I’m so glad TJ is more inclusive!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why prestige is determined by how selective a place is. Like if colleges had a lottery and then some of them turned out grads who were consistently more successful, that would be impressive. But just being highly selective doesn’t mean a place is that great. Getting in is the accomplishment. Some extra opportunities might be there but it’s not like those opportunities can’t be there with more inclusive admissions. All the kids getting admitted would probably do amazing things wherever they go.

Completely agree. My main concern (and I suspect others as well) would be if a significant portion can't handle the pace/rigor, cannot assimilate, and have to either really struggle throughout the 4 years there, or drop back to base. Hopefully we won't see this, and as you said, it will be fine without any kind of test.

There will be some - there always are. Historically it's something like 10% that don't make it out of freshmen year. I don't think that number will be too much higher this year, if at all.

The number might even be lower. And so will the SAT scores is a couple of years . . .

I would wager they'll be higher since they're selecting more naturally gifted students now instead of prioritizing 3rd rate preppers from a few wealthy areas.

No, the SAT was made for “3rd rate preppers,” whatever that is. SAT scores are bs anyway.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone seen stats for diversity of students going to TJ from Arlington? Oddly the freshman class from Arlington seems more white and less diverse than the senior class (which is a wonderfully diverse group).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why prestige is determined by how selective a place is. Like if colleges had a lottery and then some of them turned out grads who were consistently more successful, that would be impressive. But just being highly selective doesn’t mean a place is that great. Getting in is the accomplishment. Some extra opportunities might be there but it’s not like those opportunities can’t be there with more inclusive admissions. All the kids getting admitted would probably do amazing things wherever they go.

Completely agree. My main concern (and I suspect others as well) would be if a significant portion can't handle the pace/rigor, cannot assimilate, and have to either really struggle throughout the 4 years there, or drop back to base. Hopefully we won't see this, and as you said, it will be fine without any kind of test.

There will be some - there always are. Historically it's something like 10% that don't make it out of freshmen year. I don't think that number will be too much higher this year, if at all.

The number might even be lower. And so will the SAT scores is a couple of years . . .

I would wager they'll be higher since they're selecting more naturally gifted students now instead of prioritizing 3rd rate preppers from a few wealthy areas.

No, the SAT was made for “3rd rate preppers,” whatever that is. SAT scores are bs anyway.

Maybe but I hear that this year all the 3rd rate preppers got cut from the TJ roster in favor of more gifted but less prepped students from the less rich schools.

[Anonymous]

Nope, the new admissions process had no mechanism to find giftedness. No test and no teacher recs. Geographic diversity and experience factors were the main mechanism.

Some of the experienced TJ teachers have already left in recent years. At least one has been very outspoken against these changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope, the new admissions process had no mechanism to find giftedness. No test and no teacher recs. Geographic diversity and experience factors were the main mechanism.

Some of the experienced TJ teachers have already left in recent years. At least one has been very outspoken against these changes.

That's a good thing, if we're being honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen stats for diversity of students going to TJ from Arlington? Oddly the freshman class from Arlington seems more white and less diverse than the senior class (which is a wonderfully diverse group).

These are always small sample sizes - usually like 20 every year. Hard to draw any conclusions year over year. But it is true that the cohort from Arlington tends to be whiter than the rest of the TJ population because of the demographics of its primary draw school (Williamsburg).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:More inclusive means, "We lower our standards so as to appease the Diversity gestapo. Mediocrity over Merit!"

I think it reflects an overall crackdown on school admissions 'cheating'. Cheating is not merit.

There is no cheating scandal. FCPS has not raised this once in either lawsuit when defending the admission changes. This is just sour grapes and cognitive dissonance from parents whose snowflakes didn't do well enough on the admissions test to get to the semifinals.

"Cheating" is a poor word for what has been established to have happened. What happened is that FCPS realized that an exam that was supposed to be secured was not in fact secured and that certain prep companies skirted the rules in order to gain an advantage for their students.

It's appropriate to call it a "pay for play" scandal - it's not appropriate to call it a cheating scandal.

I agree. Why isn't FCPS at fault for this? Why isn't anyone holding them accountable for the leaked exam which resulted in this mess?

