TJ Discrimination Case

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a few years no one will bother. TJ isn’t that desirable for most any more. The people renting crash pads just haven’t figured that out yet.

Let's be honest, TJ hasn't been that desirable for most of the top students in the catchment area for a long time. If it were, you would have seen the application numbers explode along with the population increases but indeed there are FEWER applications to TJ per year now than there were 20 years ago.

But it has been ubiquitous in the Indian community, and therefore they believe it is attractive to everyone because of how they isolate themselves in their ethnic enclaves in Herndon, Chantilly, Ashburn, and South Riding.

If TJ becomes less popular in this community, it will not be because of a decline in the caliber of the offerings, because that isn't going anywhere. It will be because of a perceived reduction in prestige within their own circles - because that prestige was the reason for the explosion in interest in TJ from that community in the first place.

#fakenews

Sure....

It's kind of comical that they write this. I mean they're so desperate to get their kids into to TJ that they'll say or do anything.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voting Republican just because your angry about TJ admissions is short sighted. Haven’t you seen the pictures in the news of Republicans giving Trump the Nazi salute in mass? (It’s a very similar salute, and there were pictures of three moms on the street giving the full Nazi salute to Trump.) Did you not see Nov.6th? Do you think it will end well for our country when it is no longer a democracy?

So discrimination against Asians is cool because otherwise we're just ushering in Mussolini? Get a grip.

DP but get a grip. There is no discrimination against Asians when it comes to admission to TJ. Asians make up 20% of the students body in FCPS but take up to 70% of the seats at TJ.

Jews make up 2% of the population and 22-24% of the Ivy schools - some 11 times the size of the population. Complain about that before complaining of Asians.

PP isn't complaining about it; PP is illustrating why a court will not see a valid legal claim of disparate impact discrimination against a minority population that holds a majority of seats. There are two ways to prove discrimination, one of which is disparate impact. Disparate impact is proved by statistics and this case doesn't have numbers on its side, which was PP's point.

And if suddenly a single school was admitting them at only the rate of 15% of its student body I would think the same thing - that alleging discrimination doesn’t feel like strong ground to stand on when the admittance level is still so high.

And everyone expects it to continue to go back up close to its prior percentage level.

The new system is still gameable with moving and/or fraudulently filling out the free meals form being the two easiest ways to gain admittance.

It needs to be changed to either a lottery or an open enrollment academy model.

Oh no! The meals question was a stroke of genius. They were able to verify and catch many of the cheaters which helped detoxify TJ.

Did you not hear about the massive loophole?

As long as the family submits that their child is eligible using the online free and reduced price meals form, their child will get the bonus points.

FCPS does not verify income if you fill out the form in their website. It’s completely based on trust and there are absolutely parents who have and will continue to abuse this trust.

Not sure where you got this nonsense from but that's not true at all. They required documentation from those who claimed this and those who were unable to provide it were kicked from the program.

No documentation is required if the FARMS forms are filed with the child’s middle school.

And the FARMS forms do not require documentation.

This is terrible.

No documentation is required. If a parent is willing to lie, they can get the FARMS bonus got their child in the TJ admissions.

https://www.fcps.edu/frm

Will this be the case for this year's admissions, now that free lunch for all is gone?

It’s not gone. I live in a TJ feeder neighborhood. There is a family a couple doors over with an 8th grader. They have teamed up with two other neighborhood families with 8th graders and rented a cheap o crash pad by an under-represented school, which the kids are attending until spring. Mom is “separated“ from dad on paper and, as a singLe parent with no income, has filled out the FARMSs paperwork. They take turns with drop off and pickup. Kids stay on same travel sports teams, sleep in their bedrooms and I know they take independent math classes on Sundays to stay ahead.

No one is hiding it. And in many ways, it’s cheaper and easier than prep.

No way this is real. No way.

Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

Unless there’s a MS with 2,000 8th graders, no school is sending 30 kids a year to TJ. It’s 1.5% of each school’s 8th grade class who are admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Unless there’s a MS with 2,000 8th graders, no school is sending 30 kids a year to TJ. It’s 1.5% of each school’s 8th grade class who are admitted.

