How does one prep place account for 25% of TJ Admissions?

[Anonymous]

Definitely not lottery. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-northern-va-high-school-is-accused-of-admissions-bias-advocates-say-the-problem-begins-much-earlier/2019/11/22/6b250ab8-0651-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html Already seems to be accused of lack of diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard AOS and AET use lottery, not true?

hey have a lottery, but they still are keeping the entrance exam.

TJ got rid of the entrance exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many Asians at that school, that is the problem. Too many of any other race at any school is ok, but definitely not too many Asians.

Oh my god! I am so offended by this post! Please stop being racist!

What do you mean that too many Asians are bad, but other races are okay? How much do you really hate Asians? This is so offensive and the internet does not need this terrible content.

I don't think second PP understands what "facetious" means.

If a kid goes here for some reason, they might think asians are bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah not taking the Currie parent or employee posts seriously on this thread. Its self serving to rant about going to the FBI and trying to shut down the conversation. Obviously they have an interest in keeping things under wraps

Good for you and bless your heart. You are free to choose what you want to take seriously and what you consider to be "self serving rant" and to be as cynical as you choose. I'm not sure what it is you (or as many of you who are perpetuating this) are trying to achieve, but good luck with that.

I mean, I’ve tried to be clear.

The Quant-Q is supposed to be so secure that FCPS and TJ admissions are not allowed to release any prep materials. So plenty of kids and families believe that they have to go in relatively blind and have no idea what to expect. TJ admissions changed to this for the class of 2022 for this reason and to create this outcome, limiting the influence of prep and leveling the playing field.

From 2021 to 2022, the numbers of Asian admits went down by 10 points and the numbers of everyone else went up.

Then in 2023 and 24, the numbers went back to more or less regular.

TJ kids are saying that one specific prep center gave an amount of information that is supposed to be impossible, because no one who sees the exam is allowed to discuss it per their pledge.

Given that FCPS can not legally release materials to prep, they need to change the exam or else the admissions process will be unfair to anyone who didn’t pay thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours at this prep center.

Regardless of why this happened, or who is at fault, it happened and therefore the Quant-Q cannot be used. Familiarity with the problem types on this exam is a GIGANTIC advantage - many students who take it run out of time even if they have the ability to solve the problems.

New to this thread and unclear what the issue is here... are we saying that the test takers didn't significantly change the test year to year? They should certainly be doing that (this means actually writing new questions, not changing numbers around from past year questions!)

As to the familiarity of the problem types, that is not a mystery! It's the same thing as preparing for a math contest by doing as many past contest problems as possible. There is nothing wrong with that, it's equivalent to training for any competition, or more commonly, training for SAT type of exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the other threads, there appears to be some disagreement over in the ethics of prepping. However, there appears to be a prep place with an incredibly high TJ placement success rate that may have crossed the line.

To see for yourself, go to the TJ Vents FB Page. Find the post from July 11th. Read the comments. The student in the Vent and the students in the comments section are talking about a prep place that charges $4,000 and gives the students the test ahead of time. One student in the comments stated that the Quant Q for the class of 2023 was identical to the Quant Q for the class of 2022. It’s clear that they are talking about the Curie Learning Center (“curie” one student states.)

I went to find out more about this place. Apparently Curie Learning Center posted on their FB page on 8/17 that they had 133 students admitted to TJ. And posted the names so unlikely they are making it up. (Also posted AOS/AET names/numbers.)

Wow. So there were 133 students admitted this year that prepped at a place that multiple current students say had a copy of at least one section of the test in prior years.

Just how does one test prep place account for over 25% of the TJHSST class of 2024 admissions? (Are they possibly that good at prep?)

There is a very good lesson to be learned here. FCPS admissions obviously is making a HUGE mistake by not releasing and posting all past years tests on their site. If they do that, prepping/training will be fair for everyone. Of course in order to do that, they need to get off their lazy administrative, bureaucratic, butts and actually write new questions from scratch every year! But they don't want to, resulting in "secrecy", which obviously results in leaking of the past tests to the lucky individuals.

FCPS, learn your lesson! If you want this process to be visible and fair to all applicant, post all the past info on your site, and encourage everyone to take practice tests and study them! This will also alleviate the insance amounts of $$ people pay for places like Curie, Sunshine, etc. because many of the hard working kids will study and learn directly from the FCPS site!

This should also be obvious, but in order to make this work well, the test needs to be made more challenging with a higher ceiling. This will prevent kids "memorizing" past questions and getting a really good score, and will instead result in them having to actually learn the concepts well to do well on the test. Essentially, this "Quant" test, or whatever its called, should be very my in the same style as a respectable math competition (e.g the AMCs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah not taking the Currie parent or employee posts seriously on this thread. Its self serving to rant about going to the FBI and trying to shut down the conversation. Obviously they have an interest in keeping things under wraps

Good for you and bless your heart. You are free to choose what you want to take seriously and what you consider to be "self serving rant" and to be as cynical as you choose. I'm not sure what it is you (or as many of you who are perpetuating this) are trying to achieve, but good luck with that.