Because they're not the ones who leaked questions from previous exams and brought them back to the prep companies in order to build a question bank. The students who took the exam in the class of 2022 and 2023 did this, but there's no way of knowing who.

The Quant-Q had a significant impact on the racial demographics in the Class of 2022, but that blip re-balanced itself once the prep companies caught up in the following years.

Isn't impossible to prevent leaking questions from past years? Isn't this exactly the same issue as the SAT or AP exams, or any other test? Prep companies always have some level of access to topics and questions from the past. Why wouldn't FCPS make all past tests available to every school, I would imagine that would be the equitable way of making sure every student is aware of the materials.

Because the owners/creators of the Quant-Q disallow them from doing so.

Anyone who uses the Quant-Q is contractually obligated to sign an NDA barring them from discussing it or sharing any materials from it, because the entire point of it is to see how good people are at coming up with out-of-the-box solutions to complex problems on the fly.

If a prep company shows students those solutions to the types of problems that are on the exam year-over-year - even if they're not the same problems - that completely negates the point of what is otherwise a VERY good exam.

Any exam that remains secretive after the fact, is definitely NOT a very good exam. Even if the exam is good, the practice is completely unethical because it widens the prepping gap, making it very inequitable for minorities to catch up.

FCPS is at fault here for not taking control of the testing process and relying on a outside unethical company to do so. Why did they hire a someone who produces a secretive test? It clearly plays right into the hands of prepping. Let's be real, prepping is just paying for access to information. This becomes highly inequitable to underrepresented groups who cannot afford the same classes, and are thus completely locked out of studying for the exam. FCPS should have done the opposite, do their own testing every year, and publish the tests for all to access, and recommend to all schools that every student interested in applying should study the material.

So in other words, you are praising FCPS for moving to correct the problem. Good. We agree.

They completely removed the test! How is that a rationally thought out solution? Anyway, we shall see if there are math/problem solving repercussions later in the year with the incoming cohort. If they do perfectly fine at TJ without needing a test, then that's great, it proves it doesn't need to be part of admissions (indicating that GPA in FCPS middle school math is good enough for problem solving ability). On the other hand, if students struggle to keep up in math, it will show that the decision was a mistake.

Exactly. The proof will be in the pudding, as they say.

Be sure, by the way, not to confuse a slightly lesser level of advancement for "struggling to keep up". While I haven't heard any numbers on this yet, one imagines there will be slightly more students entering in TJ Math 1 and 2 than in previous years. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the students are succeeding at the level where they entered.

Agreed, acceleration level doesn't matter much. I'd be more concerned if in the face of dire results, the administration pressures the TJ teachers to change the difficulty/grading in the math courses, hopefully we don't see that start to happen.

By replacing the 3rd rate preppers with more naturally gifted students I suspect the TJ teachers will have to increase the rigor in the coming years.

I think it's more likely that you have it backwards. I suspect the math classes may have to be toned down a bit to accommodate some students who got in with weak math skills and cannot adapt the first semester.

TJ will not do that. If anything, they might move a student down a level, from a TJ Math 2 to a TJ Math 1, but they will not change the level of rigor in the course.

Now, TJ has been making noise for a long time about reducing workload, which is a separate issue from rigor entirely. One hopes that they're continuing to make strides in that area.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:More inclusive means, "We lower our standards so as to appease the Diversity gestapo. Mediocrity over Merit!"

I think it reflects an overall crackdown on school admissions 'cheating'. Cheating is not merit.

There is no cheating scandal. FCPS has not raised this once in either lawsuit when defending the admission changes. This is just sour grapes and cognitive dissonance from parents whose snowflakes didn't do well enough on the admissions test to get to the semifinals.

"Cheating" is a poor word for what has been established to have happened. What happened is that FCPS realized that an exam that was supposed to be secured was not in fact secured and that certain prep companies skirted the rules in order to gain an advantage for their students.

It's appropriate to call it a "pay for play" scandal - it's not appropriate to call it a cheating scandal.

I agree. Why isn't FCPS at fault for this? Why isn't anyone holding them accountable for the leaked exam which resulted in this mess?

