When are NMSF announced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2022 and 2023, 67% and 63% of the NMSF in FCPS were from TJ. In 2024, only 42% of the NMSF in FCPS are from TJ, despite an increase in the number of TJ juniors from 440 to 500. I expect that next year, TJ’s performance will be even worse than this year, compared to other FCPS schools, because the only academic essay in TJ’s admission test for the class of 2026 was related to biology and was much easier than the math essay for the class of 2025.

The admissions in the first year seemed to line up more with merit than in later years. I heard the first year students were expected to write about their achievements in the essays, sneaking in what was removed from the application.
However, after that year students might get downgraded for listing these achievements that have nothing to do with the essay topic.

It does not matter what students wrote. For class 2025, they intentionally didn't pick Asian students with higher math level, they did pick white students are on higher math level though. They did pick the kids who lied about they're on free lunch.
There are some students took SAT on 9th grade applied to TJ again and got in 10th grade, which also helped the NMSF #. Every year there are students transferred from TJ to base schools, even senior year. If it's counting original 550 admission to TJ, the NMSF number would be even uglier.

Fiction.

They didn’t know the race of the applicants.

It's auto-filled on TJ application, FCPS has it on each and every student's profile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2022 and 2023, 67% and 63% of the NMSF in FCPS were from TJ. In 2024, only 42% of the NMSF in FCPS are from TJ, despite an increase in the number of TJ juniors from 440 to 500. I expect that next year, TJ’s performance will be even worse than this year, compared to other FCPS schools, because the only academic essay in TJ’s admission test for the class of 2026 was related to biology and was much easier than the math essay for the class of 2025.

The admissions in the first year seemed to line up more with merit than in later years. I heard the first year students were expected to write about their achievements in the essays, sneaking in what was removed from the application.
However, after that year students might get downgraded for listing these achievements that have nothing to do with the essay topic.

It does not matter what students wrote. For class 2025, they intentionally didn't pick Asian students with higher math level, they did pick white students are on higher math level though. They did pick the kids who lied about they're on free lunch.
There are some students took SAT on 9th grade applied to TJ again and got in 10th grade, which also helped the NMSF #. Every year there are students transferred from TJ to base schools, even senior year. If it's counting original 550 admission to TJ, the NMSF number would be even uglier.

Fiction.

They didn’t know the race of the applicants.

It's auto-filled on TJ application, FCPS has it on each and every student's profile.

“The new admissions process continues to be merit based and is race blind. Students are allocated a number by which to be identified during the process. Admissions evaluators do not know the race, ethnicity, or gender of any applicant.”

[Anonymous]

Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

Probably for reporting. Possibly for VDOE to monitor the admissions process.

Applicants can also decline to share IIRC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

Probably for reporting. Possibly for VDOE to monitor the admissions process.

Applicants can also decline to share IIRC.

Application does not provide option to not share. Race is a required field to submit the application.

Admissions are race-conscious. Every FCPS news release on TJ admissions leads with the racial percentage breakdown, even before mentioning middle school offer counts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

Probably for reporting. Possibly for VDOE to monitor the admissions process.

Applicants can also decline to share IIRC.

Application does not provide option to not share. Race is a required field to submit the application.

Admissions are race-conscious. Every FCPS news release on TJ admissions leads with the racial percentage breakdown, even before mentioning middle school offer counts.

Even if the data is collected for reporting, admissions evaluators do not know the race, ethnicity, or gender of any applicant.

Stop pushing wacko conspiracy theories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, TJ had 35.3% of the VA NMSF. This year, they only have 20.6% of the VA NMSF.

It's a huge drop, no matter how people try to spin things. It should have been obvious to everyone that when you admit kids based on geographic diversity, essays, and experience factors rather than test scores, test scores will drop.

What are the FCPS percentages of VA semifinalists?

FCPS (including TJ) had 56.5% of the VA semifinalists last year. It has 48.6% of the semifinalists this year.

It's not uncommon for a place with such a high percentage to have YoY variation. I'm sure it will be different next year.

Sure, there's year over year variation. But nowhere near what we see, because for statistical purposes, these are large enough numbers that you're not going to see them going all over the place.

The point is you can and it happens all the time.

No it doesn't. The chances that this is just normal year over year variation without an underlying cause has a statistical probability of effectively zero

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, TJ had 35.3% of the VA NMSF. This year, they only have 20.6% of the VA NMSF.

