TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock has had a good science olympiad team for years and they host tournaments. They don't have any other science clubs so all the top science students would be concentrated in this club (mostly Asian). TJ has so many STEM clubs that the top science students are doing many other activities. You can't really compare them.

+1000. I’m a pro reform poster but I know TJ really well. The top kids at TJ are, for example, winning $70K at the national Regeneron competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition. Good job Lake Braddock high school!! This is a lesson for parents who think there’s no better high school than TJ.

The pandemic and new admission policy have made the new students not really the traditional TJ students. Plus, the die hard science students at TJ do not do Science Olympiad, they do the math, Chem, bio

[Anonymous]

LBSS should be praised, not TJ brought down (there was a difference of one point). Medals are meaningless in reality.
The Lake Braddock Science Olympiad coach is the new Virginia Science Olympiad State Director so she knows how to coach this competition. Kudos to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition. Good job Lake Braddock high school!! This is a lesson for parents who think there’s no better high school than TJ.

The pandemic and new admission policy have made the new students not really the traditional TJ students. Plus, the die hard science students at TJ do not do Science Olympiad, they do the math, Chem, bio

Pretty sure the kids who did Science Olympiad for TJ weren’t freshmen. So the question of the Admissions process isn’t relevant here.

[Anonymous]

Congratulations to LBSS for winning the States in such a close race, winning the title by just 1 point .

https://virginiaso.org/pdf/results/2022States.pdf

TJ had been consistently winnin all their invitationals and regionals this year , their placement in the National level invitationals is a feat that none of the other schools can accomplish. It was just one bad day where 3 build events got tiered which is kind of unheard of, but they are only humans. Anyone can have a bad day including you, me and the likes of Roger Federer!

These kids not only have to balance their rigorous curriculum, but also put lots of work to achieve successes in extracurriculars which they have been doing consistently from many years. I am appalled by the hate in these forums who only speak out of jealousy. Please give them a break and get over your jealousy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition. Good job Lake Braddock high school!! This is a lesson for parents who think there’s no better high school than TJ.

The pandemic and new admission policy have made the new students not really the traditional TJ students. Plus, the die hard science students at TJ do not do Science Olympiad, they do the math, Chem, bio

Pretty sure the kids who did Science Olympiad for TJ weren’t freshmen. So the question of the Admissions process isn’t relevant here.

Maybe they were mostly freshmen. Maybe Team B lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LBSS should be praised, not TJ brought down (there was a difference of one point). Medals are meaningless in reality.
The Lake Braddock Science Olympiad coach is the new Virginia Science Olympiad State Director so she knows how to coach this competition. Kudos to her.

+1. That coach could make Lewis or Mt. Vernon a winner. With Science Olympiad it's all about the coaching and familiarity. Not at all in the same vein as a raw math competition.

[Anonymous]

TL; DR: Lake Braddock is a good team, TJ probably hit some bad luck somewhere, and 2022 is weird, man.

I'm familiar with Science Olympiad and TJ's team - here's my understanding:

Both TJ and Lake Braddock are well-coached teams. Both teams' coaches were awarded on Wednesday for ten years coaching, and as the LB coach moves to state director, the TJ coach will likely stay where she is, making her one of the state's most experienced coaches. Admittedly, at the high school level a lot of team operation is delegated to student leadership instead of adult coaches, but the stability and experience these coaches provide is still invaluable.

There's no way TJ sent their team B to the state tournament of all places. In fact, TJ prides themselves on not even having a team B; according to their team website (https://www.tjscioly.org), for the first half of the season, they field three teams of equal skill level, and then shrink to one A team for this tournament. The website's FAQ page also tries to debunk the claim that freshmen never get sent to states - if they have to take the time to address that, I'm guessing they're taking very few freshmen (probably not more than a couple) in a given year. This being TJ, it would not shock me if the freshmen they did select have competed at nationals in the past with Longfellow or Cooper.

Historically, TJ has won every TJ-LB matchup, which is what makes this so surprising. Even this year, TJ and Lake Braddock competed against each other twice (the last time being a month before states), and it wasn't close either time - TJ blew LB out of the water, placing all three of their teams dozens of places ahead of LB. If you're going by that data alone, states should have been a TJ sweep like the last couple times. So what happened?