I mean, I’ve tried to be clear.

The Quant-Q is supposed to be so secure that FCPS and TJ admissions are not allowed to release any prep materials. So plenty of kids and families believe that they have to go in relatively blind and have no idea what to expect. TJ admissions changed to this for the class of 2022 for this reason and to create this outcome, limiting the influence of prep and leveling the playing field.

From 2021 to 2022, the numbers of Asian admits went down by 10 points and the numbers of everyone else went up.

Then in 2023 and 24, the numbers went back to more or less regular.

TJ kids are saying that one specific prep center gave an amount of information that is supposed to be impossible, because no one who sees the exam is allowed to discuss it per their pledge.

Given that FCPS can not legally release materials to prep, they need to change the exam or else the admissions process will be unfair to anyone who didn’t pay thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours at this prep center.

Regardless of why this happened, or who is at fault, it happened and therefore the Quant-Q cannot be used. Familiarity with the problem types on this exam is a GIGANTIC advantage - many students who take it run out of time even if they have the ability to solve the problems.

New to this thread and unclear what the issue is here... are we saying that the test takers didn't significantly change the test year to year? They should certainly be doing that (this means actually writing new questions, not changing numbers around from past year questions!)

As to the familiarity of the problem types, that is not a mystery! It's the same thing as preparing for a math contest by doing as many past contest problems as possible. There is nothing wrong with that, it's equivalent to training for any competition, or more commonly, training for SAT type of exams.

The test prep issue is really a head fake for the real goal which is to reduce Asian population at TJ from 70s to 30s while double the whites' enrollment. They could easily take actions against test prepping companies. Or as you suggested don't be lazy reusing the same test.

[Anonymous]

ini

[Anonymous]

The real question is, how many prepped at Currie? If it was a large number, then they would have made up a large number of applicants. Also, parents who pay for these schools probably include parents of exceptional students who probably would get in anyways. Vast majority of the parents are probably delusional though and don't have their kids admitted to TJ. I can't imagine sitting doe hours at these prep places, and wouldn't think it can be interesting, but I would hardly call it an unfair advantage

[Anonymous]

"And now we know we've been underestimating the extent to which people who "work in public education" see all Indians as memorizing, regurgitating robots free of creativity and flexibility. All Indian parents should absorb this - no matter how much you sacrifice and invest in your child's education, there'll be a woman (or a man!) thinking - here comes another Kumar, he sure knows his multiplication tables but he can't innovate worth crap so let's go to the next file."

Yeah, I hope the educator who posted about his impressions of various students (by etnnicity) isn't writing any college recommendations. I can only imagine the tepid references he puts forth for his asian students. Which leads us to -

"Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records"

You're not kidding this is a zero sum game. This is the kind of sh** that got Trump elected.

[Anonymous]

I never realized what a minority I actually was, in that I never took any sort of prep course! I am highly successful, took SATs, GRE cold, only prep was a book I bought at Barnes and Noble.

[Anonymous]

Imagine if I had prepped like these people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone confronted with unfair stereotypes is a victim.

So everyone is a victim. Those who choose to rise above will rise above.

Then please address it to the Black and Hispanic student with a straight face.

boo hoo hoo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the other threads, there appears to be some disagreement over in the ethics of prepping. However, there appears to be a prep place with an incredibly high TJ placement success rate that may have crossed the line.

To see for yourself, go to the TJ Vents FB Page. Find the post from July 11th. Read the comments. The student in the Vent and the students in the comments section are talking about a prep place that charges $4,000 and gives the students the test ahead of time. One student in the comments stated that the Quant Q for the class of 2023 was identical to the Quant Q for the class of 2022. It’s clear that they are talking about the Curie Learning Center (“curie” one student states.)

I went to find out more about this place. Apparently Curie Learning Center posted on their FB page on 8/17 that they had 133 students admitted to TJ. And posted the names so unlikely they are making it up. (Also posted AOS/AET names/numbers.)

Wow. So there were 133 students admitted this year that prepped at a place that multiple current students say had a copy of at least one section of the test in prior years.

Just how does one test prep place account for over 25% of the TJHSST class of 2024 admissions? (Are they possibly that good at prep?)

There is a very good lesson to be learned here. FCPS admissions obviously is making a HUGE mistake by not releasing and posting all past years tests on their site. If they do that, prepping/training will be fair for everyone. Of course in order to do that, they need to get off their lazy administrative, bureaucratic, butts and actually write new questions from scratch every year! But they don't want to, resulting in "secrecy", which obviously results in leaking of the past tests to the lucky individuals.

FCPS, learn your lesson! If you want this process to be visible and fair to all applicant, post all the past info on your site, and encourage everyone to take practice tests and study them! This will also alleviate the insance amounts of $$ people pay for places like Curie, Sunshine, etc. because many of the hard working kids will study and learn directly from the FCPS site!

