Huge changes to TJ admissions test beginning next year

[Anonymous]

PP, are you saying that teachers do not change their tests from year to year? That would seem very unfair for kids that do not have siblings at TJ. Teachers definitely should release their old tests for students to practice, and they should come up with new ones every year to even out the playing field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

[Anonymous]

Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, are you saying that teachers do not change their tests from year to year? That would seem very unfair for kids that do not have siblings at TJ. Teachers definitely should release their old tests for students to practice, and they should come up with new ones every year to even out the playing field.

Stop making it the teacher's fault when a kid cheats. Sorry, I keep hearing that as an excuse, and it just doesn't hold water. What about teaching kids integrity and honesty, even when someone offers them test questions from a previous year?

A lot of classes do not lend themselves to writing a completely new test every year. Isn't better to teach kids not to cheat than to tell them that it's the teacher's fault for not creating an entirely new test, even when that is not possible?

Let's not make excuses for kids who are doing wrong. Let's teach them to grow to be adults who are honourable and have integrity, even when (especially when) it would be easy and beneficial to do the wrong thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

Anonymous wrote:Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

Why do you guys get so defensive? We are not going to stop prepping. They will keep claiming they don't while they secretly do, all the while spouting "my kid is naturally talented, so was his brother, and his cousin, and her sister, and my grandpa.." . Why even bother responding? Nothing said on DCUM is going to change anything about prepping, NOTHING. Remember the proverb "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on"... Let barking dogs bark...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

Anonymous wrote:Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

Why do you guys get so defensive? We are not going to stop prepping. They will keep claiming they don't while they secretly do, all the while spouting "my kid is naturally talented, so was his brother, and his cousin, and her sister, and my grandpa.." . Why even bother responding? Nothing said on DCUM is going to change anything about prepping, NOTHING. Remember the proverb "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on"... Let barking dogs bark...

Why are barking on this forum then?

[Anonymous]

I have never heard that proverb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

Anonymous wrote:Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

Why do you guys get so defensive? We are not going to stop prepping. They will keep claiming they don't while they secretly do, all the while spouting "my kid is naturally talented, so was his brother, and his cousin, and her sister, and my grandpa.." . Why even bother responding? Nothing said on DCUM is going to change anything about prepping, NOTHING. Remember the proverb "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on"... Let barking dogs bark...

Not being defensive. I am relatively new to this forum, and by extension to all this asian bashing that goes on with thinly vieled terms. I used to be under the impression that most Americans understood Asians as a group worked harder at academics while their peers worked harder at sports. It doesn't matter to me much either way. My kid went to a prep center because everyone else also went, but he barely did any work in between other than school work and in the end he got admission because he was very good at problem solving and very good at writing. So it was mostly a check mark for us. He also scored in the 99th perccentile for verbal and 98th percentile for math. His writing skills were very good since 3rd grade and so second cut wasn't going to present too many problems. May be without the classes he would have scored little less, but good enough for admission too TJ anyway. Could be have skipped the prep class and played a sports instead? hecck, yeah, I think so. But, we didn't try that option because all his friends were going and ended up at TJ, and if he didn't make it and went to base school he would have no friends at all to start with. That wasn't a good option to start high school. I guess his friends and their parents thought the same way too. In the end, as I said earlier, the kids who make the finalist pool will get there with or without prep, doing the prep is a choice that some people take do avoid some of the situations I mentioned.

[Anonymous]

PP here, I must add though, there are always exceptions. For instance, there are kids who went to prep centers and got in with bare minimum required to get in because the prep centers helped them improve. These are the kids who struggle at TJ and needing extra tutoring and course work. To that, I say, parents should know their kids and whether they are natural material for TJ / AAP or not. But some parents push it anyway. They will soon figure out what a mistake it was.

[Anonymous]

Let me put it this way: TJ tests are actually too easy to distinguish among the top talents. This is also why people prep because there is so much randomness when the test are easy. So if you didn't practice enough, you could run the risk of screwing up some of the problems and being out, even though those could be silly mistakes. Those kids can normally make TJ anyways. With Prepping, it just makes sure that things will go as expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

Anonymous wrote:Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

Why do you guys get so defensive? We are not going to stop prepping. They will keep claiming they don't while they secretly do, all the while spouting "my kid is naturally talented, so was his brother, and his cousin, and her sister, and my grandpa.." . Why even bother responding? Nothing said on DCUM is going to change anything about prepping, NOTHING. Remember the proverb "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on"... Let barking dogs bark...

Why are barking on this forum then?

Mmmm... I'm not the one barkinnng.. like, learn to reeaad.. and, you know, this ain't your forummm.. it's public..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have never heard that proverb.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_dogs_bark,_but_the_caravan_goes_on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting if they could somehow come up with a test that can't be prepped for. My kid did not prep, but we knew a lot of kids who did prep very extensively during middle school.