Wrong. 1.5% is the minimum quota. After that, the remaining seats are open to all students. Academies of Loudoun has a maximum quota per school, but TJ does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

[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:Voting Republican just because your angry about TJ admissions is short sighted. Haven’t you seen the pictures in the news of Republicans giving Trump the Nazi salute in mass? (It’s a very similar salute, and there were pictures of three moms on the street giving the full Nazi salute to Trump.) Did you not see Nov.6th? Do you think it will end well for our country when it is no longer a democracy?

So discrimination against Asians is cool because otherwise we're just ushering in Mussolini? Get a grip.

DP but get a grip. There is no discrimination against Asians when it comes to admission to TJ. Asians make up 20% of the students body in FCPS but take up to 70% of the seats at TJ.

Jews make up 2% of the population and 22-24% of the Ivy schools - some 11 times the size of the population. Complain about that before complaining of Asians.

PP isn't complaining about it; PP is illustrating why a court will not see a valid legal claim of disparate impact discrimination against a minority population that holds a majority of seats. There are two ways to prove discrimination, one of which is disparate impact. Disparate impact is proved by statistics and this case doesn't have numbers on its side, which was PP's point.

And if suddenly a single school was admitting them at only the rate of 15% of its student body I would think the same thing - that alleging discrimination doesn’t feel like strong ground to stand on when the admittance level is still so high.

And everyone expects it to continue to go back up close to its prior percentage level.

The new system is still gameable with moving and/or fraudulently filling out the free meals form being the two easiest ways to gain admittance.

It needs to be changed to either a lottery or an open enrollment academy model.

Oh no! The meals question was a stroke of genius. They were able to verify and catch many of the cheaters which helped detoxify TJ.

Did you not hear about the massive loophole?

As long as the family submits that their child is eligible using the online free and reduced price meals form, their child will get the bonus points.

FCPS does not verify income if you fill out the form in their website. It’s completely based on trust and there are absolutely parents who have and will continue to abuse this trust.

Not sure where you got this nonsense from but that's not true at all. They required documentation from those who claimed this and those who were unable to provide it were kicked from the program.

No documentation is required if the FARMS forms are filed with the child’s middle school.

And the FARMS forms do not require documentation.

This is terrible.

No documentation is required. If a parent is willing to lie, they can get the FARMS bonus got their child in the TJ admissions.

https://www.fcps.edu/frm

Will this be the case for this year's admissions, now that free lunch for all is gone?

It’s not gone. I live in a TJ feeder neighborhood. There is a family a couple doors over with an 8th grader. They have teamed up with two other neighborhood families with 8th graders and rented a cheap o crash pad by an under-represented school, which the kids are attending until spring. Mom is “separated“ from dad on paper and, as a singLe parent with no income, has filled out the FARMSs paperwork. They take turns with drop off and pickup. Kids stay on same travel sports teams, sleep in their bedrooms and I know they take independent math classes on Sundays to stay ahead.

No one is hiding it. And in many ways, it’s cheaper and easier than prep.

No way this is real. No way.

Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

Unless there’s a MS with 2,000 8th graders, no school is sending 30 kids a year to TJ. It’s 1.5% of each school’s 8th grade class who are admitted.

1.5% are guaranteed admissions, but that only accounts for some fraction of the FCPS TJ spots. There's also a general pool, where the top scoring kids regardless of school are admitted to fill out the remaining seats. Schools that get 30 spots have students with such high scores that they're snagging 20 of the general pool slots in addition to the school allocated ones. Also, PP is pretty dim. If school A gets 30 kids in, but school B only gets 10 in, it means that the scores for the students admitted from school A are astronomical compared to the ones from school B. So, even though school A is getting more kids admitted, you'd need a much higher score to be among those 30 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a few years no one will bother. TJ isn’t that desirable for most any more. The people renting crash pads just haven’t figured that out yet.

Let's be honest, TJ hasn't been that desirable for most of the top students in the catchment area for a long time. If it were, you would have seen the application numbers explode along with the population increases but indeed there are FEWER applications to TJ per year now than there were 20 years ago.

