TJ admissions change from Merit to Essay impact to Asian American Students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not approximated…

The impact of the admissions changes:

The number of Asian students enrolled at TJ by school year (fall):


Aside from 2020 & 2019, there are MORE Asian students at TJ since the admissions change than any other year in the school’s history.



The data shows that Asian students were accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students.

Asian 19%
Black 14%
Hispanic 21%
White 17%
Multiracial/Other* 13%
ALL 18%


So, to recap, the number of Asian students at TJ is almost at a record high.

Supposedly the largest beneficiaries of the changes to the race-blind process were low-income Asian families.

Probably not, but I am open to any evidence supporting your wild ass guess.

The largest beneficiaries were probably white kids. If we took the 2020 admissions statistics forward, we would have 344 white kids at the school next fall. But instead we have 485. No other group or subgroup has seen this kind of absolute increase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not approximated…

The impact of the admissions changes:

The number of Asian students enrolled at TJ by school year (fall):


Aside from 2020 & 2019, there are MORE Asian students at TJ since the admissions change than any other year in the school’s history.



The data shows that Asian students were accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students.

Asian 19%
Black 14%
Hispanic 21%
White 17%
Multiracial/Other* 13%
ALL 18%


So, to recap, the number of Asian students at TJ is almost at a record high.

Supposedly the largest beneficiaries of the changes to the race-blind process were low-income Asian families.

It's not "supposedly". It's confirmed in the data. One low-income Asian admit in the Class of 2024, and 51 of them in the Class of 2025.

Does anyone have a cite for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

It's even more stressful now but on the bottom end. For an Algebra 1 student, the journey to Calc AB seems like scaling Mount Everest. What's even harder to swallow is watching over two-thirds of their peers already having scaled to twice high multivariable peak.

Have you talked to actual students who are expressing these thoughts to you? Are you a teacher at TJ? How is it that you know so many students and where they stand in terms of class rank?

The rate of students returning to their base school has increased by 2000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The NYT put together an interesting article that describes what FCPS did with the TJ admissions.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/09/upshot/affirmative-action-alternatives.html

It's behind a paywall but TLDR they made it so students from any school not just the wealthiest could access TJ.

It's behind a paywall but TLDR they made it so students from any school not just the w̶e̶a̶l̶t̶h̶i̶e̶s̶t̶ m͟o͟s͟t͟ q͟u͟a͟l͟i͟f͟i͟e͟d͟could access TJ.

Fixed it for you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

Transparency is always better than opaque and subjective measures. Asians were routinely scored lower on “personality traits” by Harvard only so that admission outcomes could be engineered as desired. Harvard leveraged subjective criteria in the 1920s as well to restrict the number of Jewish students.

People study to the test - whether it is TJ, SAT, LSAT or MCAT. You may get homogeneity as a result but it is way better than engineered outcomes that are not tied to merit in any way. There is a reason elite schools are returning to standardized testing.

You must not be very familiar with the SAT. They change it every few years. It's a completely different test now that it was in the last iteration, or the one before that, or the one before that.

Ok. You have educated me on how frequently the SAT changes. That is also a point to be made. Change the test but don’t eliminate it.

P.S. - did you know that despite the periodic changes, SAT prep is a thriving industry? Just google SAT prep. You are welcome…

"The US Test Preparation market is valued at USD 14.72 billion ..." . Interestingly, "Sports Coaching in the US - Market Size is $13.9bn"

https://www.technavio.com/report/test-preparation-market-industry-in-the-us-analysis

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/sports-coaching-industry/

How can a family afford one and not substitute it for the other?

Guess it's a matter of values. Are there special SPORTS high schools that only admit the top 1.5% of athletes, similar to how TJ admits the top 1.5% of students?

Racial balancing takes place only where Asian Americans are in majority, not when other races are. Equity minions are chicken to even talk about sports.

Racial balancing used to exist in sports.

After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, blacks quickly became over-represented and the teams very quickly imposed a quota on how many black players they could have any how many black players could play on the field at a time. No team could field more than 4 black players so there would always be a majority of white fielders. So if a black pitcher went in, a black position player had to come out. The arguments for this behavior would sound familiar today:

Blacks are over-represented, how could there be any discrimination?
We're just trying to get the racial mix to match our audience (segregation still existed and the "premium customers" were mostly white).
It's a private organization, they can do what they like.
You're just measuring baseball statistics to say that the black players are better players, there are all sorts of intangibles that a team has to consider that you would know nothing about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

Transparency is always better than opaque and subjective measures. Asians were routinely scored lower on “personality traits” by Harvard only so that admission outcomes could be engineered as desired. Harvard leveraged subjective criteria in the 1920s as well to restrict the number of Jewish students.

