WL IB or TJ or Private

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem for Arlington students is that the new TJ admissions system was designed to correct a situation unique to Fairfax County, but it doesn't work in Arlington with our middle schools being so different demographically and our spots being so limited. In Fairfax, the school board was trying to address the fact that the majority of TJ students were pulling from a small number of middle schools in the Mclean area. They created a system where each school got a number of "allocated" spots (1.5% for each middle school, where the students were only competing against each other within the middle school), and then after that the remaining students went into a common pool where they could compete for "unallocated" spots. When Fairfax gave extra points based on FARMS/ESL/SPED factors, it meant that many of the allocated spots went to students with those factors. But there were still a ton of unallocated spots available to the Fairfax kids. As a result, Carson still sent 47 kids to the freshman class, Longfellow 30, etc.

In APS middle schools, we only get the 1.5% allocated spots (~ 4 per middle school), but the same admissions criteria is applied. So if you have kids applying who are getting a bonus bump for FARMS/ESL/SPED, then it can be very hard to overcome that advantage on the essay points alone. Additionally, in APS, there is not as much opportunity for 8th graders to distinguish themselves on GPA. Fairfax uses a grade scale that includes A-, so the kids who are straight As have a higher GPA weight than the kids with A- averages. As you know, in Arlington, everyone gets an A between 90-100, so all the Arlington kids have the same GPA, even if in reality some kids are getting 90s and other kids are consistently getting 99s and 100s. There is also no advantage to being on the Pre-Alg/Alg 1/Geometry track anymore. (Under the old system, Geometry was a requirement.)

At least for APS, it would be fairer to pool all the Arlington applicants together for evaluation, and then all students would be equally advantaged/disadvantaged by the demographic bonus points. As it is now, the impact hits differently based on how diverse your middle school demographics are and who applies. That's just a fact, regardless of your political thoughts on the subject.

Geometry was never a requirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem for Arlington students is that the new TJ admissions system was designed to correct a situation unique to Fairfax County, but it doesn't work in Arlington with our middle schools being so different demographically and our spots being so limited. In Fairfax, the school board was trying to address the fact that the majority of TJ students were pulling from a small number of middle schools in the Mclean area. They created a system where each school got a number of "allocated" spots (1.5% for each middle school, where the students were only competing against each other within the middle school), and then after that the remaining students went into a common pool where they could compete for "unallocated" spots. When Fairfax gave extra points based on FARMS/ESL/SPED factors, it meant that many of the allocated spots went to students with those factors. But there were still a ton of unallocated spots available to the Fairfax kids. As a result, Carson still sent 47 kids to the freshman class, Longfellow 30, etc.

In APS middle schools, we only get the 1.5% allocated spots (~ 4 per middle school), but the same admissions criteria is applied. So if you have kids applying who are getting a bonus bump for FARMS/ESL/SPED, then it can be very hard to overcome that advantage on the essay points alone. Additionally, in APS, there is not as much opportunity for 8th graders to distinguish themselves on GPA. Fairfax uses a grade scale that includes A-, so the kids who are straight As have a higher GPA weight than the kids with A- averages. As you know, in Arlington, everyone gets an A between 90-100, so all the Arlington kids have the same GPA, even if in reality some kids are getting 90s and other kids are consistently getting 99s and 100s. There is also no advantage to being on the Pre-Alg/Alg 1/Geometry track anymore. (Under the old system, Geometry was a requirement.)

At least for APS, it would be fairer to pool all the Arlington applicants together for evaluation, and then all students would be equally advantaged/disadvantaged by the demographic bonus points. As it is now, the impact hits differently based on how diverse your middle school demographics are and who applies. That's just a fact, regardless of your political thoughts on the subject.

Carson and Rocky Run are not in the McLean area. And the top FCPS feeders were not the majority of TJ kids - just the source of “too many” kids for the school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The TJ admissions rubric was made public and it was noted that GPA and experience factors were a very small part of the admissions determination and that the test questions/essay questions were by far the most important part of the admissions determination.

The rubric was made public as part of the lawsuit. And the experience points are absolutely enough to swing an admission determination. This was the intent, which was established by text messages and emails among FCPS school board members and administrators, also made public as part of the lawsuit.

Here's an example:
Student A at School X scores a 5 on both essays= 600 points
Student B at School X scores a 5 on one essay and a 4 on one essay= 540 points

Student B is eligible for free/reduced lunch, so gets an automatic 90 bonus points. Therefore Student B ends up with 630 points and gets the spot.

The FARMS eligibility rates at APS middle schools range from ~2% at Williamsburg to ~50% at Kenmore. The new admissions policy impacts APS middle schools differently, because the student body demographics are so different across APS middle schools.

As an aside, GPA is worth the same as each essay (also 300 points), but because APS doesn't use an A- (which Fairfax does), most of the APS kids are going to have the exact same GPA. And we all know that it is not hard to get straight As in the APS middle schools if you are a motivated student.