TJ Falls to 14th in the Nation Per US News

[Anonymous]

Will FCPS formally acknowledge educational partners, such as Curie, RSM, Mathnasium, Kumon, etc., for their role in supporting TJ’s national standing? Any recognition for academically strong feeder middle school communities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ by environment, I primarily mean an extensive network of support for low-income families

What extensive network does NYC have?

The problem with FCPS providing support for per kids is that they are trying to achieve equal results not equal ability. And besides, they don't really care about income, just skin color.

They could have artificially achieved income diversity by explicitly preferencing income (which they did), they didn't have to get rid of the test for that. But they could not explicitly preference race and so they got rid of the test because objective testing is an obstacle to racial diversity.

They got rid of the test because wealthy people were getting an additional unfair advantage by prepping.

They had already changed the test to prevent this multiple times. But test prep companies continued to “crack” the test.

That's silly. We were there, we saw the board taking about racial diversity throughout the entire process. The backdrop of BLM let them push it through but it was all about race. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. If wealth determined how well you did on these tests why would Stuyvesant be 50% farm? How did TJ go from majority white to majority Asian?

Is this a serious question? Because the answer is wealthy Indian families concentrated in Loudoun and western Fairfax. They’re by FAR the wealthiest demographic in Northern Virginia.

GTFOH.

Of the 500 wealthiest family's in northern Virginia, they are overwhelmingly white. There may be a concentration of affluent Indian families in Loudon but they are not the wealthiest people in Fairfax. Not even close.

And even if they were, of the 500 spots at TJ under the old system, Loudon county got ~70 spots. The soft in demographics at TJ is because Asians showed up. That is what is causing the distribution that people want to counter.

There wasn't any political will to do anything when TJ was overwhelmingly white, that just seemed natural. Things didn't seem off until Asians started to crowd out white kids.

FALSE. The community has been concerned about test prep for decades…

2001:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/12/01/outsmarting-the-competition-into-thomas-jefferson-high/3f547eb4-a62d-439e-adbb-c409403deea6/

“attended a private learning center in Burke for test practice and admissions counseling -- even advice on elementary school extracurricular activities. “

"Families go through incredible behavior just to try to get their kids into Jefferson by moving into a particular area or renting a town house near Longfellow [Middle School] or others that they think will give them an edge."

“The frenzy highlights a current districtwide controversy about the admission process. Domenech wants to increase the number of students attending Jefferson from less affluent areas of the county”

For the first time, applicants who registered to take the test this year were given a 16-page booklet with test-taking strategies and sample questions.

"We knew that kids were getting help," said admissions coordinator Christel G. Payne, "and it just wasn't fair that a great deal knew what they were facing when they went in on Saturday morning and others would go in cold with no idea what they would be looking at."

MCPS: “Eileen Steinkraus, the magnet coordinator, said applicants used to take the Preliminary SAT, but so many students studied for the test that they abolished it four years ago and had a testing service develop a test for them.”

Pfft.

I'm sure there were a lot of concerns. But, just like there were a lot of reasons for the civil war but really one reason, the primary driver of the admissions change was racial diversity. Nobody that was around 5 years ago would have said test prep was driving the change more than racial concerns

1) Let’s suppose for a moment that a primary driver of the admissions changes was racial diversity. Why does that bother you? Are you unfamiliar with the overwhelming peer-reviewed academic literature supporting the value of racial diversity in advanced academic spaces?

2) You’re trying to decouple test prep concerns and racial concerns. Why?

What do you mean decouple racial concerns and test prep concerns? I think a lot of test prep concerns arise from racism and the concerns that a lot of white people have that asians are taking spots that might otherwise go to their kids. Even the use of the term test prep to describe what happens at curie is pretty deceptive. Curie starts in early elementary, nobody is doing that to get into TJ. They have a 2 week module that costs $300 that goes over the test, everything else is educational enrichment.

Curie (and probably others) sell it as test prep. Their $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Many families do enrichment purely to increase their kids’ chances at TJ.

You are quoting PART of one sentence out of a 20 page document.

The entire sentence read:
"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

And it is clear from the rest of the document and their website that they are not particularly focused on the TJ exam.

Right. I included the excerpt that was relevant. Curie pushed that multi-year program as the ultimate “test prep” option. They specifically mention the TJ admissions test.

