How does one prep place account for 25% of TJ Admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or..... and hear me out.... what if there were no exam? What if we used....

- more robust teacher recommendations that were designed to identify top performers in each class/school, not only on metrics of academic performance, but also improving the recommendations to include areas like grit, determination, response to adversity, concern for others, academic citizenship, integrity, etc?

- SIS questions that give a stronger overall profile of each student and allow an admissions committee to create a balanced class - Do you even want to go to TJ? How would you impact an academic community? What do you want to be when you grow up? What sort of things do you enjoy outside of STEM?

- GPA and SOL scores to establish a baseline of competency in the relevant courses, with no favoritism towards kids who are in Geometry or higher in 8th grade?

- an interview process designed to help determine which kids are genuine in their interest and aptitude for a comprehensive advanced education with a focus on STEM?

A class of students selected in this way would have a MUCH, MUCH higher ceiling than the current classes that walk around TJ right now.

Ugh. That would make things incredibly subjective. It would still lead to gaming of the system, since kids would simply learn how to write the SIS questions and perform at the interviews in a way that helps them look good to the selection committees.

Well, subjective things help the White students, no? The teacher just may "feel" that the student is very qualified because the student is White like them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or..... and hear me out.... what if there were no exam? What if we used....

- more robust teacher recommendations that were designed to identify top performers in each class/school, not only on metrics of academic performance, but also improving the recommendations to include areas like grit, determination, response to adversity, concern for others, academic citizenship, integrity, etc?

- SIS questions that give a stronger overall profile of each student and allow an admissions committee to create a balanced class - Do you even want to go to TJ? How would you impact an academic community? What do you want to be when you grow up? What sort of things do you enjoy outside of STEM?

- GPA and SOL scores to establish a baseline of competency in the relevant courses, with no favoritism towards kids who are in Geometry or higher in 8th grade?

- an interview process designed to help determine which kids are genuine in their interest and aptitude for a comprehensive advanced education with a focus on STEM?

A class of students selected in this way would have a MUCH, MUCH higher ceiling than the current classes that walk around TJ right now.

Ugh. That would make things incredibly subjective. It would still lead to gaming of the system, since kids would simply learn how to write the SIS questions and perform at the interviews in a way that helps them look good to the selection committees.

Well, subjective things help the White students, no? The teacher just may "feel" that the student is very qualified because the student is White like them.

All of the above is list made for mediocre White students who can not get into TJ because they are mediocre students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why has this become a racist issue?

There is concerning information that 25% of the TJ class of 2024 prepped with a company that multiple current TJ students state helped them cheat during the admission process.

Everyone should be worried about this.

Because fake news is being created by disgruntled non-Asians. If someone leaked the test to Curie then it is either an administrator or someone from the BOE. Call the FBI and investigate who leaked/sold the questions. If you cannot find any wrong doing then STFU. This is the kind of f**king jealously and priviledge has allowed substandard POTUS in the WH and this country going down the drain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From another thread but more relevant to this one:

Dig even a little further into Curie's Facebook page and you'll find photos of a similar list from 2019 - the class of 2023. This list has 95 students admitted to TJ, and would have been the second year of the Quant-Q.

https://www.facebook.com/curielearningllc/photos/a...6414351848218/1216596798496640

And here is the list from 2018 - which would have been the first year of the Quant-Q. Only 51 successful TJ applicants!

https://www.facebook.com/curielearningllc/photos/a...5923525897303/975988479224141/

From 51 to 95 to 133 in the first three years of the Quant-Q. The most charitable explanation is that the organization has gained a reputation and has grown because of good word of mouth. A darker explanation is that they're handing kids an exam that is supposed to be secure - which is what TJ kids are telling us that they're doing.

You decide.

I can't view facebook. Can someone screenshot the posts?

https://imgur.com/gallery/JFvI9Zd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why has this become a racist issue?

There is concerning information that 25% of the TJ class of 2024 prepped with a company that multiple current TJ students state helped them cheat during the admission process.

Everyone should be worried about this.

Because fake news is being created by disgruntled non-Asians. If someone leaked the test to Curie then it is either an administrator or someone from the BOE. Call the FBI and investigate who leaked/sold the questions. If you cannot find any wrong doing then STFU. This is the kind of f**king jealously and priviledge has allowed substandard POTUS in the WH and this country going down the drain.

It was current TJ students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why has this become a racist issue?

There is concerning information that 25% of the TJ class of 2024 prepped with a company that multiple current TJ students state helped them cheat during the admission process.

Everyone should be worried about this.

Because fake news is being created by disgruntled non-Asians. If someone leaked the test to Curie then it is either an administrator or someone from the BOE. Call the FBI and investigate who leaked/sold the questions. If you cannot find any wrong doing then STFU. This is the kind of f**king jealously and priviledge has allowed substandard POTUS in the WH and this country going down the drain.

