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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The jealousy is pouring out in buckets. Lol.

Your kids did not make it to TJ then you should be grateful. They would have surely fallen behind in TJ and not been able to handle the rigor.

meh, I'd rather my kid be well rounded with sports, scouting, volunteering and have an enjoyable childhood.

TJ students are involved in school sports and volunteering at much higher rate than base school students.

because there are no FARM students at TJ. There are not many students who can juggle NCAP and TJ (there are a few) or ECNL and TJ

Asian parents do not like applying for government programs even if they are eligible. Parental income at TJ is much lower than at Langley or McLean.

[Anonymous]

It might be fun to have FCPS reach out to Amazon and other employers in the area and ask for their input in developing a test that incorporates real world problems and skills. WOuld be so cool if it was completely unpreppable because it was completely different each year.
One year it's like a test for All Soul's College at Oxford. You walk in and there's one word on the paper: Equality, or something, and then students can demonstrate what they know about that topic.
Next year, you get a text telling you that your interview will take place, maybe even live in person, the next day at 3 PM. You show up and get grilled by a panel of teachers, like a standard Oxford exam. THey can ask you anything they want about math or science.
Next year, you get told to show up at a certain location and it's the engineering problem from that show about the shuttle crash. You are given some random materials and told to construct something.
Following year, it's a GROUP project with the raters behind a glass window (like the foreign service exam), and you are rated not only on the content of your responses, but also on how well you work with others.
The beauty would be that you literally had no idea what they were going to ask, and chances are it would involve creativity. And getting along well with other humans.
Maybe one year it is making a video demonstrating some engineering principle and the next year it's a written essay about some physical science principle.
No matter what it is, you can come up with a standardized rubric, but the point is that no one ever knows what it's going to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The jealousy is pouring out in buckets. Lol.

Your kids did not make it to TJ then you should be grateful. They would have surely fallen behind in TJ and not been able to handle the rigor.

meh, I'd rather my kid be well rounded with sports, scouting, volunteering and have an enjoyable childhood.

TJ students are involved in school sports and volunteering at much higher rate than base school students.

because there are no FARM students at TJ. There are not many students who can juggle NCAP and TJ (there are a few) or ECNL and TJ

Asian parents do not like applying for government programs even if they are eligible. Parental income at TJ is much lower than at Langley or McLean.

What about the other 20 schools in Fairfax?

[Anonymous]

NP

I wish that people would start their own thread for these pro/con etc TJ posts.

This thread is focused on a very specific and credible accusation - one prep company systematically helped 25% of the class of 2024 cheat their way to admission. This same company also apparently only preps students of a specific ethnicity and also lobbied LCPS to maintain TJ participation to preserve their business model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP

I wish that people would start their own thread for these pro/con etc TJ posts.

This thread is focused on a very specific and credible accusation - one prep company systematically helped 25% of the class of 2024 cheat their way to admission. This same company also apparently only preps students of a specific ethnicity and also lobbied LCPS to maintain TJ participation to preserve their business model.

if the commonwealth's attorney or the feds decide to care it's a big deal, otherwise, it's just good marketing for a test prep company. I'm not sure what else there is to discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might be fun to have FCPS reach out to Amazon and other employers in the area and ask for their input in developing a test that incorporates real world problems and skills. WOuld be so cool if it was completely unpreppable because it was completely different each year.
One year it's like a test for All Soul's College at Oxford. You walk in and there's one word on the paper: Equality, or something, and then students can demonstrate what they know about that topic.
Next year, you get a text telling you that your interview will take place, maybe even live in person, the next day at 3 PM. You show up and get grilled by a panel of teachers, like a standard Oxford exam. THey can ask you anything they want about math or science.
Next year, you get told to show up at a certain location and it's the engineering problem from that show about the shuttle crash. You are given some random materials and told to construct something.
Following year, it's a GROUP project with the raters behind a glass window (like the foreign service exam), and you are rated not only on the content of your responses, but also on how well you work with others.
The beauty would be that you literally had no idea what they were going to ask, and chances are it would involve creativity. And getting along well with other humans.
Maybe one year it is making a video demonstrating some engineering principle and the next year it's a written essay about some physical science principle.
No matter what it is, you can come up with a standardized rubric, but the point is that no one ever knows what it's going to be.

That last point is the big key. And I would even argue that there should be multiple paths. If all you're doing is looking for a specific type of kid, you're going to get a huge number of kids who are all too similar - and that's very much what you have right now to the detriment of everyone involved.

But what you can't do is have one path. If you have one path then the people with resources and motivation will wear out that path and do whatever is necessary to make their kid look the most like the kid at the end of that path, even if they're not the best fit at all - and again, that's very much what you have right now to the detriment of everyone involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP

I wish that people would start their own thread for these pro/con etc TJ posts.

This thread is focused on a very specific and credible accusation - one prep company systematically helped 25% of the class of 2024 cheat their way to admission. This same company also apparently only preps students of a specific ethnicity and also lobbied LCPS to maintain TJ participation to preserve their business model.

If they in fact claim credit for 133 kids, essentially all of South Asian descent, that amounts to nearly 28% of the class, almost 38% of the Asian population, and (if history is any indicator) over three-quarters of the South Asian population - although that segment might be bigger this year.

