Disappointed by TJ decision?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got straight As and ended up on the waitlist. It's not a guarantee of anything.

Nor should it be!

With grade inflation these days, 50% of all students have straight A's so that's just no longer a way to distinguish yourself

What if use the raw scores? 92.5 vs 100 can still tell the difference. Anyway, now thinking about it, the old entrance exam works well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From previous discussion, parents complain that under current admission policy, your child gets a better chance from non feeder schools or less represented schools. Now parents from non feeder schools are complaining that they should get more seats.

The last thing that the admissions people want is overachieving high stats UMC kids at less represented schools getting in. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of kids like that in any pyramid because most of the time, those are the kids and associated parents that care about things like TJ in large numbers. So you'll see those kids get passed over for a FARMs kid with reasonably good stats to give more opportunity to URMs.

The top 1.5 has very little to do with grades or even classes taken as long as they meet that low standard of 3.5, Algebra in 8th, and 1 or 2 honors classes (young scholars only need honors science, no need for honors english for them). The math levels of last years class show this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From previous discussion, parents complain that under current admission policy, your child gets a better chance from non feeder schools or less represented schools. Now parents from non feeder schools are complaining that they should get more seats.

The last thing that the admissions people want is overachieving high stats UMC kids at less represented schools getting in. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of kids like that in any pyramid because most of the time, those are the kids and associated parents that care about things like TJ in large numbers. So you'll see those kids get passed over for a FARMs kid with reasonably good stats to give more opportunity to URMs.

The top 1.5 has very little to do with grades or even classes taken as long as they meet that low standard of 3.5, Algebra in 8th, and 1 or 2 honors classes (young scholars only need honors science, no need for honors english for them). The math levels of last years class show this.

Previously, top students get in. Now, considering the seats taken by the underrepresented groups, I thought that you have to be the very top students to get in. But it turns out that none of the very top students from our school get in this year. So I guess this is how it works. They mean to reject the very top students by making the selection criteria mysterious. They don’t care TJ’s reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

Where are you getting this school level info? Can you share that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From previous discussion, parents complain that under current admission policy, your child gets a better chance from non feeder schools or less represented schools. Now parents from non feeder schools are complaining that they should get more seats.

The last thing that the admissions people want is overachieving high stats UMC kids at less represented schools getting in. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of kids like that in any pyramid because most of the time, those are the kids and associated parents that care about things like TJ in large numbers. So you'll see those kids get passed over for a FARMs kid with reasonably good stats to give more opportunity to URMs.

The top 1.5 has very little to do with grades or even classes taken as long as they meet that low standard of 3.5, Algebra in 8th, and 1 or 2 honors classes (young scholars only need honors science, no need for honors english for them). The math levels of last years class show this.

Previously, top students get in. Now, considering the seats taken by the underrepresented groups, I thought that you have to be the very top students to get in. But it turns out that none of the very top students from our school get in this year. So I guess this is how it works. They mean to reject the very top students by making the selection criteria mysterious. They don’t care TJ’s reputation.

Do you know every very top student and every not-very-top student?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

Where are you getting this school level info? Can you share that?

Talked to any friends from Carson/LongFellow, they all know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From previous discussion, parents complain that under current admission policy, your child gets a better chance from non feeder schools or less represented schools. Now parents from non feeder schools are complaining that they should get more seats.

The last thing that the admissions people want is overachieving high stats UMC kids at less represented schools getting in. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of kids like that in any pyramid because most of the time, those are the kids and associated parents that care about things like TJ in large numbers. So you'll see those kids get passed over for a FARMs kid with reasonably good stats to give more opportunity to URMs.

The top 1.5 has very little to do with grades or even classes taken as long as they meet that low standard of 3.5, Algebra in 8th, and 1 or 2 honors classes (young scholars only need honors science, no need for honors english for them). The math levels of last years class show this.

Previously, top students get in. Now, considering the seats taken by the underrepresented groups, I thought that you have to be the very top students to get in. But it turns out that none of the very top students from our school get in this year. So I guess this is how it works. They mean to reject the very top students by making the selection criteria mysterious. They don’t care TJ’s reputation.

