693 FCPS Students Named National Merit Commended Scholars in 2024

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not all about the "cohort". Keep in mind that higher-FARMS schools don't offer anywhere near the number of higher-level courses that lower-FARMS schools offer.

Let's take 2 kids, one zoned for Annandale/FCHS/Justice, the other zoned for Oakton/Langley/McLean. Both equally bright, motivated, not genius level, but smart and STEM-enthusiastic. Both accelerated enough in ES/MS to be taking Alg II H in 8th grade.

Student A (A/F/J) will likely exceed their base school's math course offerings by 10th grade, maybe 11th. If they want to take Multi-Var or AP Statistics, it'll have to be through online / independent study, or trying to cross enroll for one period at a nearby school (a logistical nightmare to deal with different bell schedule, even if the kid has a way to commute on their own). They may or may not have a class available for AP Phys C. They may or may not have an AP class for their foreign language, or even a 4th year language.

Student B (O/L/M) will have all of those courses at their base school, and then some.

So, which student does the county's public school system serve better with an assignment to TJ? The one who literally cannot take 4 years of math at their base school? Or the one who just wants a special class, even though they could get the same at their base school?

The problem with your view is that TJ admissions is not considering math level or base school offerings in light of math level for any kids at any schools. Most kids even at middling SES schools only have one year of post AP calc available. So, the Algebra II in 8th kid will run out of math almost any school that is not McLean, Langley, Oakton, or maybe Chantilly. The pre-calc in 8th kids will run out of math classes even at the high SES schools. None of that is being considered for TJ admissions. Heck, it's entirely possible that the kid at a high FARMS school taking Algebra II in 8th will be passed over for admissions in favor of kids taking Algebra I who write prettier essays.

I would agree with you that in principle, any kid who will run out of math classes at their local school has needs vastly different from their base school cohort and are textbook cases of kids who belong at a Governor's school for STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not all about the "cohort". Keep in mind that higher-FARMS schools don't offer anywhere near the number of higher-level courses that lower-FARMS schools offer.

Let's take 2 kids, one zoned for Annandale/FCHS/Justice, the other zoned for Oakton/Langley/McLean. Both equally bright, motivated, not genius level, but smart and STEM-enthusiastic. Both accelerated enough in ES/MS to be taking Alg II H in 8th grade.

Student A (A/F/J) will likely exceed their base school's math course offerings by 10th grade, maybe 11th. If they want to take Multi-Var or AP Statistics, it'll have to be through online / independent study, or trying to cross enroll for one period at a nearby school (a logistical nightmare to deal with different bell schedule, even if the kid has a way to commute on their own). They may or may not have a class available for AP Phys C. They may or may not have an AP class for their foreign language, or even a 4th year language.

Student B (O/L/M) will have all of those courses at their base school, and then some.

So, which student does the county's public school system serve better with an assignment to TJ? The one who literally cannot take 4 years of math at their base school? Or the one who just wants a special class, even though they could get the same at their base school?

I don’t think the rationale for TJ was or has been that it would serve primarily as the equivalent of an AAP center for kids zoned to a subset of FCPS high schools otherwise deemed crappy or failing. But maybe it should, as that might be more honest and more closely align with what the School Board wants out of TJ now.

[Anonymous]

^. The purpose of Governor's schools directly from the VDOE website is this:
"The Virginia Governor's School Program has been designed to assist divisions as they meet the needs of a small population of students whose learning levels are remarkably different from their age-level peers."

I'm a huge proponent of including a test, recommendations, achievements, and math level in the admission process. I also agree that any kid who exceeds the offerings available at their base school belongs at TJ based on the statement of purpose, even if the kid is objectively not as advanced or strong as the top kids from the wealthier schools.

Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^. The purpose of Governor's schools directly from the VDOE website is this:
"The Virginia Governor's School Program has been designed to assist divisions as they meet the needs of a small population of students whose learning levels are remarkably different from their age-level peers."

I'm a huge proponent of including a test, recommendations, achievements, and math level in the admission process. I also agree that any kid who exceeds the offerings available at their base school belongs at TJ based on the statement of purpose, even if the kid is objectively not as advanced or strong as the top kids from the wealthier schools.

Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.