It was current TJ students.

This is not an Asian vs non-Asian issue. Everyone has an interest in maintaining an environment of academic integrity for our children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why has this become a racist issue?

There is concerning information that 25% of the TJ class of 2024 prepped with a company that multiple current TJ students state helped them cheat during the admission process.

Everyone should be worried about this.

Because fake news is being created by disgruntled non-Asians. If someone leaked the test to Curie then it is either an administrator or someone from the BOE. Call the FBI and investigate who leaked/sold the questions. If you cannot find any wrong doing then STFU. This is the kind of f**king jealously and priviledge has allowed substandard POTUS in the WH and this country going down the drain.

It was current TJ students.

This is not an Asian vs non-Asian issue. Everyone has an interest in maintaining an environment of academic integrity for our children.

That poster (bolded) is throwing out word salad to turn attention away from the fact that this one school has 25% of the current class. They cheated. Now lets look at the TJ students from that school and see how many of them have to cheat to stay in TJ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why has this become a racist issue?

There is concerning information that 25% of the TJ class of 2024 prepped with a company that multiple current TJ students state helped them cheat during the admission process.

Everyone should be worried about this.

Because fake news is being created by disgruntled non-Asians. If someone leaked the test to Curie then it is either an administrator or someone from the BOE. Call the FBI and investigate who leaked/sold the questions. If you cannot find any wrong doing then STFU. This is the kind of f**king jealously and priviledge has allowed substandard POTUS in the WH and this country going down the drain.

It was current TJ students.

This is not an Asian vs non-Asian issue. Everyone has an interest in maintaining an environment of academic integrity for our children.

+1000. Doesn’t make any difference the race of the owners of the company, the students who leaked the questions, or the students who benefited from it. This is a company that is charging thousands of dollars for access to a secured exam. The ACTs are not secured, the Quant is.

At the minimum, FCPS needs to cease using the Quant immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curie also creates many questions from the template of one question. They probably have more questions in their question banks than the administrators of the TJ tests. They also slice and dice any "type" of question they hear that was in the admission test and then they just create many similar types of questions. Some of their questions will also be trick question to stump or confuse the students in practice. It is not an easy course to do because they actually work you very hard.

I think the school board should actually ask Curie to share these questions that they have created with all the public school students.

This is more likely case and rest of the discussion around cheating or test leaks etc are just conspiracy theories. And it is likely true that this prep center does make kids work very hard and many kids start once a week enrichment classes from around 4th or 5th grade, which I heard gets even more intense (several classes a week) from the middle of 7th grade. I believe majority of additional focus in 7th grade is around english/grammar rather than math since many of these kids are already pretty good at math as they come from families with strong STEM background. Most of these kids are already smart and in AAP (otherwise they can't handle this extra load) and when you put them through intense prepping, you are likely to get the results. Over several years, the prep center probably has improved their curriculum as they figured out what works and what doesn't and at the same time attracted many more students from around the area by word of mouth.

Also, why would this prep center share their materials for all public school students?? It doesn't make sense. If TJ actually care about this, they should try to come with more unique questions every year or change the test pattern rather than blaming the kids. How can you stop kids from talking about the test? My kids always talk to me about difficult questions they got in the test and we discuss about how they did. I am sure I did the same when I was in school. My daughter (rising 3rd grd aap) still remembers few of the questions from her cogat almost an year ago .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or..... and hear me out.... what if there were no exam? What if we used....

- more robust teacher recommendations that were designed to identify top performers in each class/school, not only on metrics of academic performance, but also improving the recommendations to include areas like grit, determination, response to adversity, concern for others, academic citizenship, integrity, etc?

- SIS questions that give a stronger overall profile of each student and allow an admissions committee to create a balanced class - Do you even want to go to TJ? How would you impact an academic community? What do you want to be when you grow up? What sort of things do you enjoy outside of STEM?

- GPA and SOL scores to establish a baseline of competency in the relevant courses, with no favoritism towards kids who are in Geometry or higher in 8th grade?

- an interview process designed to help determine which kids are genuine in their interest and aptitude for a comprehensive advanced education with a focus on STEM?

A class of students selected in this way would have a MUCH, MUCH higher ceiling than the current classes that walk around TJ right now.

woe to the poor teachers if their recommendations become make or break from TJ- they'll be a level of flattery and intimidation that none of them will want to deal with

I think in any realistic scenario, they wouldn't be make or break, but they would be weighted fairly heavily and designed to distinguish students from one another. And if private, which they are currently, there's no way for parents of unsuccessful applicants to know that that's the reason why.