People study to the test - whether it is TJ, SAT, LSAT or MCAT. You may get homogeneity as a result but it is way better than engineered outcomes that are not tied to merit in any way. There is a reason elite schools are returning to standardized testing.

You must not be very familiar with the SAT. They change it every few years. It's a completely different test now that it was in the last iteration, or the one before that, or the one before that.

Ok. You have educated me on how frequently the SAT changes. That is also a point to be made. Change the test but don’t eliminate it.

P.S. - did you know that despite the periodic changes, SAT prep is a thriving industry? Just google SAT prep. You are welcome…

"The US Test Preparation market is valued at USD 14.72 billion ..." . Interestingly, "Sports Coaching in the US - Market Size is $13.9bn"

https://www.technavio.com/report/test-preparation-market-industry-in-the-us-analysis

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/sports-coaching-industry/

How can a family afford one and not substitute it for the other?

Guess it's a matter of values. Are there special SPORTS high schools that only admit the top 1.5% of athletes, similar to how TJ admits the top 1.5% of students?

Racial balancing takes place only where Asian Americans are in majority, not when other races are. Equity minions are chicken to even talk about sports.

It never takes place since it's extremely illegal in the US.It only exists in the minds of a few crazies.

And yet for decades, the supreme court of the united states explicitly allowed the consideration of race in college admissions. To the point where there were 2 standard deviations between the SAT scores of asian admitted students and the SAT scores of black admitted students and many institutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

Transparency is always better than opaque and subjective measures. Asians were routinely scored lower on “personality traits” by Harvard only so that admission outcomes could be engineered as desired. Harvard leveraged subjective criteria in the 1920s as well to restrict the number of Jewish students.

People study to the test - whether it is TJ, SAT, LSAT or MCAT. You may get homogeneity as a result but it is way better than engineered outcomes that are not tied to merit in any way. There is a reason elite schools are returning to standardized testing.

You must not be very familiar with the SAT. They change it every few years. It's a completely different test now that it was in the last iteration, or the one before that, or the one before that.

Ok. You have educated me on how frequently the SAT changes. That is also a point to be made. Change the test but don’t eliminate it.

P.S. - did you know that despite the periodic changes, SAT prep is a thriving industry? Just google SAT prep. You are welcome…

"The US Test Preparation market is valued at USD 14.72 billion ..." . Interestingly, "Sports Coaching in the US - Market Size is $13.9bn"

https://www.technavio.com/report/test-preparation-market-industry-in-the-us-analysis

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/sports-coaching-industry/

How can a family afford one and not substitute it for the other?

Guess it's a matter of values. Are there special SPORTS high schools that only admit the top 1.5% of athletes, similar to how TJ admits the top 1.5% of students?

Racial balancing takes place only where Asian Americans are in majority, not when other races are. Equity minions are chicken to even talk about sports.

It never takes place since it's extremely illegal in the US.It only exists in the minds of a few crazies.

And yet for decades, the supreme court of the united states explicitly allowed the consideration of race in college admissions. To the point where there were 2 standard deviations between the SAT scores of asian admitted students and the SAT scores of black admitted students and many institutions.

+1. Why do people pretend Affirmative Action never existed? Really hurts their credibility when arguing admissions policies today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

Transparency is always better than opaque and subjective measures. Asians were routinely scored lower on “personality traits” by Harvard only so that admission outcomes could be engineered as desired. Harvard leveraged subjective criteria in the 1920s as well to restrict the number of Jewish students.

People study to the test - whether it is TJ, SAT, LSAT or MCAT. You may get homogeneity as a result but it is way better than engineered outcomes that are not tied to merit in any way. There is a reason elite schools are returning to standardized testing.

You must not be very familiar with the SAT. They change it every few years. It's a completely different test now that it was in the last iteration, or the one before that, or the one before that.

Ok. You have educated me on how frequently the SAT changes. That is also a point to be made. Change the test but don’t eliminate it.

P.S. - did you know that despite the periodic changes, SAT prep is a thriving industry? Just google SAT prep. You are welcome…

"The US Test Preparation market is valued at USD 14.72 billion ..." . Interestingly, "Sports Coaching in the US - Market Size is $13.9bn"

https://www.technavio.com/report/test-preparation-market-industry-in-the-us-analysis

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/sports-coaching-industry/

How can a family afford one and not substitute it for the other?

Guess it's a matter of values. Are there special SPORTS high schools that only admit the top 1.5% of athletes, similar to how TJ admits the top 1.5% of students?