One of the things that you learn from a forum like this one is that parents have NO IDEA who the top students at a given school are. And that's good. They shouldn't. But it seems like they're angry that they don't, when that information serves no part of their role.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

Last year Carson had 50 seats and Longfellow 37. Of those numbers are going up, and we’ll find out eventually, School Board isn’t going to be happy since Carson only gets 10 guaranteed seats and that would mean they are crowding out other kids in the general pool. We’ll be hearing all over again about how they “essay prep” and have unfair advantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

Last year Carson had 50 seats and Longfellow 37. Of those numbers are going up, and we’ll find out eventually, School Board isn’t going to be happy since Carson only gets 10 guaranteed seats and that would mean they are crowding out other kids in the general pool. We’ll be hearing all over again about how they “essay prep” and have unfair advantages.

It is bcos they dropped the "additional points" for under-represented school. Only 2025 kids were impacted as the "under-represented" school kids had edge with the additional points

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

What this person is saying is that the actual top 6 at Carson are not in this group of 80 who were selected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From previous discussion, parents complain that under current admission policy, your child gets a better chance from non feeder schools or less represented schools. Now parents from non feeder schools are complaining that they should get more seats.

The last thing that the admissions people want is overachieving high stats UMC kids at less represented schools getting in. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of kids like that in any pyramid because most of the time, those are the kids and associated parents that care about things like TJ in large numbers. So you'll see those kids get passed over for a FARMs kid with reasonably good stats to give more opportunity to URMs.

The top 1.5 has very little to do with grades or even classes taken as long as they meet that low standard of 3.5, Algebra in 8th, and 1 or 2 honors classes (young scholars only need honors science, no need for honors english for them). The math levels of last years class show this.

Previously, top students get in. Now, considering the seats taken by the underrepresented groups, I thought that you have to be the very top students to get in. But it turns out that none of the very top students from our school get in this year. So I guess this is how it works. They mean to reject the very top students by making the selection criteria mysterious. They don’t care TJ’s reputation.

Do you know every very top student and every not-very-top student?

No, but I know the kids who were selected are not very top students, or top students or a level below top students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

What this person is saying is that the actual top 6 at Carson are not in this group of 80 who were selected.

Most of us agree the in school process is not working correctly consistently and needs adjusted. Advocating for refinement of who gets picked at a given MS to ensure the top 6 make it would be a productive use of time (vs trashing the overall new process).

[Anonymous]

I like the idea of the 1.5 percent at each school.

However, for the schools with so many applicants, the readers just don't have enough information to figure out who the top kids are. I think the application needs to be more comprehensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even for the feeder schools, same thing happens. The very top students get waitlisted or even rejected while average students get in.
The main reason your child is on WL is not that he is not from a feeder school, but that he is a top student.
For top students, the admission is even worse than pure lottery. Everyone gets the same chance in lottery. But now, top students are in a worse position than average students.

Anonymous wrote:TJ admission process is crooked!

My DC is on WL. DC is in AAP center but not a TJ feeding school. DC is all As in 7th, 8th grade, Took Algebra I honor, Geometry honor and Algebra II honor all As, DC is definitely 1.5% and did well on the test too. DC also study pre-calculus and calculus, but DC's base high school doesn't offer class, so no way DC can take advanced class. DC is very much into geoscience, did quite a lot of research by himself. The kids DC knows who get admitted to TJ, there is no way to compare to him. We are typical mid class and have very limit resource, we are Asian, but not like some post says, we didn't spent money from pre classes. One of DC's friend mocking at DC that DC should fill in Mix as the race and select low income, which makes DC feel really sad.

Questions: the admission said they will select top 1.5% students from each school, but how come the other schools like Long fellow, Carson got some many offers? The population of each school is about the same, slightly different. But the head count is different, why it is so different and the admission claims for equity.

The result is disappointed, but what can we do? I told my DC no matter what, you will be a shining star any where.

I won't agree. What I heard is Carson got 80 seats so far and Longfellow got 40 seats, compare to population, my DD's school is around 1000, slight less than Carson and LongFellow, but DD's school only has 6 seats so far. If offered the same seats every school, I am sure my DD will be admitted already.

What this person is saying is that the actual top 6 at Carson are not in this group of 80 who were selected.

"Actual top 6"? What on earth does that even mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea of the 1.5 percent at each school.

However, for the schools with so many applicants, the readers just don't have enough information to figure out who the top kids are. I think the application needs to be more comprehensive.

So . . . how about a really hard test that gives you an objective measure for the top 1.5%? I have accepted that FCPS has decided that every middle school gets seats set aside as we are all taxpayers and the school needs to serve every geographic community. What I don't accept is that an objective test is somehow a poor measure of giftedness and ability.