It's a huge drop, no matter how people try to spin things. It should have been obvious to everyone that when you admit kids based on geographic diversity, essays, and experience factors rather than test scores, test scores will drop.

What are the FCPS percentages of VA semifinalists?

FCPS (including TJ) had 56.5% of the VA semifinalists last year. It has 48.6% of the semifinalists this year.

It's not uncommon for a place with such a high percentage to have YoY variation. I'm sure it will be different next year.

Sure, there's year over year variation. But nowhere near what we see, because for statistical purposes, these are large enough numbers that you're not going to see them going all over the place.

The point is you can and it happens all the time.

No it doesn't.

If it happens all the time then point to another school with over 100 NMSFs that dropped almost in half. Just one.

It's not about some set number but the percentages. The bottom line is COVID had a real impact on kid's development. This is well documented.

Once again, how did it not affect the class of 2022, 2023 and 2024 but DID affect the class of 2025 4 years later?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, TJ had 35.3% of the VA NMSF. This year, they only have 20.6% of the VA NMSF.

It's a huge drop, no matter how people try to spin things. It should have been obvious to everyone that when you admit kids based on geographic diversity, essays, and experience factors rather than test scores, test scores will drop.

What are the FCPS percentages of VA semifinalists?

FCPS (including TJ) had 56.5% of the VA semifinalists last year. It has 48.6% of the semifinalists this year.

The NMSF ratio of FCPS/VA hasn’t changed significantly, but the NMSF ratios of TJ/FCPS (67% and 63% in 2022 and 2023 vs. 42% in 2024) and TJ/VA (35.3% in 2023 vs. 20.6% in 2024) have decreased significantly. COVID and the learning loss caused by the pandemic are not valid excuses as they affected all FCPS schools. In fact, the COVID positive rate at TJ was much lower than the rates in base schools.

Cite on the VA numbers?

They're just trying to cover up that COVID and learning loss are the reason for this to help push the false narrative about admissions. Some people liked being able to buy their kid's way into TJ and will say anything to get back to a system that favors wealthy feeder schools.

You're being ridiculous. The new admissions process was designed to no longer select kids based on standardized test taking ability and instead provide access to a much broader group of students. It was obvious to everyone that test scores would drop when they stopped selecting kids based on test scores. It's perfectly fair to argue that it's more important to provide access to TJ to all kids across the county than it is to maximize TJ's prestige. There's no need to be intellectually dishonest about what is happening.

The problem is they want to keep the prestige built by a merit based admissions process and give it to kids that were not selected with a merit based process.

They want to pretend the bottom half of TJ now is as smart as they were 5 years ago.

It's not just the bottom half (assuming you are ranking based on PSAT scores). Prior to the admissions change, it was roughly 150/450 NMSFs. Now it's <90/550. So the roughly the 66-80%tile of kids are doing worse (on the PSAT). I would argue that the entire distribution has shifted.

PP here. I don't think there is a question that the distribution has shifted but even if it was entirely random you would still have the same group in the top 20%. As unexact as the essays are, they do still measure some quantum of merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, TJ had 35.3% of the VA NMSF. This year, they only have 20.6% of the VA NMSF.

It's a huge drop, no matter how people try to spin things. It should have been obvious to everyone that when you admit kids based on geographic diversity, essays, and experience factors rather than test scores, test scores will drop.

What are the FCPS percentages of VA semifinalists?

FCPS (including TJ) had 56.5% of the VA semifinalists last year. It has 48.6% of the semifinalists this year.

The NMSF ratio of FCPS/VA hasn’t changed significantly, but the NMSF ratios of TJ/FCPS (67% and 63% in 2022 and 2023 vs. 42% in 2024) and TJ/VA (35.3% in 2023 vs. 20.6% in 2024) have decreased significantly. COVID and the learning loss caused by the pandemic are not valid excuses as they affected all FCPS schools. In fact, the COVID positive rate at TJ was much lower than the rates in base schools.

Cite on the VA numbers?

They're just trying to cover up that COVID and learning loss are the reason for this to help push the false narrative about admissions. Some people liked being able to buy their kid's way into TJ and will say anything to get back to a system that favors wealthy feeder schools.

