New TJ Lawsuit Filed 3/10/21 by Pacific Legal Foundation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

+1000. Excellent summary. The only way Curie could really be implicated as responsible for this scandal, even though they benefited from it greatly, is if there were documentation proving that they encouraged or incentivized their former students to bring back the questions. And I highly doubt they would have been stupid enough to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

+1000. Excellent summary. The only way Curie could really be implicated as responsible for this scandal, even though they benefited from it greatly, is if there were documentation proving that they encouraged or incentivized their former students to bring back the questions. And I highly doubt they would have been stupid enough to do that.

If this story were true and TJ used a testing provider that reuses test questions, it would be a scandal as well. I'm sure the principal of TJ and possibly the superintendent of FCPS would have resigned immediately if this were true. So I'm skeptical here as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

+1000. Excellent summary. The only way Curie could really be implicated as responsible for this scandal, even though they benefited from it greatly, is if there were documentation proving that they encouraged or incentivized their former students to bring back the questions. And I highly doubt they would have been stupid enough to do that.

If this story were true and TJ used a testing provider that reuses test questions, it would be a scandal as well. I'm sure the principal of TJ and possibly the superintendent of FCPS would have resigned immediately if this were true. So I'm skeptical here as well.

You can afford to use questions out of a large bank when your exam is secured.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

+1000. Excellent summary. The only way Curie could really be implicated as responsible for this scandal, even though they benefited from it greatly, is if there were documentation proving that they encouraged or incentivized their former students to bring back the questions. And I highly doubt they would have been stupid enough to do that.

If this story were true and TJ used a testing provider that reuses test questions, it would be a scandal as well. I'm sure the principal of TJ and possibly the superintendent of FCPS would have resigned immediately if this were true. So I'm skeptical here as well.

Every testing provider reuses questions. Literally all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

+1000. Excellent summary. The only way Curie could really be implicated as responsible for this scandal, even though they benefited from it greatly, is if there were documentation proving that they encouraged or incentivized their former students to bring back the questions. And I highly doubt they would have been stupid enough to do that.

If this story were true and TJ used a testing provider that reuses test questions, it would be a scandal as well. I'm sure the principal of TJ and possibly the superintendent of FCPS would have resigned immediately if this were true. So I'm skeptical here as well.

Every testing provider reuses questions. Literally all of them.

+1 people have no clue what they're talking about on this board even the SAT and ACT reuse questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

This is the part that is incorrect. There is no public website that gives an outline of the types of questions, at least not with any remote level of specificity.

This is the part that, if true, would be problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

This is the part that is incorrect. There is no public website that gives an outline of the types of questions, at least not with any remote level of specificity.

This is the part that, if true, would be problematic.

The types of questions on most any standardized test are well documented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

This is the part that is incorrect. There is no public website that gives an outline of the types of questions, at least not with any remote level of specificity.

This is the part that, if true, would be problematic.

The types of questions on most any standardized test are well documented.

do you have a link to that for the quant q?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

This is the part that is incorrect. There is no public website that gives an outline of the types of questions, at least not with any remote level of specificity.

This is the part that, if true, would be problematic.

The types of questions on most any standardized test are well documented.

do you have a link to that for the quant q?

Not personally but it sounds like the folks at Curie can help you out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you haven't seen it yet, just go look on the FB Group TJ Vents. I know having access to the admissions test was discussed there last summer. Only current TJ students are allowed to post in TJ Vents.

Please elaborate. There's a TJ student only FB group (to which presumably all TJ students have access?) where admitted students discussed that they cheated on the admissions test? Or what specifically does "have access to the admissions test" mean? That copies of it were circulated? That it used material/problems that were identical to those they'd seen in practice (which would make sense as it is the goal of practice)? Or were the problems similar? Why would TJ use materials that's in circulation? Was there a leak?

Again, these are serious allegations that should either be substantiated or dropped.

I'll try to make this as clean and simple as possible....

A student on TJ Vents posted anonymously (as part of a general rant about pressures at TJ) that when they took the Quant-Q as part of their admissions process for the Class of 2023, they were stunned to realize that they had seen some of the questions before in their time at "a prep center".

Other TJ students (not anonymously) ran in after the fact to comment that they had also and that the center was Curie.

This was problematic because the Quant-Q is supposed to be a secured exam and anyone who sees it is supposed to sign a document saying that they will not release any materials from it. It does change every year, but invariably there are some questions on different forms that are repeated.

What we don't know is how Curie got the secured materials to be able to transmit to their students.

The most obvious answer - and the prevailing theory among most who are aware of this issue - is that former students who had taken the Quant-Q had memorized some of the questions and had brought them back to Curie after the exam.

This is the simplest explanation, and also pretty much eliminates the possibility of an investigation because there is no way to know which students brought the materials back inappropriately. Indeed, it could have easily been students who were not admitted.

But it's easy to understand why they might have done it - many TJ applicants have younger siblings who would benefit from Curie having this information in sizeable quantities.