You are the only person who is (weirdly) trying to narrowly define it.

Parents sign their kids up for all kinds of activities and enrichment just to get a leg up on TJ admissions.

Should we call these things “admissions boosters”?

Really where do they push it as the ultimate "test prep" option? I mean they seem to be going out of their way to say that this will not only prepare them for entrance exams but also for high school and college.

Right when they mentioned it was TJ test prep on steroids.

“ This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ “

Once again, you are clip quoting those words out of context. How does that sentence end?

Again, here is the full quote:

"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

Does this sound like they are advertising "TJ prep on steroids" or offering a program that will prepare students for academic success including passing admissions tests to places like TJ and AOS.

Yes, it sounds like TJ prep on steroids.

Parents are doing it to game admissions for TJ and potentially college.

Studying is not gamification.
And even if it were gamification, it's still better than racial discrimination.

DP. I have provided the most evidence by far of anyone on this board of the very problematic behavior of Curie and other test prep companies.

It is inappropriate to refer to what happened in this situation as "test buying", and it is equally inappropriate to refer to it as "studying".

What is appropriate is to call out the issues with making admissions decisions based on standardized tests when test-taking is a real skill, coached familiarity with the format confers massive advantages, and there is no real-world value to the skill of test-taking apart from academic admissions processes. There is no real-world problem that is solved by being a good test-taker.

There is a big difference between "studying math" and "paying thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam". The latter is the reason why TJ has been inaccessible to low-income families for its entire recent history, and moreso as the years have gone on.

There was significant, demonstrable racial discrimination under the old admissions system and it was removed by virtue of the new admissions process. The fact that the process no longer discriminates in favor of resourced students and Asian students does not constitute an introduction of racial discrimination into the process. But you were probably okay with the racial and socioeconomic discrimination that took place under the old process because you felt like it was earned via the priorities of parents and communities.

The most important thing that happened in the introduction of the new admissions process was its devaluation of the efforts of parents. Parents should not be incentivized to build a childhood around admission to a high school (or a college, for that matter). They can certainly do it if they want to - I'm not here to tell parents what they should and shouldn't do - but they shouldn't be rewarded for that behavior. And the result of a narrow path to TJ admission for so many years was a staggering monoculture within the TJ building that had devastating effects on mental health and on college admissions outcomes.

It's pretty objectively a far better place now, though there's still more work to do to reintroduce the evaluation of actual merit (meaning the intersection of achievement AND circumstances) to the process. And there are ways to do that, but it's not going to happen if FCPS insists on funding only 2.5 positions in the TJ Admissions Office.

Exactly.

Replying to your own message ain’t gonna make that Curie fiction story any more real.

I’m a DP. Feel free to ask Jeff.

Fact: some parents paid thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam.

That's not curie. The test prep at curie is $300

Many parent were willing to spend big bucks to give their kids a leg up in admissions:

$2120
https://plcprep.com/1-on-1_tutoring.php

$200-300 per hour
https://www.principiatutors.com/our-pricing

$625
https://fairfaxcollegiate.com/test-prep/tjhsst-prep

$1000+ including practice tests
https://web.archive.org/web/20190411164031/http://katedalby.com/tj-admissions-prep/

$800 self paced
$2400 small group
https://www.tjtestprep.com/

$1950
https://www.principiatutors.com/tj-sps-pse-prep

Curie's $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Very much interested in enrolling DC in Curie, but your costs are total BS. Do you even know how to read a brochure. Curie is cheaper than Kumon.

Page 4.

The signature program is a 4 semester sequence adding up to $6985.

There are also $650 of “extra” prep classes if you want even more for your kid, so $7635.

You are funny. No one enrolls in all classes at once at any training school. We moved from Kumon to Curie for cost reasons, saving a bunch.

The cost for the full “signature program” is $6985-7635. It’s irrelevant if you personally didn’t sign up for it.

$7600?

Over 2 years? Like $300/month

That's the income barrier that was keeping TJ "almost exclusively available to the rich" Are you fugging kidding me?

My kid's hockey costs more than that and his team isn't that good. His Tae Kwon Do costs that much. Where the heck do I sign up and do they give you the answers when you pay or do they make you attend the classes to make it look good?