You're being ridiculous. The new admissions process was designed to no longer select kids based on standardized test taking ability and instead provide access to a much broader group of students. It was obvious to everyone that test scores would drop when they stopped selecting kids based on test scores. It's perfectly fair to argue that it's more important to provide access to TJ to all kids across the county than it is to maximize TJ's prestige. There's no need to be intellectually dishonest about what is happening.

I think it's more important to provide the TJ exclusive curriculums to base high schools. Being one of the richest counties in US, it does not make sense Fairfax couldn't provide Python programming or AI/ML courses to any other base high schools. Why does TJ have to be the only one holds prestige?

It's not the curriculum that makes it prestigious. Any school can have whatever curriculum it's students are prepared for. That's why some schools have linear algebra and others have baseline calculus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could it be people who were locked out of school in 8th grade are doing worse now?

Which schools saw improvements in numbers?

Is there something specific to 8th grade that would affect these results that wouldn't also affect kids that were in 9th 10th and 11th grades?

Theory is that schools that were open in 2020-2021 had better results than the online-only schools.

Then why don't we see these PSAT gaps elsewhere this year?

What were the gaps for the other FCPS HSs? LCPS?

LCPS (excluding TJ students)

Year Recipients
=== ======
2022 45
2023 44 + 1 home schooled
2024 57
2025 47

By HS…

that wont be free. got bitcoin?

You can’t claim there weren’t gaps elsewhere without backing it up with data.

Aggregate data is data. There is nothing more than school by school numbers will give you considering most schools have a small handful that varies wildly by year.
It is only aggregate data or schools like TJ where the law of large numbers kicks in and we can make meaningful comparisons from year to year.
You either know this (and are full of sh*t) or you don't know this (and don't know enough to comment).

It is the data reflecting FCPS or LCPS, not the individual HSs. You can talk about FCPS or LCPS changes, but you can’t make sweeping comments about other HSs without the HS data.

Yes you can. That's what aggregate means.
I can talk about statewide police shootings without talking about shooting by a particular precinct and draw conclusions from that aggregate data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

So we can tell who got rejected and who got accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2022 and 2023, 67% and 63% of the NMSF in FCPS were from TJ. In 2024, only 42% of the NMSF in FCPS are from TJ, despite an increase in the number of TJ juniors from 440 to 500. I expect that next year, TJ’s performance will be even worse than this year, compared to other FCPS schools, because the only academic essay in TJ’s admission test for the class of 2026 was related to biology and was much easier than the math essay for the class of 2025.

The admissions in the first year seemed to line up more with merit than in later years. I heard the first year students were expected to write about their achievements in the essays, sneaking in what was removed from the application.
However, after that year students might get downgraded for listing these achievements that have nothing to do with the essay topic.

It does not matter what students wrote. For class 2025, they intentionally didn't pick Asian students with higher math level, they did pick white students are on higher math level though. They did pick the kids who lied about they're on free lunch.
There are some students took SAT on 9th grade applied to TJ again and got in 10th grade, which also helped the NMSF #. Every year there are students transferred from TJ to base schools, even senior year. If it's counting original 550 admission to TJ, the NMSF number would be even uglier.

Fiction.

They didn’t know the race of the applicants.

I agree, the racism does not occur during the admissions process. The racism occurred when they decided to change the admissions process to reduce the number of asians and increase the number of other races. When they engaged in racial balancing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

Probably for reporting. Possibly for VDOE to monitor the admissions process.

Applicants can also decline to share IIRC.

Application does not provide option to not share. Race is a required field to submit the application.

Admissions are race-conscious. Every FCPS news release on TJ admissions leads with the racial percentage breakdown, even before mentioning middle school offer counts.

Even if the data is collected for reporting, admissions evaluators do not know the race, ethnicity, or gender of any applicant.

Stop pushing wacko conspiracy theories.

Truth hurts! Without considering race, there’s no other basis for selecting applicants. With race-conscious admissions, a consistent racial quota is achieved, as highlighted in FCPS news releases for last four years since admission change. There’s no hiding the manipulation of racial representation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is student Race needed on the application form, if not for manipulating offers?

Student Race information is already being collected on the Student registration form for federal federal funds/reporting, etc. purposes, after students decide to enroll at TJ.

Why collect it for all applicants?

Is it on the form? Despite Asian enrollment at an all time high, selection is race blind.