A couple of pieces of corroborating evidence:

1) Curie publicly claimed ~50 TJ admits in the Class of 2022, ~95 in the Class of 2023, and 133 in the Class of 2024. Because they published first and last names of the admits, it is a matter of public record that substantially ALL of those admits are of South Asian descent, as are the owners and most of the faculty.
2) After reaching a record high of 74.9% in the Class of 2021 with over a decade of steady gains, Asian students comprised only 65.2% of admits in the Class of 2022 (the first year of the Quant-Q) before returning to 72% in 2023 and 73% in 2024.

The pieces of evidence and testimony fit together too perfectly for there to not be a story here. It's hard to understand how one could look at all of that evidence and not conclude that something was going on. Not something illegal, but ABSOLUTELY something that compromised the admissions process in ways that were problematic.

But they also pretty much preclude the possibility of any investigation, and there's really no need for one because the problem has been addressed moving forward.

OR ...

The prep center figured it out first, then used students to help them refine it. It's almost like a manual AI process where every student test taker was able to provide a little bit more data that helped them get their process just right. In fact, at this stage I wouldn't doubt they don't use some form of AI to predict outcomes but I digress.
Prep center:
They know the test that is going to be taken.
They have access to the same public website that you do that gives the outline of the type of questions.
They write up sample content questions for the course.
They pay a test administrator to review the questions to confirm they are the correct format but not review the content thereby somewhat skirting any issues.
They ask students for feedback after the test and how closely aligned their questions are with the test questions.
They continually adjust their content based on student feedback.
After a few rounds of this feedback, they have now arrived at a place where they can almost perfectly mimic the test.

This is the part that is incorrect. There is no public website that gives an outline of the types of questions, at least not with any remote level of specificity.

This is the part that, if true, would be problematic.

The types of questions on most any standardized test are well documented.

do you have a link to that for the quant q?

I am the PP -here this is all they needed to get started
https://www.insightassessment.com/article/quant-q-scales

then use their own knowledge of standard tests and any available example questions
write a quick program to generate various question types based on formulas a d programming
generate lots of questions
review the questions.
correct any programming issues
generate more questions
review and confirm
in future years tweak the program to spit out better questions

[Anonymous]

I still can not believe that they published the first and last names of the kids. What were they thinking??? Why did parents permit this year after year?

Given the cutthroat culture at TJ, it's almost certainly the case at least one parent will end up sending to the list (along with an explanation) from the classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024 to the Admissions Office for every T20 university. Some parents will do anything to help their child get ahead and this seems like low hanging fruit.

It's not a kind response, but plenty of parents/kids will be tempted to improve their own chances.

The guidance counselors and teachers at TJ also likely have the list of students. Who knows if this will affect teacher/counseor recs, grades etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still can not believe that they published the first and last names of the kids. What were they thinking??? Why did parents permit this year after year?

Given the cutthroat culture at TJ, it's almost certainly the case at least one parent will end up sending to the list (along with an explanation) from the classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024 to the Admissions Office for every T20 university. Some parents will do anything to help their child get ahead and this seems like low hanging fruit.

It's not a kind response, but plenty of parents/kids will be tempted to improve their own chances.

The guidance counselors and teachers at TJ also likely have the list of students. Who knows if this will affect teacher/counseor recs, grades etc?

If one of the kids on this list was truly savy, he/she would get ahead of this problem and become a whistle blower. Write an article or give an interview to a major magazine describing how they were coached and blowing up the admissions cheating going on at the #1 high school. Instant redemption from having your name on the list. Be 100% truthful. it's great college essay material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still can not believe that they published the first and last names of the kids. What were they thinking??? Why did parents permit this year after year?

Given the cutthroat culture at TJ, it's almost certainly the case at least one parent will end up sending to the list (along with an explanation) from the classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024 to the Admissions Office for every T20 university. Some parents will do anything to help their child get ahead and this seems like low hanging fruit.

It's not a kind response, but plenty of parents/kids will be tempted to improve their own chances.

The guidance counselors and teachers at TJ also likely have the list of students. Who knows if this will affect teacher/counseor recs, grades etc?

If one of the kids on this list was truly savy, he/she would get ahead of this problem and become a whistle blower. Write an article or give an interview to a major magazine describing how they were coached and blowing up the admissions cheating going on at the #1 high school. Instant redemption from having your name on the list. Be 100% truthful. it's great college essay material.

Dumb idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still can not believe that they published the first and last names of the kids. What were they thinking??? Why did parents permit this year after year?

Given the cutthroat culture at TJ, it's almost certainly the case at least one parent will end up sending to the list (along with an explanation) from the classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024 to the Admissions Office for every T20 university. Some parents will do anything to help their child get ahead and this seems like low hanging fruit.

It's not a kind response, but plenty of parents/kids will be tempted to improve their own chances.

The guidance counselors and teachers at TJ also likely have the list of students. Who knows if this will affect teacher/counseor recs, grades etc?

If one of the kids on this list was truly savy, he/she would get ahead of this problem and become a whistle blower. Write an article or give an interview to a major magazine describing how they were coached and blowing up the admissions cheating going on at the #1 high school. Instant redemption from having your name on the list. Be 100% truthful. it's great college essay material.

Dumb idea.

Except if done right, that could would get a full ride at Harvard.