
Most TJ kids also had 4.0 GPAs and amazing extracurriculars. The admissions process was already holistic. There’s a reason the school board couldn’t just drop the test and be done with it. They went out of their way to engineer a model that minimized scholastic achievement. Earning 4.0 GPAs and winning competitions is a weird definition of “buying” into TJ. |
When corrected for education, Asians are the race least likely to be promoted to management or be elected to office. |
Well that's because they do the real work that requires brains behind the scenes, management and politicians are mostly filled with dumba$$es. Many Asians could do those jobs easily, but they would not find their lives fulfilled by practicing deception on a daily basis or spouting off random feel good BS. The world advances on the backs of scientists, researchers, engineers and not very many folks here in the US are cut out to do those jobs. Politicians and managers? They're a dime a dozen. |
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The test was used as a means to eliminate many from consideration without even looking at achievements. Unfortunately only the wealthy could afford to buy advanced access to the test questions. The process was broken. |
Fake news. The only thing they bought was lots of prep offered by various cram schools. And why shouldn't they, when in this area schools do a terrible job of teaching anything resembling math? You can see that by driving around and seeing how many different math prep companies exist (not just prep for TJ). There are too many to name and that speaks to how horrible the education in schools really is. If schools did an adequate job, math prep wouldn't be a huge business. |
These math prep places exist to feed off the insecurities of recent immigrants. They aren't necessary or frankly wanted here. Acceleration by focusing on math for an extra 1-2 hours plus a day doesn't mean you are smart. I would wager at least the top 1/3 of students would be as least as "Advanced" if they were spending additional time on math. |
Obviously they are wanted here. They just aren't wanted by you. There are some good reasons for recent immigrants or people on work visas to want their children to remain on track with what they would be doing in their home country. If for whatever reason they return to their home country in a few years, they don't want their kids far behind. I agree that kids who are doing a lot of extra math may be advanced but not particularly smart. The problem is that the kids in FCPS taking Algebra I in 8th grade are neither smart nor advanced. FCPS makes it pathetically easy for any kid with even a modicum of math talent to take Algebra in 7th. I'll take an advanced kid who may not be smart over a kid who is clearly not advanced and also not smart any day of the week. |
Exactly, things had gotten so out of hand that non-prepped kids couldn't even get past that hurdle to get fair consideration. |
I'm all for the recent changes to selection but would also be for imposing requirements on math. There are plenty of kids taking honors geometry in 8th at every MS. This shouldn't be an issue. |
Yes, we need to make sure the dumber lower achievers have a fighting chance. |
Untrue, recent immigrants is a very small portion. One can see droves of UMC folks from the area (drive by McLean and Vienna and check out the crowds dropping kids off afterschool, and not all of them are there to get ahead, many are getting instruction to stay on level in school). At this point, it's well understood by many folks that something is wrong with how math is taught in schools in this area and it's not working for many kids... as a result these places are booming. Supply and demand. |
I don't know, on the one hand a draft of California's Math Framework suggests that Algebra I should be delayed until 9th grade for all students, whereas here we've got folks upset their snowflake wasn't allowed to start Algebra in 6th. I get things could always be "better" in some way, but I think we often lose sight that the reality is that we still have things pretty damn good in this area. |
TJ's admissions were race blind under the old process too. |
Only because Youngkin won. VMPI would have put algebra in 9th grade here too. They claimed 8th in the slides, then admitted it was prealgebra in one of the videos. |