This should also be obvious, but in order to make this work well, the test needs to be made more challenging with a higher ceiling. This will prevent kids "memorizing" past questions and getting a really good score, and will instead result in them having to actually learn the concepts well to do well on the test. Essentially, this "Quant" test, or whatever its called, should be very my in the same style as a respectable math competition (e.g the AMCs).

There will be rioting, looting and burning if the discriminatory proposal against Asians is rammed through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the other threads, there appears to be some disagreement over in the ethics of prepping. However, there appears to be a prep place with an incredibly high TJ placement success rate that may have crossed the line.

To see for yourself, go to the TJ Vents FB Page. Find the post from July 11th. Read the comments. The student in the Vent and the students in the comments section are talking about a prep place that charges $4,000 and gives the students the test ahead of time. One student in the comments stated that the Quant Q for the class of 2023 was identical to the Quant Q for the class of 2022. It’s clear that they are talking about the Curie Learning Center (“curie” one student states.)

I went to find out more about this place. Apparently Curie Learning Center posted on their FB page on 8/17 that they had 133 students admitted to TJ. And posted the names so unlikely they are making it up. (Also posted AOS/AET names/numbers.)

Wow. So there were 133 students admitted this year that prepped at a place that multiple current students say had a copy of at least one section of the test in prior years.

Just how does one test prep place account for over 25% of the TJHSST class of 2024 admissions? (Are they possibly that good at prep?)

There is a very good lesson to be learned here. FCPS admissions obviously is making a HUGE mistake by not releasing and posting all past years tests on their site. If they do that, prepping/training will be fair for everyone. Of course in order to do that, they need to get off their lazy administrative, bureaucratic, butts and actually write new questions from scratch every year! But they don't want to, resulting in "secrecy", which obviously results in leaking of the past tests to the lucky individuals.

FCPS, learn your lesson! If you want this process to be visible and fair to all applicant, post all the past info on your site, and encourage everyone to take practice tests and study them! This will also alleviate the insance amounts of $$ people pay for places like Curie, Sunshine, etc. because many of the hard working kids will study and learn directly from the FCPS site!

This should also be obvious, but in order to make this work well, the test needs to be made more challenging with a higher ceiling. This will prevent kids "memorizing" past questions and getting a really good score, and will instead result in them having to actually learn the concepts well to do well on the test. Essentially, this "Quant" test, or whatever its called, should be very my in the same style as a respectable math competition (e.g the AMCs).

There will be rioting, looting and burning if the discriminatory proposal against Asians is rammed through.

Lol.

Or just work to change TJ to an academy that every FCPS can have access to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the other threads, there appears to be some disagreement over in the ethics of prepping. However, there appears to be a prep place with an incredibly high TJ placement success rate that may have crossed the line.

To see for yourself, go to the TJ Vents FB Page. Find the post from July 11th. Read the comments. The student in the Vent and the students in the comments section are talking about a prep place that charges $4,000 and gives the students the test ahead of time. One student in the comments stated that the Quant Q for the class of 2023 was identical to the Quant Q for the class of 2022. It’s clear that they are talking about the Curie Learning Center (“curie” one student states.)

I went to find out more about this place. Apparently Curie Learning Center posted on their FB page on 8/17 that they had 133 students admitted to TJ. And posted the names so unlikely they are making it up. (Also posted AOS/AET names/numbers.)

Wow. So there were 133 students admitted this year that prepped at a place that multiple current students say had a copy of at least one section of the test in prior years.

Just how does one test prep place account for over 25% of the TJHSST class of 2024 admissions? (Are they possibly that good at prep?)

There is a very good lesson to be learned here. FCPS admissions obviously is making a HUGE mistake by not releasing and posting all past years tests on their site. If they do that, prepping/training will be fair for everyone. Of course in order to do that, they need to get off their lazy administrative, bureaucratic, butts and actually write new questions from scratch every year! But they don't want to, resulting in "secrecy", which obviously results in leaking of the past tests to the lucky individuals.

FCPS, learn your lesson! If you want this process to be visible and fair to all applicant, post all the past info on your site, and encourage everyone to take practice tests and study them! This will also alleviate the insance amounts of $$ people pay for places like Curie, Sunshine, etc. because many of the hard working kids will study and learn directly from the FCPS site!

This should also be obvious, but in order to make this work well, the test needs to be made more challenging with a higher ceiling. This will prevent kids "memorizing" past questions and getting a really good score, and will instead result in them having to actually learn the concepts well to do well on the test. Essentially, this "Quant" test, or whatever its called, should be very my in the same style as a respectable math competition (e.g the AMCs).

There will be rioting, looting and burning if the discriminatory proposal against Asians is rammed through.

We want equal opportunity and equal outcome when it comes to rioting, looting and burning. These actions are not limited to a certain minority group. Equity in forms of protest.