First, it's ambiguous as to whether "age-level peers" refers to the peers at a particular school or throughout a division.

But even assuming it's the former, as you prefer, it's throwing up a giant white flag to take the position that TJ isn't really needed for kids at the strongest schools because they already have a strong cohort. It's an indictment of a jurisdiction and school system that, through a range of historic actions, are responsible for the dearth of strong students at numerous schools. The net result is that TJ ceases to be seen as a beacon of excellence and instead just gets viewed as an escape valve for kids at sub-par base schools. If that's what you want, OK, but then don't expect people to hold TJ in particularly high regard, especially when the majority of its classes aren't even NMSF commended students, much less NMSFs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all crazy. A 4% drop in the number of students in the top 97% of students in the County has you foaming at the mouth.

TJ is a public school that should be available to all the MSs in the County, that includes schools with a high poverty level and ELL level. There are smart kids at those schools who have not had the same exposure to math and science as kids from high SES schools. They deserve a chance to be exposed to classes that move at a faster pace and push them just like the kids from higher SES schools. They might not score as high on the SAT but they are better off for being in a school that pushes them and challenges them. They might earn C’s and B’s at TJ but being surrounded by highly motivated peers is a good thing for kids who have never had that type of exposure.

Not every kid at TJ needs to be the same with the same goals. Adding in kids from Poe and Stone and giving them a chance to work with kids who are bright and motivated who have had more exposure to STEM from Carson, Longfellow, Cooper, and Rocky Run is good for those kids. It is challenging them in a different way. They might only score in the 90th percentile on the SAT but they are learning so much more than they would at their base school.

They are smart and gifted, they have not had the same opportunities to explore these fields. Does it show in their grades at TJ and on the SAT? Sure. Are they failures because they are not in the 97th percentile? No. Historically the vast majority of kids at TJ were not in the commended group or the Semi-Finalists based on SAT scores. So now there are a few more kids in that category. TJ still has far more kids in that catagory than any other school in FCPS. McLean, Langley, and Oakton have a few more kids that are the 97th percentile, good for them.

You misunderstood the concept of merit and purpose of TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
TJ is a public school that should be available to all the MSs in the County, that includes schools with a high poverty level and ELL level. There are smart kids at those schools who have not had the same exposure to math and science as kids from high SES schools. They deserve a chance to be exposed to classes that move at a faster pace and push them just like the kids from higher SES schools. They might not score as high on the SAT but they are better off for being in a school that pushes them and challenges them. They might earn C’s and B’s at TJ but being surrounded by highly motivated peers is a good thing for kids who have never had that type of exposure.

The bolded is the tricky part, and it's entirely possible that FCPS is going about this the wrong way. Exposing underprivileged bright kids to high achieving peers and advanced classes is a huge positive in general. But, getting Bs and Cs at TJ could really hurt the kid's college prospects. Likewise, falling back to the base school with terrible grades in 9th from TJ isn't helping anyone. If the kid isn't academically advanced enough to handle many of the high level STEM classes and is instead almost entirely taking classes that would have been available at the base school, I'm not sure there's a huge point in attending TJ. I wish the eastern part of the county had a STEM magnet middle school program, so the kids could be exposed to TJ-ish rigor earlier and be able to make a more informed decision.

It will be interesting to compare the college outcomes for kids who attended TJ from high FARMS areas with the kids who remained at the base school and were at the top of the class in their high FARMS school.

By sending those kids to TJ to get Bs and Cs, as well as low SAT scores, FCPS completely ruined their college prospects, as well as destroyed opportunities for them to get merit scholarships, even at schools like Alabama, that they probably would have been able to earn if they had stayed at their base schools where they might have been near the top quarter of their classes.

The equity based social experiment of screwing up the TJ merit based application process probably ruined college prospects for the veryy kids our smug schoolboard claimed they were helping.

As the saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not all about the "cohort". Keep in mind that higher-FARMS schools don't offer anywhere near the number of higher-level courses that lower-FARMS schools offer.

Let's take 2 kids, one zoned for Annandale/FCHS/Justice, the other zoned for Oakton/Langley/McLean. Both equally bright, motivated, not genius level, but smart and STEM-enthusiastic. Both accelerated enough in ES/MS to be taking Alg II H in 8th grade.