Not all, but many of those kids who prepped had to continue that "prep" mindset while they were at TJ. There were kids there who had to have tutors and outside help for a number of courses every year, plus they needed summer school and extra help for that each summer. Some kids privately took summer courses then took the same course during the school year in hopes of getting a better grade.

My kid and other friends of his who did not prep did not need all this outside help and managed to graduate with high GPAs and are at great schools now, most of them majoring in engineering, physics, math, and other STEM fields.

I would love to see what the school would be like if it were populated by kids who hadn't prepped and didn't need outside help to understand their course work.

Sure, you'd also love to see everything go back to how it was in 60's, correct? I figure prep is a the pejorative term to address a group of kids who work very hard to make it sound they are somehow not natural. Asian kids and their parents work double hard because of people like you will not give them an equal opportunity if they simply were equal. They have to do 120% in order to be equal, not 100% because of prejudice like this.

Anonymous wrote:Some people can never understand or conveniently ignore that Asian immigrants and their children who have no systemic advantages built in for them will have to work extra hard to simply get equal opportunity. This is the reason for all the extra courses taken, not because they cannot keep up. If they simply kept up with kids with systemic advantages then they will not be considered smart enough. Go figure! that is the irony.

Why do you guys get so defensive? We are not going to stop prepping. They will keep claiming they don't while they secretly do, all the while spouting "my kid is naturally talented, so was his brother, and his cousin, and her sister, and my grandpa.." . Why even bother responding? Nothing said on DCUM is going to change anything about prepping, NOTHING. Remember the proverb "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on"... Let barking dogs bark...

Not being defensive. I am relatively new to this forum, and by extension to all this asian bashing that goes on with thinly vieled terms. I used to be under the impression that most Americans understood Asians as a group worked harder at academics while their peers worked harder at sports. It doesn't matter to me much either way. My kid went to a prep center because everyone else also went, but he barely did any work in between other than school work and in the end he got admission because he was very good at problem solving and very good at writing. So it was mostly a check mark for us. He also scored in the 99th perccentile for verbal and 98th percentile for math. His writing skills were very good since 3rd grade and so second cut wasn't going to present too many problems. May be without the classes he would have scored little less, but good enough for admission too TJ anyway. Could be have skipped the prep class and played a sports instead? hecck, yeah, I think so. But, we didn't try that option because all his friends were going and ended up at TJ, and if he didn't make it and went to base school he would have no friends at all to start with. That wasn't a good option to start high school. I guess his friends and their parents thought the same way too. In the end, as I said earlier, the kids who make the finalist pool will get there with or without prep, doing the prep is a choice that some people take do avoid some of the situations I mentioned.

I wouldn't look at this as racist in any way. Majority of the preppers happen to be Asian so people who don't prep/too lazy to prep pick on them. Fact is, there are kids in TJ who shouldn't be there. The only way they got there was either through some sort of affirmative action or through extreme preparation. Some white kids that should be in do not get in because their spots were taken by someone who extreme prepped. But, that's the reality. Getting upset about it is not going to change squat. Anyone who has been here for more than one generation knows that getting into TJ does not really matter. It's only High School, after all. First generation parents from highly competitive countries don't trust this sentiment and want to get in to the best schools. Both sides need to chill out. You can't shame the preppers into not prepping. You can't motivate the non-preppers to prep. Things just ARE. FWIW, I'm an Asian parent whose kid prepped for one semester and got in. We already live in a great school district so if he hadn't gotten in it wouldn't have mattered. If he doesn't do well at TJ, he'll move to the base school. There are more important things in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never heard that proverb.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_dogs_bark,_but_the_caravan_goes_on

Wow, I googled that phrase, too, and really went down a rabbit hole. There is some crazy stuff on the internet!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, are you saying that teachers do not change their tests from year to year? That would seem very unfair for kids that do not have siblings at TJ. Teachers definitely should release their old tests for students to practice, and they should come up with new ones every year to even out the playing field.

Stop making it the teacher's fault when a kid cheats. Sorry, I keep hearing that as an excuse, and it just doesn't hold water. What about teaching kids integrity and honesty, even when someone offers them test questions from a previous year?

A lot of classes do not lend themselves to writing a completely new test every year. Isn't better to teach kids not to cheat than to tell them that it's the teacher's fault for not creating an entirely new test, even when that is not possible?

Let's not make excuses for kids who are doing wrong. Let's teach them to grow to be adults who are honourable and have integrity, even when (especially when) it would be easy and beneficial to do the wrong thing.

I never said it was the teachers fault. I just think that for classes like math or physics teachers can definitely give different tests every year and let their students see the old tests so they know what kind of problems they can expect. At my college, professors keep their old tests at the library. Any student can check them out and use them as practice. We all knew the problems would be different on the actual test, but the old tests were good to make sure we understood the concepts being tested.