A nice thought, but if over-competitive parents lose their ability to control test outcomes through years of prepping, they will absolutely insert themselves into every other facet of the AAP process. I used to teach second in FCPS. One year, I got TWENTY boxes of chocolate for Valentine’s day. The holiday happens to be right before GBRS are due. As a first grade teacher, Valentine’s day was never that intense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want it to be fair use a standardized tests that is more readily available, have every kid take it, have a cut off where you view anyone above the threshold as qualified and use a lottery of every kid who meets the standard to determine spots

I once had a student with near-perfect auditory recall. The only test questions she got wrong was one where I had misstated something, once. Her mom had it too, and could quote my BTSN presentation to me. She is, to this day, the smartest kid I’ve taught. It would be unjust to cut her out of TJ for some political reason. I lost track of her when I moved, but I would be shocked if she didn’t get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want it to be fair use a standardized tests that is more readily available, have every kid take it, have a cut off where you view anyone above the threshold as qualified and use a lottery of every kid who meets the standard to determine spots

I once had a student with near-perfect auditory recall. The only test questions she got wrong was one where I had misstated something, once. Her mom had it too, and could quote my BTSN presentation to me. She is, to this day, the smartest kid I’ve taught. It would be unjust to cut her out of TJ for some political reason. I lost track of her when I moved, but I would be shocked if she didn’t get in.

Anecdotes are no substitute for the data showing that a substantial number of TJ admits are coming from a single test prep center that has unique access to test questions. The system is rotten to its core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or..... and hear me out.... what if there were no exam? What if we used....

- more robust teacher recommendations that were designed to identify top performers in each class/school, not only on metrics of academic performance, but also improving the recommendations to include areas like grit, determination, response to adversity, concern for others, academic citizenship, integrity, etc?

- SIS questions that give a stronger overall profile of each student and allow an admissions committee to create a balanced class - Do you even want to go to TJ? How would you impact an academic community? What do you want to be when you grow up? What sort of things do you enjoy outside of STEM?

- GPA and SOL scores to establish a baseline of competency in the relevant courses, with no favoritism towards kids who are in Geometry or higher in 8th grade?

- an interview process designed to help determine which kids are genuine in their interest and aptitude for a comprehensive advanced education with a focus on STEM?

A class of students selected in this way would have a MUCH, MUCH higher ceiling than the current classes that walk around TJ right now.

woe to the poor teachers if their recommendations become make or break from TJ- they'll be a level of flattery and intimidation that none of them will want to deal with

I think in any realistic scenario, they wouldn't be make or break, but they would be weighted fairly heavily and designed to distinguish students from one another. And if private, which they are currently, there's no way for parents of unsuccessful applicants to know that that's the reason why.

A nice thought, but if over-competitive parents lose their ability to control test outcomes through years of prepping, they will absolutely insert themselves into every other facet of the AAP process. I used to teach second in FCPS. One year, I got TWENTY boxes of chocolate for Valentine’s day. The holiday happens to be right before GBRS are due. As a first grade teacher, Valentine’s day was never that intense.

I mean..... there are worse fates in life.... I have a lot more faith in FCPS teachers to behave with integrity than I do FCPS parents. And as part of this effort, serious reform is needed in AAP as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want it to be fair use a standardized tests that is more readily available, have every kid take it, have a cut off where you view anyone above the threshold as qualified and use a lottery of every kid who meets the standard to determine spots

I once had a student with near-perfect auditory recall. The only test questions she got wrong was one where I had misstated something, once. Her mom had it too, and could quote my BTSN presentation to me. She is, to this day, the smartest kid I’ve taught. It would be unjust to cut her out of TJ for some political reason. I lost track of her when I moved, but I would be shocked if she didn’t get in.

And that's a big part of why, in spite of my sincere desire to see TJ admissions reformed, I do not support a lottery that could potentially exclude the 100 or so kids in each class that truly, genuinely belong there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want it to be fair use a standardized tests that is more readily available, have every kid take it, have a cut off where you view anyone above the threshold as qualified and use a lottery of every kid who meets the standard to determine spots

I once had a student with near-perfect auditory recall. The only test questions she got wrong was one where I had misstated something, once. Her mom had it too, and could quote my BTSN presentation to me. She is, to this day, the smartest kid I’ve taught. It would be unjust to cut her out of TJ for some political reason. I lost track of her when I moved, but I would be shocked if she didn’t get in.

And that's a big part of why, in spite of my sincere desire to see TJ admissions reformed, I do not support a lottery that could potentially exclude the 100 or so kids in each class that truly, genuinely belong there.

Then select the 50-100 kids who are a clear cut above the rest. Lottery the remaining spots on a racially representative basis. This wouldn't even change TJ much, aside from creating diversity. The top 50 or so kids in each class are standouts, and the remainder are indistinguishable from all of the other kids who made semifinalist but didn't get picked.