Racial balancing takes place only where Asian Americans are in majority, not when other races are. Equity minions are chicken to even talk about sports.

Racial balancing used to exist in sports.

After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, blacks quickly became over-represented and the teams very quickly imposed a quota on how many black players they could have any how many black players could play on the field at a time. No team could field more than 4 black players so there would always be a majority of white fielders. So if a black pitcher went in, a black position player had to come out. The arguments for this behavior would sound familiar today:

Blacks are over-represented, how could there be any discrimination?
We're just trying to get the racial mix to match our audience (segregation still existed and the "premium customers" were mostly white).
It's a private organization, they can do what they like.
You're just measuring baseball statistics to say that the black players are better players, there are all sorts of intangibles that a team has to consider that you would know nothing about.

#fakenews

[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:
Of course, it's no coincidence that algebra 1 count went from 20+ in 2024 before admissions change to 160+ in the 2025 class, and the new class was declared as having more diversity.

"Compared to TJ Class of 2024, the proportion of students in Class of 2025 admitted with the minimal required math background of Algebra 1 in 8th grade increased sevenfold, from 4.5% to 31%"
https://www.fcag.org/documents/TJ_Class_of_2025_analysis.pdf

From Page 3: "Compared to previous years, there is a huge leap in the number of students taking Algebra 1 rather than higher level math. There were 161 students admitted who only had taken Algebra 1 In previous years, that number has been about 20 students ... "
It appears Algebr 1 criteria was used to sift out the 1140+ denied asian american applicants

Admissions are a secret process for a reason. Manipulate as needed first, and cook an explanation later.

The reason admissions processes are secret (by the way, the TJ Admissions process is WAY less opaque than it should be) is to prevent people from narrowly tailoring either their or their child's lives in pursuit of the acceptance letter.

Purely objective, rubric-based admissions processes result in dangerously homogenous admit populations. At TJ in the 2010s, that manifested itself in a hyper-competitive environment where you had too many kids who were trying to achieve the same goals along the same path when multiple paths were readily available. It was a deeply unhealthy environment and eventually resulted in TJ's first instances of suicide and a huge spike in self-harm.

Transparency is always better than opaque and subjective measures. Asians were routinely scored lower on “personality traits” by Harvard only so that admission outcomes could be engineered as desired. Harvard leveraged subjective criteria in the 1920s as well to restrict the number of Jewish students.

People study to the test - whether it is TJ, SAT, LSAT or MCAT. You may get homogeneity as a result but it is way better than engineered outcomes that are not tied to merit in any way. There is a reason elite schools are returning to standardized testing.

You must not be very familiar with the SAT. They change it every few years. It's a completely different test now that it was in the last iteration, or the one before that, or the one before that.

Ok. You have educated me on how frequently the SAT changes. That is also a point to be made. Change the test but don’t eliminate it.

P.S. - did you know that despite the periodic changes, SAT prep is a thriving industry? Just google SAT prep. You are welcome…

"The US Test Preparation market is valued at USD 14.72 billion ..." . Interestingly, "Sports Coaching in the US - Market Size is $13.9bn"

https://www.technavio.com/report/test-preparation-market-industry-in-the-us-analysis

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/sports-coaching-industry/

How can a family afford one and not substitute it for the other?

Guess it's a matter of values. Are there special SPORTS high schools that only admit the top 1.5% of athletes, similar to how TJ admits the top 1.5% of students?

Racial balancing takes place only where Asian Americans are in majority, not when other races are. Equity minions are chicken to even talk about sports.

It never takes place since it's extremely illegal in the US.It only exists in the minds of a few crazies.

And yet for decades, the supreme court of the united states explicitly allowed the consideration of race in college admissions. To the point where there were 2 standard deviations between the SAT scores of asian admitted students and the SAT scores of black admitted students and many institutions.

+1. Why do people pretend Affirmative Action never existed? Really hurts their credibility when arguing admissions policies today.

I guess but not especially relevant to our discussion of TJ since it always has had a race-blind process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


Why would they reject high math qualified applicants in favor of lower math applicants?

Racial suppression

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not approximated…

The impact of the admissions changes:

The number of Asian students enrolled at TJ by school year (fall):


Aside from 2020 & 2019, there are MORE Asian students at TJ since the admissions change than any other year in the school’s history.



The data shows that Asian students were accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students.

Asian 19%
Black 14%
Hispanic 21%
White 17%
Multiracial/Other* 13%
ALL 18%


So, to recap, the number of Asian students at TJ is almost at a record high.

Supposedly the largest beneficiaries of the changes to the race-blind process were low-income Asian families.

Probably not, but I am open to any evidence supporting your wild ass guess.