Student A (A/F/J) will likely exceed their base school's math course offerings by 10th grade, maybe 11th. If they want to take Multi-Var or AP Statistics, it'll have to be through online / independent study, or trying to cross enroll for one period at a nearby school (a logistical nightmare to deal with different bell schedule, even if the kid has a way to commute on their own). They may or may not have a class available for AP Phys C. They may or may not have an AP class for their foreign language, or even a 4th year language.

Student B (O/L/M) will have all of those courses at their base school, and then some.

So, which student does the county's public school system serve better with an assignment to TJ? The one who literally cannot take 4 years of math at their base school? Or the one who just wants a special class, even though they could get the same at their base school?

The problem with your view is that TJ admissions is not considering math level or base school offerings in light of math level for any kids at any schools. Most kids even at middling SES schools only have one year of post AP calc available. So, the Algebra II in 8th kid will run out of math almost any school that is not McLean, Langley, Oakton, or maybe Chantilly. The pre-calc in 8th kids will run out of math classes even at the high SES schools. None of that is being considered for TJ admissions. Heck, it's entirely possible that the kid at a high FARMS school taking Algebra II in 8th will be passed over for admissions in favor of kids taking Algebra I who write prettier essays.

I would agree with you that in principle, any kid who will run out of math classes at their local school has needs vastly different from their base school cohort and are textbook cases of kids who belong at a Governor's school for STEM.

If the reason they “run out” of math to take is because their parents enrolled them in outside math courses to get them hyper accelerated then I disagree this is a textbook case of a kid who needs this type of school. Now if it’s a kid who just goes to AAP school, gets it in a snap and sits around bored in math all the time so the ES kicks them up to algebra in 6th, then yes THAT is the type of kid the a governor’s STEM school was created for. The issue is you had many families taking the former path to intentionally cultivate kids on an accelerated path vs simply trying to find the right school match for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know someone who scored very high on the SAT but wrote a very un-compelling personal statement and grades were good but not amazing (in WSHS), though there's for sure a STEM penalty. To me this says good test taker/lots of test prep but not well rounded. Probably was in AAP!

Huh?

This post makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

“Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.”

+1
Absolutely. The by MS process needs adjusted so it can find the best kids at that specific school. Right now that is not necessarily the case - fix that and that corrects most of the issue with the new approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.”

+1
Absolutely. The by MS process needs adjusted so it can find the best kids at that specific school. Right now that is not necessarily the case - fix that and that corrects most of the issue with the new approach.

sockpuppeting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.”

+1
Absolutely. The by MS process needs adjusted so it can find the best kids at that specific school. Right now that is not necessarily the case - fix that and that corrects most of the issue with the new approach.

I’m as pro-reform as you can get and I agree with the above as well. It’s the one concern that I have with the new process, that it’s not identifying the right kids from the non-feeder schools. Deeper analysis is needed that is not available to us, but it does need to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes… if you remove being an excellent test taker from the admissions criteria, you’ll have a class of kids who aren’t necessarily that great at taking standardized tests.

Thankfully, being a good test taker has no practical application other than school admissions processes. So who cares?

I’m more interested in the increase in Regeneron finalists.

For the poster more interested in the Regeneron finalists….7 of the students went to “wealthy feeder middle schools”. 1 from McLean (I’m not sure if the student went to Cooper or Longfellow), 3 students from Cooper (one of the Cooper students also went to Langley and then transferred to TJHSST sophomore year), 2 students from Carson, and 1 student from Longfellow. 1 student was from Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn (this school has a 62% Asian population).

0 students from any FCPS non-wealthy feeder middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not all about the "cohort". Keep in mind that higher-FARMS schools don't offer anywhere near the number of higher-level courses that lower-FARMS schools offer.

Let's take 2 kids, one zoned for Annandale/FCHS/Justice, the other zoned for Oakton/Langley/McLean. Both equally bright, motivated, not genius level, but smart and STEM-enthusiastic. Both accelerated enough in ES/MS to be taking Alg II H in 8th grade.