The former admissions process almost completely shut out applicants from economically-disadvantaged families.

Less than 1% from class of 2025.

Multiple test prep companies harvested questions to give their students a leg up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that TJ moved back to 5th can we stop this thread?

Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ by environment, I primarily mean an extensive network of support for low-income families

What extensive network does NYC have?

The problem with FCPS providing support for per kids is that they are trying to achieve equal results not equal ability. And besides, they don't really care about income, just skin color.

They could have artificially achieved income diversity by explicitly preferencing income (which they did), they didn't have to get rid of the test for that. But they could not explicitly preference race and so they got rid of the test because objective testing is an obstacle to racial diversity.

They got rid of the test because wealthy people were getting an additional unfair advantage by prepping.

They had already changed the test to prevent this multiple times. But test prep companies continued to “crack” the test.

That's silly. We were there, we saw the board taking about racial diversity throughout the entire process. The backdrop of BLM let them push it through but it was all about race. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. If wealth determined how well you did on these tests why would Stuyvesant be 50% farm? How did TJ go from majority white to majority Asian?

Is this a serious question? Because the answer is wealthy Indian families concentrated in Loudoun and western Fairfax. They’re by FAR the wealthiest demographic in Northern Virginia.

GTFOH.

Of the 500 wealthiest family's in northern Virginia, they are overwhelmingly white. There may be a concentration of affluent Indian families in Loudon but they are not the wealthiest people in Fairfax. Not even close.

And even if they were, of the 500 spots at TJ under the old system, Loudon county got ~70 spots. The soft in demographics at TJ is because Asians showed up. That is what is causing the distribution that people want to counter.

There wasn't any political will to do anything when TJ was overwhelmingly white, that just seemed natural. Things didn't seem off until Asians started to crowd out white kids.

FALSE. The community has been concerned about test prep for decades…

2001:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/12/01/outsmarting-the-competition-into-thomas-jefferson-high/3f547eb4-a62d-439e-adbb-c409403deea6/

“attended a private learning center in Burke for test practice and admissions counseling -- even advice on elementary school extracurricular activities. “

"Families go through incredible behavior just to try to get their kids into Jefferson by moving into a particular area or renting a town house near Longfellow [Middle School] or others that they think will give them an edge."

“The frenzy highlights a current districtwide controversy about the admission process. Domenech wants to increase the number of students attending Jefferson from less affluent areas of the county”

For the first time, applicants who registered to take the test this year were given a 16-page booklet with test-taking strategies and sample questions.

"We knew that kids were getting help," said admissions coordinator Christel G. Payne, "and it just wasn't fair that a great deal knew what they were facing when they went in on Saturday morning and others would go in cold with no idea what they would be looking at."

MCPS: “Eileen Steinkraus, the magnet coordinator, said applicants used to take the Preliminary SAT, but so many students studied for the test that they abolished it four years ago and had a testing service develop a test for them.”

Pfft.

I'm sure there were a lot of concerns. But, just like there were a lot of reasons for the civil war but really one reason, the primary driver of the admissions change was racial diversity. Nobody that was around 5 years ago would have said test prep was driving the change more than racial concerns

1) Let’s suppose for a moment that a primary driver of the admissions changes was racial diversity. Why does that bother you? Are you unfamiliar with the overwhelming peer-reviewed academic literature supporting the value of racial diversity in advanced academic spaces?

2) You’re trying to decouple test prep concerns and racial concerns. Why?

What do you mean decouple racial concerns and test prep concerns? I think a lot of test prep concerns arise from racism and the concerns that a lot of white people have that asians are taking spots that might otherwise go to their kids. Even the use of the term test prep to describe what happens at curie is pretty deceptive. Curie starts in early elementary, nobody is doing that to get into TJ. They have a 2 week module that costs $300 that goes over the test, everything else is educational enrichment.

Curie (and probably others) sell it as test prep. Their $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Many families do enrichment purely to increase their kids’ chances at TJ.

You are quoting PART of one sentence out of a 20 page document.

The entire sentence read:
"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

And it is clear from the rest of the document and their website that they are not particularly focused on the TJ exam.

Right. I included the excerpt that was relevant. Curie pushed that multi-year program as the ultimate “test prep” option. They specifically mention the TJ admissions test.

You are the only person who is (weirdly) trying to narrowly define it.