The largest beneficiaries were probably white kids. If we took the 2020 admissions statistics forward, we would have 344 white kids at the school next fall. But instead we have 485. No other group or subgroup has seen this kind of absolute increase.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Asian count remains more or less same, but the Asian percent has gone down?
Along with the admissions change, the total number of seats were expanded by 100 seats, but Asian students were solely excluded from participating in the expanded seat assignment. There are consistently 1200+ declined Asian applicants each year, largest among all ethnicities, and none of them are allowed to receive a single seat from the expanded seat quota.
discriminatory TJ admission policy

Unfair and illegal.

Lower income Asian students were the biggest by beneficiaries of the new process.
- Judges who ruled it was not illegal

And they become the most discriminated against group the moment they get off the free school lunches

There is zero discrimination.

Thank you for your opinion, Tucker!

Not my opinion. That was the court ruling.

What court ruling said there is zero discrimination?

Isn't there also a court ruling below that one saying that the intent behind the rule change was discriminatory?

[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:The NYT put together an interesting article that describes what FCPS did with the TJ admissions.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/09/upshot/affirmative-action-alternatives.html

It's behind a paywall but TLDR they made it so students from any school not just the wealthiest could access TJ.

Great- that’s as it should be. A public school needs to be available to all through a fair process in which wealth or education level of parents is not determinative.

I agree. I think the changes were a small step in the right direction, but I wish they'd do more. Upping the 1.5% to more like 2.5% to allow even broader opportunity while setting some baseline standards like requiring A's in Algebra seems modest. Most students will have completed Geometry or higher by 8th so this is a fairly low bar.

Yes, this move is worth considering.

I do think that part of the problem is that people who did not have parents with lower incomes and only a high school education, if that, simply can’t understand what it’s like to grow up in that kind of family situation.

I did grow up like that, so I get it. And the lower family income is not the worst of it, it’s that less educated parents simply don’t know what they don’t know. They can be trying their best, but frequently they just have no idea what to do to help a very bright child. My parents did try, but they were simply unaware of the resources that were out there.

I “lucked out” because I qualified for a national program as a junior in high school. Suddenly, the teachers and guidance counselors, who all seemed quite surprised that a kid like me would qualify for this program, became very interested in helping me with college applications. Even without that, I was still way behind in the types of opportunities that other kids had been provided with all through their school years.

This is why I care so much about TJ being a possibility for kids from less well-off and educated family situations: I want those kids to have opportunities that they might not otherwise be able to access.

Great. Now if you can only get them to study like a TJ student.

What is the point of being educated if that person is cold, has no compassion, no comment sense - like you?

Well, obviously the system that prioritized you has not educated you enough to have some compassion for children who were treated unfairly and a common sense that "stealing opportunities from more deserving people is a bad thing"

I’m not exactly sure what it is you’re trying to say here, but do you understand that kids with well off and educated parents will always have more opportunities than kids without those advantages?

You appear to be one of the people alluded to above who can’t understand what life is like for people whose lives are different from yours.

I am talking as an immigrant living under the poverty line for many years. You obviously can't understand those who, not like you, were treated unfairly by the system. Very far from your senseless generalization, many kids who have been rejected by the system are not from "well off" families. Many have just reached the middle-income status very recently. The only difference is they have been taught the value of hard work and understand the sacrifices of their families. That's why they study and perform rather than expecting handouts from the system.

So, if your children have parents who are lower income and less educated, what is your problem with the application process? It’s giving your child(ren) the same chance as other children from similar families.

It sounds as though you agree that applicants should all be treated fairly, with no advantage to kids whose families have more money and better educated parents than others.

At the same time, you appear to be saying that applicants from families with less well off and less well educated parents somehow are not “taught the value of hard work and understand the sacrifices of their families.” What’s that all about? As someone who is from a family with parents with lower income and no college education, I can tell you that lower income people are among the hardest workers there are, and their kids see that from an early age. Again, you seem to have very little understanding of people who have different experiences than you have had.

But lower math algebra 1 students from worst fcps middle schools are being forced to drink from the TJ rigor fire hose and level up to the advanced peers from top middle schools. How is that not inhumane mental abuse of innocent students?

You are making up problems here with the phrase “being forced to drink from the TJ rigor fire hose.” Come on, that is a highly exaggerated metaphor.

And the truth is, many of those “advanced” peers do not have a good grasp of the fundamentals because they rushed through math couses too quickly to develop a truly strong understanding. Two different TJ math teachers, one in 2011 and one in 2014, told me about this problem, so well before the changes in the application process.

There is no “inhumane mental abuse of innocent students” going on here by giving students a fair shot at the limited places available at TJ, regardless of the income or educational level of their parents. Seriously.