Looking at the tournament results, it seems like TJ had a bad day with builds. Four of the five events TJ did not medal in had a build component. From my own experience helping out in Science Olympiad, bad luck is easy to come by with builds - all you need is something to break the night before or weird testing conditions and you're done for. Lake Braddock, on the other hand, fared much better, so I'm guessing that they had better builds and avoided some of the issues that bit TJ. The fifth non-medal event was Dynamic Planet, which has been a strength of TJ this season, so that's weird. Either they didn't put their best people on the event (unlikely) or something about the test threw them off. In either scenario, it seems like a fluke.

There are a bunch of study events that also strike me as unusual (Chem Lab should have been an easy win for TJ and at least a medal for LB, Codebusters has pretty much always been TJ or LB, etc.) suggesting that they might have had strange tests in those events or some other oddities. If that's the case, it's no wonder TJ struggled - as to be expected from a bunch of book-smart teenagers, the tests have traditionally been their strength, so suspect tests are going to send their score crashing. (Tests that are too easy or too hard, for instance, become a challenge of what you just happen to randomly remember or not, instead of an actual knowledge test.) Keep in mind, this is the first fully in-person tournament in VA in two years, so there's a high chance for things to have gone wrong. People (both the competitors and the tournament organizers) are still rusty.

None of this is to put down Lake Braddock, of course. They've had a notable rise over the last few years. Three years ago, no one took them seriously - VA was viewed as the stomping grounds of TJ, Fairfax, and Langley. It took LB upsetting Fairfax in 2020 for people to really notice them (and presumably leave TJ/Langley quaking in their boots a little), and they've continued to get stronger over the pandemic. They certainly had a strong showing, very likely had some of the best devices at the tournament (yes, even better than TJ's in some cases), and there's no reason to believe this wasn't a well-deserved victory for them.

The last thing I want to point out is that Langley was only two points behind TJ. Three teams in a four-point range at the top of a state tournament is highly unusual, especially when one team has been dominating for a few years now. I think this just illustrates how weird this whole year has been for all of us, both iwthin and outside of Science Olympiad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL; DR: Lake Braddock is a good team, TJ probably hit some bad luck somewhere, and 2022 is weird, man.

I'm familiar with Science Olympiad and TJ's team - here's my understanding:

Both TJ and Lake Braddock are well-coached teams. Both teams' coaches were awarded on Wednesday for ten years coaching, and as the LB coach moves to state director, the TJ coach will likely stay where she is, making her one of the state's most experienced coaches. Admittedly, at the high school level a lot of team operation is delegated to student leadership instead of adult coaches, but the stability and experience these coaches provide is still invaluable.

There's no way TJ sent their team B to the state tournament of all places. In fact, TJ prides themselves on not even having a team B; according to their team website (https://www.tjscioly.org), for the first half of the season, they field three teams of equal skill level, and then shrink to one A team for this tournament. The website's FAQ page also tries to debunk the claim that freshmen never get sent to states - if they have to take the time to address that, I'm guessing they're taking very few freshmen (probably not more than a couple) in a given year. This being TJ, it would not shock me if the freshmen they did select have competed at nationals in the past with Longfellow or Cooper.

Historically, TJ has won every TJ-LB matchup, which is what makes this so surprising. Even this year, TJ and Lake Braddock competed against each other twice (the last time being a month before states), and it wasn't close either time - TJ blew LB out of the water, placing all three of their teams dozens of places ahead of LB. If you're going by that data alone, states should have been a TJ sweep like the last couple times. So what happened?

Looking at the tournament results, it seems like TJ had a bad day with builds. Four of the five events TJ did not medal in had a build component. From my own experience helping out in Science Olympiad, bad luck is easy to come by with builds - all you need is something to break the night before or weird testing conditions and you're done for. Lake Braddock, on the other hand, fared much better, so I'm guessing that they had better builds and avoided some of the issues that bit TJ. The fifth non-medal event was Dynamic Planet, which has been a strength of TJ this season, so that's weird. Either they didn't put their best people on the event (unlikely) or something about the test threw them off. In either scenario, it seems like a fluke.

