Reply to TJ - admissions: GPA and essays vulnerable to prep and affluence

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, grades and essays are influenced through enrichment, tutoring, and other mechanisms. That is why I like the 1.5% distribution to each school. The kids are taking the same curriculum across the schools and have the same basic opportunity to succeed. We can compare the classwork and the grade outcome.  At some point in time, every kid learns the same material for Algebra. Maybe there are kids at Carson who take the Algebra  prep class in the summer so that they learn some of the material in advance and the A that they get at school is easier for them then the kid who is taking Algebra for the first time at Poe but they have both earned an A in Algebra. The A is what matters. [/quote]

And how do you select between the students at the same middle school?  What if 5% of the students all get straight A's?

[quote]The issue with the Quant test was that there were test banks that some kids had access to that others did not. The test that the kids were taking was not accurately comparing the ability of the kids to answer the questions equally because some kids had exposure to the types of questions being asked while others didn’t. That would be the same for something like the PSAT. It isn’t that the kids have the exact questions but that they have exposure to the types of questions and are more comfortable answering them in advance. [/quote]

The PSAT is different than Quant Q.  Quant Q tries to make it [b]hard[/b] to prep by denying access and transparency for it's effectiveness while the PSAT makes it [b]easy[/b] to prep with widespread access and transparency.  Quant Q creates a high barrier to prepping that some families can afford while others cannot.  The PSAt creates a very low barrier to prepping where the primary barrier is the child's effort.
The PSAT is extremely easy to prep for if you want to put in the effort but there is an aversion to measuring merit that results from effort because some people don't like the racial disparity this creates.  So they try to get further away from merit and closer to random selection.  Put simply asian kids work harder than white kids and white parents think that merit should not measure the effects of hard work.

[quote]The metrics that we have that can be compared across the schools equally are grades. The math essay seems to be something that could be prepped for but the scoring seems to be more on how the kids explain why they answered the way the did and less the answer that they gave. That allows for a kid who is strong at math but maybe has not prepped for the essay to provide their process in a way that allows the grader to understand how well they understood the problem and explained their solution vs checking for answers only.[/quote]

Of course there is some measure of merit in an essay, but it is a much less precise measure of cognitive and academic ability than a standardized test.

[quote]TJ is a public school that should be accessible to everyone in the county and not just those who can afford enrichment, test prep and outside activities. I would guess that a good percentage of the Algebra 1 only kids are from those schools but not all of them. I don’t think that kids with Algebra 1 only should be coming out of schools where there are kids in Algebra 2 and Geometry. I have no problem with kids from schools that have fewer kids available to take Geometry or higher getting into TJ with only Algebra 1.

[/quote]

PSAT prep is available for free from Khan Academy plus college board.
It can be enhanced with a $20 prep book from amazon, the vast majority of kids will be prepping this way.
Private prep classes are available for $300 to $3000 and offer varying degrees of hand holding for the student.
Having taught prep for the SAT and stuyvesant exam for years, if you are the sort of kid that needs hand holding to do well on these tests, you are not going to to do well enough to get into stuy.
If you are trying to get from a 98 percentile to 99th percentile on the SAT, a tutor might be useful but the 98th percentile is already good enough to get into TJ.

The reason so many poor kids get into stuy is because the SHSAT is so cheap and easy to prep for.
One way to measure the effects of "wealth" on test scores is to look at the FARM rates at stuyvesant, bronx science and brooklyn tech.
Stuyvesant (the most selective of the 8 specialized high schools) has a FARM rate of 42%
Bronx Science (2nd though 4th in selectivity) has a FARM rate of 45%
Brooklyn Tech (the 7th most selective of the specialized high schools) has a FARM rate of 51%

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