Because they're not the ones who leaked questions from previous exams and brought them back to the prep companies in order to build a question bank. The students who took the exam in the class of 2022 and 2023 did this, but there's no way of knowing who.

The Quant-Q had a significant impact on the racial demographics in the Class of 2022, but that blip re-balanced itself once the prep companies caught up in the following years.

Isn't impossible to prevent leaking questions from past years? Isn't this exactly the same issue as the SAT or AP exams, or any other test? Prep companies always have some level of access to topics and questions from the past. Why wouldn't FCPS make all past tests available to every school, I would imagine that would be the equitable way of making sure every student is aware of the materials.

Because the owners/creators of the Quant-Q disallow them from doing so.

Anyone who uses the Quant-Q is contractually obligated to sign an NDA barring them from discussing it or sharing any materials from it, because the entire point of it is to see how good people are at coming up with out-of-the-box solutions to complex problems on the fly.

If a prep company shows students those solutions to the types of problems that are on the exam year-over-year - even if they're not the same problems - that completely negates the point of what is otherwise a VERY good exam.

Any exam that remains secretive after the fact, is definitely NOT a very good exam. Even if the exam is good, the practice is completely unethical because it widens the prepping gap, making it very inequitable for minorities to catch up.

FCPS is at fault here for not taking control of the testing process and relying on a outside unethical company to do so. Why did they hire a someone who produces a secretive test? It clearly plays right into the hands of prepping. Let's be real, prepping is just paying for access to information. This becomes highly inequitable to underrepresented groups who cannot afford the same classes, and are thus completely locked out of studying for the exam. FCPS should have done the opposite, do their own testing every year, and publish the tests for all to access, and recommend to all schools that every student interested in applying should study the material.

So in other words, you are praising FCPS for moving to correct the problem. Good. We agree.

They completely removed the test! How is that a rationally thought out solution? Anyway, we shall see if there are math/problem solving repercussions later in the year with the incoming cohort. If they do perfectly fine at TJ without needing a test, then that's great, it proves it doesn't need to be part of admissions (indicating that GPA in FCPS middle school math is good enough for problem solving ability). On the other hand, if students struggle to keep up in math, it will show that the decision was a mistake.

Exactly. The proof will be in the pudding, as they say.

Be sure, by the way, not to confuse a slightly lesser level of advancement for "struggling to keep up". While I haven't heard any numbers on this yet, one imagines there will be slightly more students entering in TJ Math 1 and 2 than in previous years. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the students are succeeding at the level where they entered.

Agreed, acceleration level doesn't matter much. I'd be more concerned if in the face of dire results, the administration pressures the TJ teachers to change the difficulty/grading in the math courses, hopefully we don't see that start to happen.

By replacing the 3rd rate preppers with more naturally gifted students I suspect the TJ teachers will have to increase the rigor in the coming years.

I think it's more likely that you have it backwards. I suspect the math classes may have to be toned down a bit to accommodate some students who got in with weak math skills and cannot adapt the first semester.

TJ will not do that. If anything, they might move a student down a level, from a TJ Math 2 to a TJ Math 1, but they will not change the level of rigor in the course.

Now, TJ has been making noise for a long time about reducing workload, which is a separate issue from rigor entirely. One hopes that they're continuing to make strides in that area.

Agree and this year's students seem very able. I'd guess it will get harder with these nore talented students taking spots from the less successful preppers.

[Anonymous]

Harvard and Yale have survived the admissions zeitgeist. I imagine TJ will as well. Move on. Get over it.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely the logic of the right reason which is not includsive of the poor choices which is not the approach we should take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope, the new admissions process had no mechanism to find giftedness. No test and no teacher recs. Geographic diversity and experience factors were the main mechanism.

Some of the experienced TJ teachers have already left in recent years. At least one has been very outspoken against these changes.

That's a good thing, if we're being honest.

Well no more than the old process in that it picked the most gifted kids from each school instead of favoring wealthy schools where families invested tens of thousands in prep classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard and Yale have survived the admissions zeitgeist. I imagine TJ will as well. Move on. Get over it.

Good advice and DC is really liking the new more inclusive atmosphere!