There are a bunch of study events that also strike me as unusual (Chem Lab should have been an easy win for TJ and at least a medal for LB, Codebusters has pretty much always been TJ or LB, etc.) suggesting that they might have had strange tests in those events or some other oddities. If that's the case, it's no wonder TJ struggled - as to be expected from a bunch of book-smart teenagers, the tests have traditionally been their strength, so suspect tests are going to send their score crashing. (Tests that are too easy or too hard, for instance, become a challenge of what you just happen to randomly remember or not, instead of an actual knowledge test.) Keep in mind, this is the first fully in-person tournament in VA in two years, so there's a high chance for things to have gone wrong. People (both the competitors and the tournament organizers) are still rusty.

None of this is to put down Lake Braddock, of course. They've had a notable rise over the last few years. Three years ago, no one took them seriously - VA was viewed as the stomping grounds of TJ, Fairfax, and Langley. It took LB upsetting Fairfax in 2020 for people to really notice them (and presumably leave TJ/Langley quaking in their boots a little), and they've continued to get stronger over the pandemic. They certainly had a strong showing, very likely had some of the best devices at the tournament (yes, even better than TJ's in some cases), and there's no reason to believe this wasn't a well-deserved victory for them.

The last thing I want to point out is that Langley was only two points behind TJ. Three teams in a four-point range at the top of a state tournament is highly unusual, especially when one team has been dominating for a few years now. I think this just illustrates how weird this whole year has been for all of us, both iwthin and outside of Science Olympiad.

Great summary, and it's awesome to have someone on these boards who clearly has a deep history with Science Olympiad.

Without addressing what others have said, my assertion wasn't that TJ would have sent its "B" team to this event - rather it's that Science Olympiad is not a thing that is done by the students at TJ who would make the best showing at a thing like Science Olympiad. It doesn't carry the same level of prestige that other competitions do, and TJ students (at least those selected by the old pre-pandemic process) are interested in prestige above most other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition. Good job Lake Braddock high school!! This is a lesson for parents who think there’s no better high school than TJ.

More evidence that the old admission process just wasn't working.

[Anonymous]

We should focusing on praising Lake Braddock, not talking trash about TJ. This accomplishment shows that TJ is not the end all be all and that there is top talent around the county that may decide that TJ may not be the school for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL; DR: Lake Braddock is a good team, TJ probably hit some bad luck somewhere, and 2022 is weird, man.

I'm familiar with Science Olympiad and TJ's team - here's my understanding:

Both TJ and Lake Braddock are well-coached teams. Both teams' coaches were awarded on Wednesday for ten years coaching, and as the LB coach moves to state director, the TJ coach will likely stay where she is, making her one of the state's most experienced coaches. Admittedly, at the high school level a lot of team operation is delegated to student leadership instead of adult coaches, but the stability and experience these coaches provide is still invaluable.

There's no way TJ sent their team B to the state tournament of all places. In fact, TJ prides themselves on not even having a team B; according to their team website (https://www.tjscioly.org), for the first half of the season, they field three teams of equal skill level, and then shrink to one A team for this tournament. The website's FAQ page also tries to debunk the claim that freshmen never get sent to states - if they have to take the time to address that, I'm guessing they're taking very few freshmen (probably not more than a couple) in a given year. This being TJ, it would not shock me if the freshmen they did select have competed at nationals in the past with Longfellow or Cooper.

Historically, TJ has won every TJ-LB matchup, which is what makes this so surprising. Even this year, TJ and Lake Braddock competed against each other twice (the last time being a month before states), and it wasn't close either time - TJ blew LB out of the water, placing all three of their teams dozens of places ahead of LB. If you're going by that data alone, states should have been a TJ sweep like the last couple times. So what happened?

Looking at the tournament results, it seems like TJ had a bad day with builds. Four of the five events TJ did not medal in had a build component. From my own experience helping out in Science Olympiad, bad luck is easy to come by with builds - all you need is something to break the night before or weird testing conditions and you're done for. Lake Braddock, on the other hand, fared much better, so I'm guessing that they had better builds and avoided some of the issues that bit TJ. The fifth non-medal event was Dynamic Planet, which has been a strength of TJ this season, so that's weird. Either they didn't put their best people on the event (unlikely) or something about the test threw them off. In either scenario, it seems like a fluke.

