me that some folks who generally I agree with have gone on those needless tangents. What happened wasn't really illegal (I don't think the NDA would have been enforceable or actionable) - it just highlighted the weakness of using a standardized exam to try to select students for educational opportunities when a $5,000 boutique course exists to try to create imbalances in that process.

"Buying answers" is a damaging heuristic that doesn't really help anyone.

The $5000 course is actually $300.
There is a $2000/semester class that ISN'T TJ test prep and more like a kumon. Are you confusing studying for test prep? They're different things, you know that right?
Kids aren't going to TJ test prep from 1st grade.

The class in question was a $5000 prep class. I think you may be confused.