Parents sign their kids up for all kinds of activities and enrichment just to get a leg up on TJ admissions.

Should we call these things “admissions boosters”?

Really where do they push it as the ultimate "test prep" option? I mean they seem to be going out of their way to say that this will not only prepare them for entrance exams but also for high school and college.

Right when they mentioned it was TJ test prep on steroids.

“ This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ “

Once again, you are clip quoting those words out of context. How does that sentence end?

Again, here is the full quote:

"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

Does this sound like they are advertising "TJ prep on steroids" or offering a program that will prepare students for academic success including passing admissions tests to places like TJ and AOS.

Yes, it sounds like TJ prep on steroids.

Parents are doing it to game admissions for TJ and potentially college.

Studying is not gamification.
And even if it were gamification, it's still better than racial discrimination.

DP. I have provided the most evidence by far of anyone on this board of the very problematic behavior of Curie and other test prep companies.

It is inappropriate to refer to what happened in this situation as "test buying", and it is equally inappropriate to refer to it as "studying".

What is appropriate is to call out the issues with making admissions decisions based on standardized tests when test-taking is a real skill, coached familiarity with the format confers massive advantages, and there is no real-world value to the skill of test-taking apart from academic admissions processes. There is no real-world problem that is solved by being a good test-taker.

There is a big difference between "studying math" and "paying thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam". The latter is the reason why TJ has been inaccessible to low-income families for its entire recent history, and moreso as the years have gone on.

There was significant, demonstrable racial discrimination under the old admissions system and it was removed by virtue of the new admissions process. The fact that the process no longer discriminates in favor of resourced students and Asian students does not constitute an introduction of racial discrimination into the process. But you were probably okay with the racial and socioeconomic discrimination that took place under the old process because you felt like it was earned via the priorities of parents and communities.

The most important thing that happened in the introduction of the new admissions process was its devaluation of the efforts of parents. Parents should not be incentivized to build a childhood around admission to a high school (or a college, for that matter). They can certainly do it if they want to - I'm not here to tell parents what they should and shouldn't do - but they shouldn't be rewarded for that behavior. And the result of a narrow path to TJ admission for so many years was a staggering monoculture within the TJ building that had devastating effects on mental health and on college admissions outcomes.

It's pretty objectively a far better place now, though there's still more work to do to reintroduce the evaluation of actual merit (meaning the intersection of achievement AND circumstances) to the process. And there are ways to do that, but it's not going to happen if FCPS insists on funding only 2.5 positions in the TJ Admissions Office.

Exactly.

Replying to your own message ain’t gonna make that Curie fiction story any more real.

I’m a DP. Feel free to ask Jeff.

Fact: some parents paid thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam.

That's not curie. The test prep at curie is $300

Many parent were willing to spend big bucks to give their kids a leg up in admissions:

$2120
https://plcprep.com/1-on-1_tutoring.php

$200-300 per hour
https://www.principiatutors.com/our-pricing

$625
https://fairfaxcollegiate.com/test-prep/tjhsst-prep

$1000+ including practice tests
https://web.archive.org/web/20190411164031/http://katedalby.com/tj-admissions-prep/

$800 self paced
$2400 small group
https://www.tjtestprep.com/

$1950
https://www.principiatutors.com/tj-sps-pse-prep

Curie's $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Very much interested in enrolling DC in Curie, but your costs are total BS. Do you even know how to read a brochure. Curie is cheaper than Kumon.

Page 4.

The signature program is a 4 semester sequence adding up to $6985.

There are also $650 of “extra” prep classes if you want even more for your kid, so $7635.

You are funny. No one enrolls in all classes at once at any training school. We moved from Kumon to Curie for cost reasons, saving a bunch.

The cost for the full “signature program” is $6985-7635. It’s irrelevant if you personally didn’t sign up for it.

$7600?

Over 2 years? Like $300/month

That's the income barrier that was keeping TJ "almost exclusively available to the rich" Are you fugging kidding me?

My kid's hockey costs more than that and his team isn't that good. His Tae Kwon Do costs that much. Where the heck do I sign up and do they give you the answers when you pay or do they make you attend the classes to make it look good?

The former admissions process almost completely shut out applicants from economically-disadvantaged families.

Less than 1% from class of 2025.

