TJ results out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean when you say top students? All As or something else.

Someone posted on here there were rejections of kids who qualified for USAJMO in 7th grade. This is a contest that takes around the top 100 math students in the country. And that is among 10th graders and below.
7th or 8th grader to make this in Virginia is rare, but they couldn't find room in a class of 500. They also reject5 winners of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, and other contests.
Really anyone who qualifies for the earlier round AIME should be accepted.

Followup- I described the top students statewide who were getting rejected. But TJ has a minimum quota per school and selects from within a school first. By top students I am looking at top MathCounts students who qualify for state, vs your all A students that are just OK at math, taking geometry or maybe algebra 1. Last year- the school had students who didn't accept four algebra 2 kids, one qualified for MathCounts nationals, another was in top 12 at MathCounts State, another was on a top team at state MathCounts and won awards in computer programming, another won lots of awards in chess rated 2000+. The students who were accepted probably had all As but were not known as standout students. One was plausible- an Algebra 2 student who was solid on the MathCounts team but not winning at the chapter level. Almost all accepted were Asian so it not a racial factor as many are suggesting.

The proposal I've had for some time to enhance the present admissions process is to create a standardized teacher recommendation form asking teachers to evaluate applicants against students in their own class.

So essentially, design a form that lets teachers rate the students across a broad spectrum of metrics:
- command of the material
- academic integrity
- commitment to learning for its own sake
- contributions to the overall class environment
- intellectual curiosity in STEM
-
- etc.

... using a rating scale including "Poor", "Below Average", "Average", "Above Average", "Superior", and "One of the best I've seen". But the key is that the teacher should be evaluating the students more or less against each other, so that when an application evaluator is reviewing a batch from, say, a Geometry teacher at Carson, they should be seeing ratings across the spectrum. If that teacher is rating every student as "Superior" or higher, it becomes clear that that teacher's evaluations aren't to be taken seriously.

A recommendation form of this type should take no more than 5 minutes to fill out at most. I'd also invite the opportunity for each teacher recommender to select a maximum of 3-5 students to write more expansively about if they so chose - whether to encourage the admissions personnel to admit the student or, perhaps equally importantly, to let them know to avoid a student who, for example, cheated on an assignment or would otherwise contribute negatively to the TJ environment.

PP, would you agree that a process like the above would enhance the likelihood that the right 45 students or so were selected from places like Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run, etc?

Teachers would get sued.

I see the value of teacher recommendation, but it cannot be the only thing - too subjective.

Selection processes are and must be subjective. An objective selection process incentivizes parents to narrowly tailor their child's middle school experience to meet the standard and results in homogeneity among the selected population - the former is destructive for kids, and the latter is terrible for school environments.

Parents in this area need to stop wanting an explicit road map for how to get their child into TJ. Such a road map was provided with the old process, and the result was devastating for the health of high-achieving children in Northern Virginia.

+1
The biggest flaw by far in the current system is that it is not well designed to make sure that the outliers at a given school get picked.

[Anonymous]

The courses didn't seem that hard to me. What am I missing? 8th period is a fun class. Not another academic class. Is there an extra class? Math seemed similar to honors math courses Humanities and science semester classes are all very interesting topics. I like that there are more semester classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools are kids taking Algebra II and Precalculus? Our school doesn't offer these and the kids who got in are very good students but not brilliant.

Possibly LoCo. They accelerate a lot more than Fairfax does although they have recently been reducing the very large numbers of students taking Algebra in 6th to a slightly smaller large number.

If a MS doesn't offer advanced math courses, FCPS will have online options or in-class for kids at AAP centers.

Unless the students passes FCPS' secret criteria and the principal is aware of the process for 6th grade algebra and agrees, no they won't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean when you say top students? All As or something else.

Someone posted on here there were rejections of kids who qualified for USAJMO in 7th grade. This is a contest that takes around the top 100 math students in the country. And that is among 10th graders and below.
7th or 8th grader to make this in Virginia is rare, but they couldn't find room in a class of 500. They also reject5 winners of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, and other contests.
Really anyone who qualifies for the earlier round AIME should be accepted.