There are a bunch of study events that also strike me as unusual (Chem Lab should have been an easy win for TJ and at least a medal for LB, Codebusters has pretty much always been TJ or LB, etc.) suggesting that they might have had strange tests in those events or some other oddities. If that's the case, it's no wonder TJ struggled - as to be expected from a bunch of book-smart teenagers, the tests have traditionally been their strength, so suspect tests are going to send their score crashing. (Tests that are too easy or too hard, for instance, become a challenge of what you just happen to randomly remember or not, instead of an actual knowledge test.) Keep in mind, this is the first fully in-person tournament in VA in two years, so there's a high chance for things to have gone wrong. People (both the competitors and the tournament organizers) are still rusty.

None of this is to put down Lake Braddock, of course. They've had a notable rise over the last few years. Three years ago, no one took them seriously - VA was viewed as the stomping grounds of TJ, Fairfax, and Langley. It took LB upsetting Fairfax in 2020 for people to really notice them (and presumably leave TJ/Langley quaking in their boots a little), and they've continued to get stronger over the pandemic. They certainly had a strong showing, very likely had some of the best devices at the tournament (yes, even better than TJ's in some cases), and there's no reason to believe this wasn't a well-deserved victory for them.

The last thing I want to point out is that Langley was only two points behind TJ. Three teams in a four-point range at the top of a state tournament is highly unusual, especially when one team has been dominating for a few years now. I think this just illustrates how weird this whole year has been for all of us, both within and outside of Science Olympiad.

Very well articulated! Regarding some of the written tests, especially Dynamic Planet, the test was too easy according to many teams(easier than the regionals) . It had some images in the test that were not clear /visible, so many fluke guesses can bring up/down a score. The test writer/printer should have placed more emphasis on the quality of printing particularly at tournaments like this. An easy test can never test the strengths/knowledge particularly at tournament where competition is intense. I definitely agree with you when you mention that the competitors/organizers being rusty (I would definitely say the test writers of many events were clearly rusty, but then coming off pandemic presents its own challenges and VASO had to encounter it as well). None of the teams in the state tournament had an indoor team room due to the pandemic related restrictions of UVA . All the competitors/coaches had to be outside and it was not fun for them being in that cold for a long time that Saturday. Not whining here, but many factors have gone into play and added to the weirdness of this unusual tournament.

These are some of the details that the anonymous users of this forum are completely unaware of and all they know is to show/spew hate on TJ kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ lost to Lake Braddock high school in Science Olympiad state competition. Good job Lake Braddock high school!! This is a lesson for parents who think there’s no better high school than TJ.

More evidence that the old admission process just wasn't working.

TJ dominated Lake Braddock twice and then narrowly lost to Lake Braddock at the state competition. Braddock has a good team and TJ had a bad day. It happens.

The new admissions criteria is good for broadening access. It's not particularly good at selecting competitive students who win at competitions. I think most pro-reform supporters can acknowledge that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought these Olympiad competitions were a bigger thing among middle school students aiming for TJ than for TJ students themselves.

So, yeah for LBSS, but LBSS also didn't have a single National Merit Semifinalist in the Class of 2022, when TJ had 144, so I'd be more circumspect when it comes to encouraging a pissing contest.

Just wait couple of years and see how it goes with the new admission process.

As if this was due solely to the "new" process(which is changing!) and the freshman class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought these Olympiad competitions were a bigger thing among middle school students aiming for TJ than for TJ students themselves.

So, yeah for LBSS, but LBSS also didn't have a single National Merit Semifinalist in the Class of 2022, when TJ had 144, so I'd be more circumspect when it comes to encouraging a pissing contest.

Just wait couple of years and see how it goes with the new admission process.

TJ will be unstoppable because the new admission process favors raw talent over preppers.

Ha ha ha. Yeah. FCPS believes under their new admissions standards they have captured the best and true talent.

We are starting to see the benefits of the new admissions standards at TJ.