Multiple test prep companies harvested questions to give their students a leg up.

Nobody could "prep" for that first year of quant q.
There were no prior administration of the exam to harvest from.
So why were the admissions from that year ALSO about 1%?

It's not the money, it's the cognitive ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ by environment, I primarily mean an extensive network of support for low-income families

What extensive network does NYC have?

The problem with FCPS providing support for per kids is that they are trying to achieve equal results not equal ability. And besides, they don't really care about income, just skin color.

They could have artificially achieved income diversity by explicitly preferencing income (which they did), they didn't have to get rid of the test for that. But they could not explicitly preference race and so they got rid of the test because objective testing is an obstacle to racial diversity.

They got rid of the test because wealthy people were getting an additional unfair advantage by prepping.

They had already changed the test to prevent this multiple times. But test prep companies continued to “crack” the test.

That's silly. We were there, we saw the board taking about racial diversity throughout the entire process. The backdrop of BLM let them push it through but it was all about race. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. If wealth determined how well you did on these tests why would Stuyvesant be 50% farm? How did TJ go from majority white to majority Asian?

Is this a serious question? Because the answer is wealthy Indian families concentrated in Loudoun and western Fairfax. They’re by FAR the wealthiest demographic in Northern Virginia.

GTFOH.

Of the 500 wealthiest family's in northern Virginia, they are overwhelmingly white. There may be a concentration of affluent Indian families in Loudon but they are not the wealthiest people in Fairfax. Not even close.

And even if they were, of the 500 spots at TJ under the old system, Loudon county got ~70 spots. The soft in demographics at TJ is because Asians showed up. That is what is causing the distribution that people want to counter.

There wasn't any political will to do anything when TJ was overwhelmingly white, that just seemed natural. Things didn't seem off until Asians started to crowd out white kids.

FALSE. The community has been concerned about test prep for decades…

2001:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/12/01/outsmarting-the-competition-into-thomas-jefferson-high/3f547eb4-a62d-439e-adbb-c409403deea6/

“attended a private learning center in Burke for test practice and admissions counseling -- even advice on elementary school extracurricular activities. “

"Families go through incredible behavior just to try to get their kids into Jefferson by moving into a particular area or renting a town house near Longfellow [Middle School] or others that they think will give them an edge."

“The frenzy highlights a current districtwide controversy about the admission process. Domenech wants to increase the number of students attending Jefferson from less affluent areas of the county”

For the first time, applicants who registered to take the test this year were given a 16-page booklet with test-taking strategies and sample questions.

"We knew that kids were getting help," said admissions coordinator Christel G. Payne, "and it just wasn't fair that a great deal knew what they were facing when they went in on Saturday morning and others would go in cold with no idea what they would be looking at."

MCPS: “Eileen Steinkraus, the magnet coordinator, said applicants used to take the Preliminary SAT, but so many students studied for the test that they abolished it four years ago and had a testing service develop a test for them.”

Pfft.

I'm sure there were a lot of concerns. But, just like there were a lot of reasons for the civil war but really one reason, the primary driver of the admissions change was racial diversity. Nobody that was around 5 years ago would have said test prep was driving the change more than racial concerns

1) Let’s suppose for a moment that a primary driver of the admissions changes was racial diversity. Why does that bother you? Are you unfamiliar with the overwhelming peer-reviewed academic literature supporting the value of racial diversity in advanced academic spaces?

2) You’re trying to decouple test prep concerns and racial concerns. Why?

What do you mean decouple racial concerns and test prep concerns? I think a lot of test prep concerns arise from racism and the concerns that a lot of white people have that asians are taking spots that might otherwise go to their kids. Even the use of the term test prep to describe what happens at curie is pretty deceptive. Curie starts in early elementary, nobody is doing that to get into TJ. They have a 2 week module that costs $300 that goes over the test, everything else is educational enrichment.

Curie (and probably others) sell it as test prep. Their $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Many families do enrichment purely to increase their kids’ chances at TJ.

You are quoting PART of one sentence out of a 20 page document.

The entire sentence read:
"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

And it is clear from the rest of the document and their website that they are not particularly focused on the TJ exam.

Right. I included the excerpt that was relevant. Curie pushed that multi-year program as the ultimate “test prep” option. They specifically mention the TJ admissions test.