"I want to go to TJ because I'm better than everyone else and if you send me to my base school I'll be bored to tears"?

TJ would be great for this student. They won't be bored to tears at TJ and they'll learn that they're not the smartest person in the region.

[Anonymous]

My 8th grader is in Algebra 1 and thinks Math would be tough at TJ, especially since calculus is required. How to convince them to accept the offer? Is it that difficult from base school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD says last year Math was easier than this year’s question.

Wording on this year’s made it lil more confusing than last year’s question. According to her - once you get thru that then it is a straightforward answer.

DD messed her essays. Waitlisted

Asian, 4.00 GPA, pre-calculus

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS Accepted. pre-calculus, 4.0, Asian

Pre-calculus? What do kids do at TJ if they've already gone this far in math?

DC currently at TJ completed pre-calc in middle school, outside FCPS. past precalc, TJ has four levels: Calc AB, Calc BC, Multi/linear, elementary diff & applied math techniques

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted. 4.0. AP Pre-Calculus. Won gold, silver, bronze in different competitions. Volunteered a lot with the community (because DC wanted to do so, not bc of TJ. DC will continue doing so no matter what).

DC’s friends, DC, us and everyone knew DC were shocked with the result.

DC is resilient though. DC started discussing a new plan at base HS with us.

When did they complete alg 1/geo/alg 2?

DC completed Alg 1 in 6th grade, took a test and allowed to skip geo, alg 2 in 7th grade. In 8th grade, math teacher recommended DC to take AP Pre-Calculus rather than Pre-Calculus. DC is doing very well in the course.

which school(s) allow students to straight up skip geometry without needing to take it over the summer? And how did your DC qualify for algebra in 6th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD says last year Math was easier than this year’s question.

Wording on this year’s made it lil more confusing than last year’s question. According to her - once you get thru that then it is a straightforward answer.

DD messed her essays. Waitlisted

Asian, 4.00 GPA, pre-calculus

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS Accepted. pre-calculus, 4.0, Asian

Pre-calculus? What do kids do at TJ if they've already gone this far in math?

DC currently at TJ completed pre-calc in middle school, outside FCPS. past precalc, TJ has four levels: Calc AB, Calc BC, Multi/linear, elementary diff & applied math techniques

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted. 4.0. AP Pre-Calculus. Won gold, silver, bronze in different competitions. Volunteered a lot with the community (because DC wanted to do so, not bc of TJ. DC will continue doing so no matter what).

DC’s friends, DC, us and everyone knew DC were shocked with the result.

DC is resilient though. DC started discussing a new plan at base HS with us.

When did they complete alg 1/geo/alg 2?

DC completed Alg 1 in 6th grade, took a test and allowed to skip geo, alg 2 in 7th grade. In 8th grade, math teacher recommended DC to take AP Pre-Calculus rather than Pre-Calculus. DC is doing very well in the course.

AP Pre-Calculus? No such course at FCPS.

Yeah, it's a new course that College Board just came up with. It's pretty a dumb idea - but it would be worse if FCPS didn't offer it than if they do.

Good thing is kids finishing that course in 8th grade can do AP Calculus BC right in their 9th grade.

This is true for any precalculus course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grader is in Algebra 1 and thinks Math would be tough at TJ, especially since calculus is required. How to convince them to accept the offer? Is it that difficult from base school?

Your kid is right. It is hard. It is taught and graded in a way that is reportedly harder than the same class at a base school. Plz do not try to talk your kid into going. They need to want to be there and want the challenge for it to work out well for them.

- mom of a TJ kid and TJ booster but realistic it’s not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grader is in Algebra 1 and thinks Math would be tough at TJ, especially since calculus is required. How to convince them to accept the offer? Is it that difficult from base school?

Your kid is right. It is hard. It is taught and graded in a way that is reportedly harder than the same class at a base school. Plz do not try to talk your kid into going. They need to want to be there and want the challenge for it to work out well for them.

- mom of a TJ kid and TJ booster but realistic it’s not for everyone.

So glad it was for your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD says last year Math was easier than this year’s question.