Sorry. I must call this BS

It is BS. Of the 210 FCPS 8th graders who took the Algebra II SOL in 2022-2023, all passed and around 90% of the kids got pass advanced. All evidence suggests that the advanced kids have a good grasp of the fundamentals and are quite successful.

Being able to answer questions correctly is not the same as have a strong grasp of fundamentals. The teachers can tell the difference.

What evidence do you have that these kids do not have a strong grasp of fundamentals? I'm sure *some* kids are overaccelerated by their parents and don't have solid mastery of the fundamentals. I'm also sure that many kids who are accelerated are just very smart at math and have already grasped everything that they need to know. And many others have taken courses at AoPS that are much more rigorous than anything taught by FCPS.

If overacceleration is a real concern for TJ, they could always administer some sort of placement test as part of the application package.

My “evidence” is that two different math teachers at TJ told me the same thing several years apart and before any changes had been made to the application process. Never said all students, just some/many. Apparently they would try to have conversations with parents of kids who were too far advanced, but many, not all, were not receptive to their input. There was a lot of discussion about this at TJ in 2011.

That's weird because several math teachers are saying right now there is a very large group of unprepared students at TJ and TJ is unable to maintain the same academic standards they had in the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it's well known the change of admission policy is to boost under-represented community admission. Why would anyone link it to "cheating scandal"? What's the mindset for such association? That spending money on prepping is cheating?

The reason they do it is because accusations of cheating undermines the merit argument.

The racist trope is "asians aren't getting in at ridiculous rates because they are working harder, they are getting in because they are cheating and our kids aren't getting in because we are moral and the asians are not"

This is how the "tests are racist" crowd fight racism

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So there's still not a single shred of evidence of a cheating scandal or people buying the test. No one is able to post a single news article or any real proof. Thanks for clearing that up for everyone.

Don’t be obtuse. No one was literally paying money and getting the test in return. They were paying for $$$$ prep that (unethically) provided access to previous/example test questions on a test that shouldn’t be prepped for. It was shady AF as many people, including former students who did the prep, have noted.

You keep moving the goalposts and arguing against a strawman. It was put forth that there was a huge cheating scandal, people were buying the test, and it was all over the news. It was also put forth that the "cheating scandal" was the main reason for the TJ admissions change. Seriously, pony up some actual evidence of this, or stop yapping. The only evidence that was provided is that people were concerned that test prep was skewing the results, and that affluent kids had an advantage. There's also a bit of hearsay that some questions on the Quant Q were the same as some practiced at Curie. I still haven't seen any evidence of a "cheating scandal," "kids (literally) buying the test," and this being "all over the news."

FWIW, Amazon sells Quant Q practice books.

There's evidence provided in this thread.Numerous first-hand accounts and multiple news sources. Not sure why you keep ignoring it.

Because the accounts and news sources show nothing of the "cheating" and "test buying" as the lie you keep on spreading.

DP.

We do know that affluent families were paying for $$$$ prep that (unethically) acquired and provided access to previous/example test questions on a test that shouldn’t be prepped for. It was shady AF as many people, including former students who did the prep, have noted.

And, we do know that FCPS wanted a way to fairly assess kids across the county without fueling a $$$$ test prep industry, giving affluent families a huge, unfair advantage.

The admissions process keeps changing because parents keep trying to game the system.

This claim is completely BS, Donald!

Places like Kaplan, Princeton, College Board, Barron's, etc. have released sample and past exam questions for decades. TJ never has prohibited students from talking about exam questions from their memory. Also, most affluent families in Fairfax are not Asian. If money can make the difference, there should be way more white students admitted in the old system than in the new system.

The biggest beneficiaries of the new admissions process are students from low-income Asian families.


https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Please stop posting articles that do nothing to prove your points.

My points were:
1. non-affluent Asian students benefitted from the change

2. Quant-Q, intentionally did NOT release materials to the public - very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

3. for years, they have been looking for ways to avoid some kids having an unfair advance with test-prep

1. I'm sure some poor asian kids were able to get in that would not have gotten in under a merit based system...But:

a. the biggest increase did not occur among poor asian kids, is occurred among white kids.
b. some meritorious black and hispanic kids did not get in. The winner of the 3m science competition is a rising sophomore at woodson and he is black. He developed a treatment for skin cancer, he did not get into tjhsst because admissions is basically a lottery now.

2. The whole "people were buying the test" argument seems sketchy I mean if money is the issue then you would expect more white kids at tj.

3. In what way is test prep an unfair advantage? Test prep books are $20. Or do you equate studying with cheating?