You are the only person who is (weirdly) trying to narrowly define it.

Parents sign their kids up for all kinds of activities and enrichment just to get a leg up on TJ admissions.

Should we call these things “admissions boosters”?

Really where do they push it as the ultimate "test prep" option? I mean they seem to be going out of their way to say that this will not only prepare them for entrance exams but also for high school and college.

Right when they mentioned it was TJ test prep on steroids.

“ This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ “

Once again, you are clip quoting those words out of context. How does that sentence end?

Again, here is the full quote:

"The Level 7/8 program incorporates high-level coursework in math, English, writing, science, and
critical thinking. This program will prepare students not only to pass any test for admission into
specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ, but also to succeed and even thrive in high school and
later in college.

Does this sound like they are advertising "TJ prep on steroids" or offering a program that will prepare students for academic success including passing admissions tests to places like TJ and AOS.

Yes, it sounds like TJ prep on steroids.

Parents are doing it to game admissions for TJ and potentially college.

Studying is not gamification.
And even if it were gamification, it's still better than racial discrimination.

DP. I have provided the most evidence by far of anyone on this board of the very problematic behavior of Curie and other test prep companies.

It is inappropriate to refer to what happened in this situation as "test buying", and it is equally inappropriate to refer to it as "studying".

What is appropriate is to call out the issues with making admissions decisions based on standardized tests when test-taking is a real skill, coached familiarity with the format confers massive advantages, and there is no real-world value to the skill of test-taking apart from academic admissions processes. There is no real-world problem that is solved by being a good test-taker.

There is a big difference between "studying math" and "paying thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam". The latter is the reason why TJ has been inaccessible to low-income families for its entire recent history, and moreso as the years have gone on.

There was significant, demonstrable racial discrimination under the old admissions system and it was removed by virtue of the new admissions process. The fact that the process no longer discriminates in favor of resourced students and Asian students does not constitute an introduction of racial discrimination into the process. But you were probably okay with the racial and socioeconomic discrimination that took place under the old process because you felt like it was earned via the priorities of parents and communities.

The most important thing that happened in the introduction of the new admissions process was its devaluation of the efforts of parents. Parents should not be incentivized to build a childhood around admission to a high school (or a college, for that matter). They can certainly do it if they want to - I'm not here to tell parents what they should and shouldn't do - but they shouldn't be rewarded for that behavior. And the result of a narrow path to TJ admission for so many years was a staggering monoculture within the TJ building that had devastating effects on mental health and on college admissions outcomes.

It's pretty objectively a far better place now, though there's still more work to do to reintroduce the evaluation of actual merit (meaning the intersection of achievement AND circumstances) to the process. And there are ways to do that, but it's not going to happen if FCPS insists on funding only 2.5 positions in the TJ Admissions Office.

Exactly.

Replying to your own message ain’t gonna make that Curie fiction story any more real.

I’m a DP. Feel free to ask Jeff.

Fact: some parents paid thousands of dollars for boutique test prep to be ready for the Quant-Q exam.

That's not curie. The test prep at curie is $300

Many parent were willing to spend big bucks to give their kids a leg up in admissions:

$2120
https://plcprep.com/1-on-1_tutoring.php

$200-300 per hour
https://www.principiatutors.com/our-pricing

$625
https://fairfaxcollegiate.com/test-prep/tjhsst-prep

$1000+ including practice tests
https://web.archive.org/web/20190411164031/http://katedalby.com/tj-admissions-prep/

$800 self paced
$2400 small group
https://www.tjtestprep.com/

$1950
https://www.principiatutors.com/tj-sps-pse-prep

Curie's $6985+ signature program that runs over two years “pass any test for admission into specialized programs like AOS/AET and TJ”
https://tinyurl.com/tjtestprepoptions

Very much interested in enrolling DC in Curie, but your costs are total BS. Do you even know how to read a brochure. Curie is cheaper than Kumon.

Page 4.

The signature program is a 4 semester sequence adding up to $6985.

There are also $650 of “extra” prep classes if you want even more for your kid, so $7635.

You are funny. No one enrolls in all classes at once at any training school. We moved from Kumon to Curie for cost reasons, saving a bunch.

The cost for the full “signature program” is $6985-7635. It’s irrelevant if you personally didn’t sign up for it.