But it has been ubiquitous in the Indian community, and therefore they believe it is attractive to everyone because of how they isolate themselves in their ethnic enclaves in Herndon, Chantilly, Ashburn, and South Riding.

If TJ becomes less popular in this community, it will not be because of a decline in the caliber of the offerings, because that isn't going anywhere. It will be because of a perceived reduction in prestige within their own circles - because that prestige was the reason for the explosion in interest in TJ from that community in the first place.

I see someone was finally willing to tell it like it is. The new admissions process has finally revived interest from non-Asian communities in attending TJ. It would be a shame if a direct consequence were that Asian families were less interested in TJ, but would it really surprise anyone?

[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:Voting Republican just because your angry about TJ admissions is short sighted. Haven’t you seen the pictures in the news of Republicans giving Trump the Nazi salute in mass? (It’s a very similar salute, and there were pictures of three moms on the street giving the full Nazi salute to Trump.) Did you not see Nov.6th? Do you think it will end well for our country when it is no longer a democracy?

So discrimination against Asians is cool because otherwise we're just ushering in Mussolini? Get a grip.

DP but get a grip. There is no discrimination against Asians when it comes to admission to TJ. Asians make up 20% of the students body in FCPS but take up to 70% of the seats at TJ.

Jews make up 2% of the population and 22-24% of the Ivy schools - some 11 times the size of the population. Complain about that before complaining of Asians.

PP isn't complaining about it; PP is illustrating why a court will not see a valid legal claim of disparate impact discrimination against a minority population that holds a majority of seats. There are two ways to prove discrimination, one of which is disparate impact. Disparate impact is proved by statistics and this case doesn't have numbers on its side, which was PP's point.

And if suddenly a single school was admitting them at only the rate of 15% of its student body I would think the same thing - that alleging discrimination doesn’t feel like strong ground to stand on when the admittance level is still so high.

And everyone expects it to continue to go back up close to its prior percentage level.

The new system is still gameable with moving and/or fraudulently filling out the free meals form being the two easiest ways to gain admittance.

It needs to be changed to either a lottery or an open enrollment academy model.

Oh no! The meals question was a stroke of genius. They were able to verify and catch many of the cheaters which helped detoxify TJ.

Did you not hear about the massive loophole?

As long as the family submits that their child is eligible using the online free and reduced price meals form, their child will get the bonus points.

FCPS does not verify income if you fill out the form in their website. It’s completely based on trust and there are absolutely parents who have and will continue to abuse this trust.

Not sure where you got this nonsense from but that's not true at all. They required documentation from those who claimed this and those who were unable to provide it were kicked from the program.

No documentation is required if the FARMS forms are filed with the child’s middle school.

And the FARMS forms do not require documentation.

This is terrible.

No documentation is required. If a parent is willing to lie, they can get the FARMS bonus got their child in the TJ admissions.

https://www.fcps.edu/frm

Will this be the case for this year's admissions, now that free lunch for all is gone?

It’s not gone. I live in a TJ feeder neighborhood. There is a family a couple doors over with an 8th grader. They have teamed up with two other neighborhood families with 8th graders and rented a cheap o crash pad by an under-represented school, which the kids are attending until spring. Mom is “separated“ from dad on paper and, as a singLe parent with no income, has filled out the FARMSs paperwork. They take turns with drop off and pickup. Kids stay on same travel sports teams, sleep in their bedrooms and I know they take independent math classes on Sundays to stay ahead.

No one is hiding it. And in many ways, it’s cheaper and easier than prep.

No way this is real. No way.

Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

The schools have guaranteed slots that they are not filling, or that are being filled with subpar candidates that AAP to Carson or RRMS in 7th kids blow out of the water.

[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:Voting Republican just because your angry about TJ admissions is short sighted. Haven’t you seen the pictures in the news of Republicans giving Trump the Nazi salute in mass? (It’s a very similar salute, and there were pictures of three moms on the street giving the full Nazi salute to Trump.) Did you not see Nov.6th? Do you think it will end well for our country when it is no longer a democracy?