Student A (A/F/J) will likely exceed their base school's math course offerings by 10th grade, maybe 11th. If they want to take Multi-Var or AP Statistics, it'll have to be through online / independent study, or trying to cross enroll for one period at a nearby school (a logistical nightmare to deal with different bell schedule, even if the kid has a way to commute on their own). They may or may not have a class available for AP Phys C. They may or may not have an AP class for their foreign language, or even a 4th year language.

Student B (O/L/M) will have all of those courses at their base school, and then some.

So, which student does the county's public school system serve better with an assignment to TJ? The one who literally cannot take 4 years of math at their base school? Or the one who just wants a special class, even though they could get the same at their base school?

The problem with your view is that TJ admissions is not considering math level or base school offerings in light of math level for any kids at any schools. Most kids even at middling SES schools only have one year of post AP calc available. So, the Algebra II in 8th kid will run out of math almost any school that is not McLean, Langley, Oakton, or maybe Chantilly. The pre-calc in 8th kids will run out of math classes even at the high SES schools. None of that is being considered for TJ admissions. Heck, it's entirely possible that the kid at a high FARMS school taking Algebra II in 8th will be passed over for admissions in favor of kids taking Algebra I who write prettier essays.

I would agree with you that in principle, any kid who will run out of math classes at their local school has needs vastly different from their base school cohort and are textbook cases of kids who belong at a Governor's school for STEM.

If the reason they “run out” of math to take is because their parents enrolled them in outside math courses to get them hyper accelerated then I disagree this is a textbook case of a kid who needs this type of school. Now if it’s a kid who just goes to AAP school, gets it in a snap and sits around bored in math all the time so the ES kicks them up to algebra in 6th, then yes THAT is the type of kid the a governor’s STEM school was created for. The issue is you had many families taking the former path to intentionally cultivate kids on an accelerated path vs simply trying to find the right school match for their kids.

In FCPS, it's not possible to be hyper accelerated without having FCPS bump your kid up in early elementary or without transferring in from elsewhere and having FCPS honor the math placement. The only way parents can choose to accelerate a kid is through summer Geometry, which results in Algebra II in 8th. For the most part, the summer Algebra II kids are zoned to the high SES high schools and will have sufficient math classes at the base school. They would not be math outliers at their base schools who would run out of math if not for TJ.

If a kid somehow is hyper-accelerated into pre-calc or calc in 8th, but they have straight As in all of the previous honors math classes, then I would argue that the kid absolutely deserved to be hyperaccelerated. TJ would be the best place for a kid who is already mastering pre-calc or calc at age 13.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes… if you remove being an excellent test taker from the admissions criteria, you’ll have a class of kids who aren’t necessarily that great at taking standardized tests.

Thankfully, being a good test taker has no practical application other than school admissions processes. So who cares?

I’m more interested in the increase in Regeneron finalists.

For the poster more interested in the Regeneron finalists….7 of the students went to “wealthy feeder middle schools”. 1 from McLean (I’m not sure if the student went to Cooper or Longfellow), 3 students from Cooper (one of the Cooper students also went to Langley and then transferred to TJHSST sophomore year), 2 students from Carson, and 1 student from Longfellow. 1 student was from Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn (this school has a 62% Asian population).

0 students from any FCPS non-wealthy feeder middle schools.

So, they got in despite and not due to the new process. The one who entered as a froshmore likely was on paper a no-brainer admit who got screwed over by the new admissions process.

I guess one could argue that the new process helped them by cutting down the competition at TJ and somewhat watering down the classes, which in turn let them focus more on their research projects than on their classwork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Kids should be evaluated holistically and much more comprehensively than the current process allows, but the evaluation absolutely should be relative to the offerings of the kid's zoned school and their abilities relative to the other kids at their school. Picking the top 1% or 1.5% at each school is appropriate, as long as the process is comprehensive enough to get the correct top kids.”

+1
Absolutely. The by MS process needs adjusted so it can find the best kids at that specific school. Right now that is not necessarily the case - fix that and that corrects most of the issue with the new approach.

I’m as pro-reform as you can get and I agree with the above as well. It’s the one concern that I have with the new process, that it’s not identifying the right kids from the non-feeder schools. Deeper analysis is needed that is not available to us, but it does need to be done.

Agree. Adding a look at SOLs seems like a fair way of evaluating applicants.