$7600?

Over 2 years? Like $300/month

That's the income barrier that was keeping TJ "almost exclusively available to the rich" Are you fugging kidding me?

My kid's hockey costs more than that and his team isn't that good. His Tae Kwon Do costs that much. Where the heck do I sign up and do they give you the answers when you pay or do they make you attend the classes to make it look good?

The former admissions process almost completely shut out applicants from economically-disadvantaged families.

Less than 1% from class of 2025.

Multiple test prep companies harvested questions to give their students a leg up.

Nobody could "prep" for that first year of quant q.
There were no prior administration of the exam to harvest from.
So why were the admissions from that year ALSO about 1%?

It's not the money, it's the cognitive ability.

Kids didn't bother applying because they didn't think they had a chance to get in. Kids didn't apply because they didn't know the program existed. Kids didn't apply because their friends were not going to be there. The 1.5% guarantee from each MS changed the calculus for kids. You knew that you had a shot to attend even if you didn't score as high on the test as a kid who had been in enrichment since K. Many of the schools directly impacted by the seat guarantee do not have a lot of kids who prepped for the test or participated in enrichment. Why apply when you know you don't have a chance because you know the kids at Longfellow, Cooper, Carson, Rocky Run and a few other schools have been going to RSM or AoPS or Curie for years? You don't stand a chance of outscoring them. Even if there was a new test, you didn't stand a chance of outscoring them because they have years of enrichment that allows them to tackle more complex problems then you do.

Adding seats for every MS means that smart kids who are late to STEM or late to hearing about TJ or have not participated in enrichment know that they have a shot at beign accepted, so there is an incentive to apply.

I do wish that there was a way to allow for the kids who are further ahead in math at the schools with more applicants then spots to distribute those spots to kids who are more STEM active. If Algebra 2 is offered at a MS, that should be given weight in the application. That would decrease my kid's chances, he will be in Geometry as an 8th grader, but I can see the benefit to kids having Algebra 2 for some of the classes at TJ. There is room to tweak the process but I am happy that they are offering the opportunity to kids from across the County.

[Anonymous]

Not attending Curie/RSM/AOPS/tutoring doesn’t hurt students who are cognitively advanced. My son from a top four feeder middle school got in this year without any of the years of prep that many students start in Kindergarten. He received an A in Algebra I Honors, Geometry Honors, and Algebra II honors with minimal work outside of school hours. 99th percentile on the IAAT and 99th percentile on the MAPS for Algebra II (at the beginning of the year!). If a student has the cognitive ability they won’t need to take classes outside of school to be a top student, it comes naturally.

He was chosen over many students who had years of outside math enrichment from a school with many applicants to TJ. His academic extra curricular activities were all school based activities such as being a math tutor, student volunteer at his school, SCA, etc.

Even with the change to essay based admissions he finished his essays with 30 minutes to spare and got all of the answers on the PSE correct while many students don’t get through all of the essays.

The reason our son is intelligent is because of his natural cognitive ability. The reason we live in a wealthy area is because of our cognitive ability and hard work (I definitely didn’t grow up rich and have an immigrant father who came to this country with nothing, but also happens to be extremely intelligent). I would say that a large % of the parents I have met over the years of students who attend school with my children have higher cognitive ability than the average person. That’s how they were able to be successful and live in a wealthier area. Some of the people had a leg up and live here because they came from rich families, but those people also have high cognitive abilities and work extremely hard.

Nothing has ever stopped any student from FCPS with high cognitive ability particularly in math from being admitted to TJ. What stopped students in the past was not being able to do well on the entrance exam. The minimum score needed to move to the 2nd round of TJ applicants prior to the admissions change was a 60% on the math exam. Any student who scored below a 60% rightly shouldn't have been admitted to TJ. Students of any economic background can have naturally high cognitive abilities and get in.

Complaining about Curie/RSM/AOPS is ridiculous. Do you know how hard those students work in those classes, sometimes for years? Go offer those classes to most students and they wouldn’t step foot inside one of those classes on their Saturdays/Sundays and would prefer to play sports. I know my son wouldn’t spend his weekends doing math problems and I wouldn’t be upset if students who have spent years studying advanced math got in over him. I wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t get in because of the admissions change that gives bonus points to less qualified students.