So discrimination against Asians is cool because otherwise we're just ushering in Mussolini? Get a grip.

DP but get a grip. There is no discrimination against Asians when it comes to admission to TJ. Asians make up 20% of the students body in FCPS but take up to 70% of the seats at TJ.

Jews make up 2% of the population and 22-24% of the Ivy schools - some 11 times the size of the population. Complain about that before complaining of Asians.

PP isn't complaining about it; PP is illustrating why a court will not see a valid legal claim of disparate impact discrimination against a minority population that holds a majority of seats. There are two ways to prove discrimination, one of which is disparate impact. Disparate impact is proved by statistics and this case doesn't have numbers on its side, which was PP's point.

And if suddenly a single school was admitting them at only the rate of 15% of its student body I would think the same thing - that alleging discrimination doesn’t feel like strong ground to stand on when the admittance level is still so high.

And everyone expects it to continue to go back up close to its prior percentage level.

The new system is still gameable with moving and/or fraudulently filling out the free meals form being the two easiest ways to gain admittance.

It needs to be changed to either a lottery or an open enrollment academy model.

Oh no! The meals question was a stroke of genius. They were able to verify and catch many of the cheaters which helped detoxify TJ.

Did you not hear about the massive loophole?

As long as the family submits that their child is eligible using the online free and reduced price meals form, their child will get the bonus points.

FCPS does not verify income if you fill out the form in their website. It’s completely based on trust and there are absolutely parents who have and will continue to abuse this trust.

Not sure where you got this nonsense from but that's not true at all. They required documentation from those who claimed this and those who were unable to provide it were kicked from the program.

No documentation is required if the FARMS forms are filed with the child’s middle school.

And the FARMS forms do not require documentation.

This is terrible.

No documentation is required. If a parent is willing to lie, they can get the FARMS bonus got their child in the TJ admissions.

https://www.fcps.edu/frm

Will this be the case for this year's admissions, now that free lunch for all is gone?

It’s not gone. I live in a TJ feeder neighborhood. There is a family a couple doors over with an 8th grader. They have teamed up with two other neighborhood families with 8th graders and rented a cheap o crash pad by an under-represented school, which the kids are attending until spring. Mom is “separated“ from dad on paper and, as a singLe parent with no income, has filled out the FARMSs paperwork. They take turns with drop off and pickup. Kids stay on same travel sports teams, sleep in their bedrooms and I know they take independent math classes on Sundays to stay ahead.

No one is hiding it. And in many ways, it’s cheaper and easier than prep.

No way this is real. No way.

Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

Unless there’s a MS with 2,000 8th graders, no school is sending 30 kids a year to TJ. It’s 1.5% of each school’s 8th grade class who are admitted.

Minimum. Carson still sent 60 last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

Whitman???

Parents absolutely send kids to Carson, RRMS, Cooper, Longfellow to improve their chances. We did. Kid got into TJ. But, we supplemented like heck for years. Mt. version isn’t sending 50+ kids to UVA SEP, etc like Carson does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

Except that many years you can count on one hand the number of full academic track IB diplomas at Annandale ((and the other 5 IB loser schools ranked at the bottom of FCPS—I’ve seen years where one or more of these schools have no successful full diploma candidates). The only way they avoid looking ridiculous is by rolling the CE diplomas and actual Academic IB diplomas together as “lB Dipolmas”. But, they obviously are not the same thing.

Tell me— how many kids got full academic IB diplomas from Lewis last year. Excluding CE. Cite your source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

It's better to be challenged by a higher performing peer group. The IB diploma program at Annandale isn't great - there aren't that many IB diploma candidates and the percentage of successful candidates (slightly over 60%) is low as well, especially when compared to other IB schools like Marshall and W-L in Arlington.

Not many families will be willing to disrupt their kids' lives by moving them to Holmes or Poe for a year or so to improve their TJ chances. It will still be a bit of a crap shoot, the kids will be mercenaries, and they won't get the same education that they likely would have received at their prior middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

LOL - of course they do. if there's a difference, it's a function outside enrichment