Think about that. Three-quarters of the fastest-growing demographic (and by FAR the dominant culture) at TJ over the past several years are coming from a prep company that essentially handed them an exam that they were VERY unethically and possibly illegally provided by previous clients.

That is an ENORMOUS story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That is an ENORMOUS story.

only if prosecutors care enough to investigate. FCPS has no subpoena power, so they can stomp their feet all they want, but they can't prove anything without cooperation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

The problem here is not the ACT Aspire exams. The problem is the Quant-Q, which is closely guarded and disallows anyone who sees the exam from sharing information about it. It is timed and strongly values speed in solving the problems - which is much easier if you've seen the exam before.

TJ kids are starting to come out of the woodwork on multiple fora stating that they had the questions, answers, and strategies provided to them by this company, and that they know students who provided those answers to the company. This is a HUGE scandal that almost certainly won't result in any charges, but absolutely must result in substantial change to the admissions process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might be fun to have FCPS reach out to Amazon and other employers in the area and ask for their input in developing a test that incorporates real world problems and skills. WOuld be so cool if it was completely unpreppable because it was completely different each year.
One year it's like a test for All Soul's College at Oxford. You walk in and there's one word on the paper: Equality, or something, and then students can demonstrate what they know about that topic.
Next year, you get a text telling you that your interview will take place, maybe even live in person, the next day at 3 PM. You show up and get grilled by a panel of teachers, like a standard Oxford exam. THey can ask you anything they want about math or science.
Next year, you get told to show up at a certain location and it's the engineering problem from that show about the shuttle crash. You are given some random materials and told to construct something.
Following year, it's a GROUP project with the raters behind a glass window (like the foreign service exam), and you are rated not only on the content of your responses, but also on how well you work with others.
The beauty would be that you literally had no idea what they were going to ask, and chances are it would involve creativity. And getting along well with other humans.
Maybe one year it is making a video demonstrating some engineering principle and the next year it's a written essay about some physical science principle.
No matter what it is, you can come up with a standardized rubric, but the point is that no one ever knows what it's going to be.

This is a fine idea but not for a STEM high school

[Anonymous]

Why would the police/FBI investigate this? FCPS should hire a company to investigate and take appropriate action against students who cheated to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Wow, I'm one of the PP's who said not every TJ student preps. This is very eye-opening for me, although I still maintain that not everyone preps. I didn't even know places like this exist. Maybe more people prep than I thought, but I hope this doesn't make everyone think that everyone preps. I know plenty who didn't.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in one of the feeder middle school districts. Kids prep from early elementary. I’m not jealous. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to go to TJ in a million years. Had I known the lack of racial diversity at my feeder school, I wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood. Not everyone wants the same things. Get that? Diversity. I want my kids exposed to a variety of viewpoints. TJ has a serious racial bias issue that needs to be solved.

It's two different but extremely important issues that need to be solved:

1) the extreme lack of diversity - not just by race, but of social experience, economic status, and interests beyond STEM

2) the cut-throat, toxic, dangerous environment where students feel they must study for 5-6 hours a night and completely maximize their STEM profile in order to stay afloat

Someone has got to be able to get in these parents' (and honestly, the teachers also) heads and get them to understand that more studying is not necessarily better - and the admissions office needs to model that truism in how they go about selecting their incoming classes. For as educated a parent base as they have, they do not have any concept of opportunity cost or the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Wow, I'm one of the PP's who said not every TJ student preps. This is very eye-opening for me, although I still maintain that not everyone preps. I didn't even know places like this exist. Maybe more people prep than I thought, but I hope this doesn't make everyone think that everyone preps. I know plenty who didn't.

3) That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company. And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat. Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names.

"That over 25% of the incoming freshman class is coming from one prep company". - So what? The number of students who actually enroll here must also be a large percentage of the total number of students who take TJ test. Also preparation from here or any other such place or prepping at home will improve scores on stadarized tests.
"And that there are current students saying that the prep helped them to cheat." This is untrue. They may have used cheat in the sense that they were prepped on the kind of questions that are asked on the test. You can go to Amazon and buy ACT books and prep.
"Oh, and that the prep company appears to ONLY serve students with Indian names" - Again not true. It is open to you and everyone else who can afford to and don't mind spending $4,200.

Finally if your kids are planning to take TJ test and you are serious about it, you have choice of doing self prep or going to one of these places. Or you can chose to do nothing, whine and waste your time here posting unsubstantiated things.

There is troubling information that would show otherwise.

Go to the Curie Learning Center facebook page. Look at the list of names that they posted on August 17th that were admitted to TJ's class of 2024. Please find more than 3 names of the 133 that are NOT Indian. Also, go and look at the TJ Vents page from the July post on the Curie learning center. You will see a student (who appears to be non-Indian) who posted that he was treated poorly at Curie due to his race.

Wow, I'm one of the PP's who said not every TJ student preps. This is very eye-opening for me, although I still maintain that not everyone preps. I didn't even know places like this exist. Maybe more people prep than I thought, but I hope this doesn't make everyone think that everyone preps. I know plenty who didn't.