Wording on this year’s made it lil more confusing than last year’s question. According to her - once you get thru that then it is a straightforward answer.

DD messed her essays. Waitlisted

Asian, 4.00 GPA, pre-calculus

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS Accepted. pre-calculus, 4.0, Asian

Pre-calculus? What do kids do at TJ if they've already gone this far in math?

DC currently at TJ completed pre-calc in middle school, outside FCPS. past precalc, TJ has four levels: Calc AB, Calc BC, Multi/linear, elementary diff & applied math techniques

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted. 4.0. AP Pre-Calculus. Won gold, silver, bronze in different competitions. Volunteered a lot with the community (because DC wanted to do so, not bc of TJ. DC will continue doing so no matter what).

DC’s friends, DC, us and everyone knew DC were shocked with the result.

DC is resilient though. DC started discussing a new plan at base HS with us.

When did they complete alg 1/geo/alg 2?

DC completed Alg 1 in 6th grade, took a test and allowed to skip geo, alg 2 in 7th grade. In 8th grade, math teacher recommended DC to take AP Pre-Calculus rather than Pre-Calculus. DC is doing very well in the course.

AP Pre-Calculus? No such course at FCPS.

Yeah, it's a new course that College Board just came up with. It's pretty a dumb idea - but it would be worse if FCPS didn't offer it than if they do.

Good thing is kids finishing that course in 8th grade can do AP Calculus BC right in their 9th grade.

This is true for any precalculus course.

No, if you have pre-calculus in 8th grade, you can only have Calculus AB in 9th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD says last year Math was easier than this year’s question.

Wording on this year’s made it lil more confusing than last year’s question. According to her - once you get thru that then it is a straightforward answer.

DD messed her essays. Waitlisted

Asian, 4.00 GPA, pre-calculus

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS Accepted. pre-calculus, 4.0, Asian

Pre-calculus? What do kids do at TJ if they've already gone this far in math?

DC currently at TJ completed pre-calc in middle school, outside FCPS. past precalc, TJ has four levels: Calc AB, Calc BC, Multi/linear, elementary diff & applied math techniques

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted. 4.0. AP Pre-Calculus. Won gold, silver, bronze in different competitions. Volunteered a lot with the community (because DC wanted to do so, not bc of TJ. DC will continue doing so no matter what).

DC’s friends, DC, us and everyone knew DC were shocked with the result.

DC is resilient though. DC started discussing a new plan at base HS with us.

When did they complete alg 1/geo/alg 2?

DC completed Alg 1 in 6th grade, took a test and allowed to skip geo, alg 2 in 7th grade. In 8th grade, math teacher recommended DC to take AP Pre-Calculus rather than Pre-Calculus. DC is doing very well in the course.

AP Pre-Calculus? No such course at FCPS.

Yeah, it's a new course that College Board just came up with. It's pretty a dumb idea - but it would be worse if FCPS didn't offer it than if they do.

Good thing is kids finishing that course in 8th grade can do AP Calculus BC right in their 9th grade.

This is true for any precalculus course.

No, if you have pre-calculus in 8th grade, you can only have Calculus AB in 9th grade.

What kind of rule is that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grader is in Algebra 1 and thinks Math would be tough at TJ, especially since calculus is required. How to convince them to accept the offer? Is it that difficult from base school?

Your kid is right. It is hard. It is taught and graded in a way that is reportedly harder than the same class at a base school. Plz do not try to talk your kid into going. They need to want to be there and want the challenge for it to work out well for them.

- mom of a TJ kid and TJ booster but realistic it’s not for everyone.

So glad it was for your kid.

It’s for one of mine but I know it won’t be a good fit for my other one. The second kid also gets good grades (As and B+s in honors classes) but math doesn’t come super easily to them and they aren’t quite as self motivated.

I am not trying to be snotty about it. It’s just being truthful that TJ will not be a positive experience for all kids. But for certain kids it’s a great one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean when you say top students? All As or something else.

Someone posted on here there were rejections of kids who qualified for USAJMO in 7th grade. This is a contest that takes around the top 100 math students in the country. And that is among 10th graders and below.
7th or 8th grader to make this in Virginia is rare, but they couldn't find room in a class of 500. They also reject5 winners of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, and other contests.
Really anyone who qualifies for the earlier round AIME should be accepted.

Why? What if they wrote "I don't want to go to TJ" for their essay? Or "I want to go to TJ because I'm better than everyone else and if you send me to my base school I'll be bored to tears"?

If you create metrics that deliver automatic acceptances, you will see an insane rush by parents to set their relatively workaday kids up to conform to that metric regardless of the damage done to their child's development. This, more than anything else, is why opaque admissions procedures are an absolute necessity.

It might be possible to push a borderline kid to qualify for AIME, it is unlikely. It is not possible for USAJMO.
To qualify for AIME a student would have to be able to do 15 of these questions in 75 minutes.
https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2023_AMC_10A_Problems
Possible but unlikely that training would change these results for mediocre students. Prepping for the current essay is more likely to get admission.
USAJMO would probably need half of these questions, in three hours
https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2024_AIME_I_Problems
.

The Virginia MathCounts National Team this year has one student who not only qualified but won Honorable Mention in USAJMO last year (his 7th grade). This year one more student on the Team also qualified USAJMO (both are 8th graders this year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean when you say top students? All As or something else.

Someone posted on here there were rejections of kids who qualified for USAJMO in 7th grade. This is a contest that takes around the top 100 math students in the country. And that is among 10th graders and below.
7th or 8th grader to make this in Virginia is rare, but they couldn't find room in a class of 500. They also reject5 winners of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, and other contests.
Really anyone who qualifies for the earlier round AIME should be accepted.

Why? What if they wrote "I don't want to go to TJ" for their essay? Or "I want to go to TJ because I'm better than everyone else and if you send me to my base school I'll be bored to tears"?

If you create metrics that deliver automatic acceptances, you will see an insane rush by parents to set their relatively workaday kids up to conform to that metric regardless of the damage done to their child's development. This, more than anything else, is why opaque admissions procedures are an absolute necessity.

It might be possible to push a borderline kid to qualify for AIME, it is unlikely. It is not possible for USAJMO.
To qualify for AIME a student would have to be able to do 15 of these questions in 75 minutes.
https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2023_AMC_10A_Problems
Possible but unlikely that training would change these results for mediocre students. Prepping for the current essay is more likely to get admission.
USAJMO would probably need half of these questions, in three hours
https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2024_AIME_I_Problems
.

The Virginia MathCounts National Team this year has one student who not only qualified but won Honorable Mention in USAJMO last year (his 7th grade). This year one more student on the Team also qualified USAJMO (both are 8th graders this year).

Did they apply? Did they get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD says last year Math was easier than this year’s question.

Wording on this year’s made it lil more confusing than last year’s question. According to her - once you get thru that then it is a straightforward answer.

DD messed her essays. Waitlisted

Asian, 4.00 GPA, pre-calculus

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS Accepted. pre-calculus, 4.0, Asian

Pre-calculus? What do kids do at TJ if they've already gone this far in math?

DC currently at TJ completed pre-calc in middle school, outside FCPS. past precalc, TJ has four levels: Calc AB, Calc BC, Multi/linear, elementary diff & applied math techniques

Anonymous wrote:DC waitlisted. 4.0. AP Pre-Calculus. Won gold, silver, bronze in different competitions. Volunteered a lot with the community (because DC wanted to do so, not bc of TJ. DC will continue doing so no matter what).

DC’s friends, DC, us and everyone knew DC were shocked with the result.

DC is resilient though. DC started discussing a new plan at base HS with us.

When did they complete alg 1/geo/alg 2?

DC completed Alg 1 in 6th grade, took a test and allowed to skip geo, alg 2 in 7th grade. In 8th grade, math teacher recommended DC to take AP Pre-Calculus rather than Pre-Calculus. DC is doing very well in the course.

which school(s) allow students to straight up skip geometry without needing to take it over the summer? And how did your DC qualify for algebra in 6th?

You basically ask them to identify their kids. Just so you know, in the old admissions system, there were tens of TJ freshmen already finished pre-calculus.