Reply to What is going on with TJ admissions this year?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]None of the 2022 USAJMO qualifiers are from TJ. One is from Langley, One is from Mclean. I assume both of these kids were denied TJ admissions during these last two years' holistic process?[/quote]

How do you know that they applied? Has it crossed your mind that there might be kids who are strong in STEM who are not interested in TJ? [/quote]
Kids who are strong at STEM?  Sure.  Kids who are among the top 250 mathematicians from grades 6-10 in the entire country?  No way.  For kids at that level, math is their life.  They would be desperate to join the nationally renowned TJ math team and have access to all of the TJ post-calculus math courses.  It's not reasonable to assume that JMO qualifiers simply may not have been interested in TJ.   It is also the case that there's nothing in the current application to call attention to elite achievements or even give any preference for kids with those achievements.  If the kids couldn't work it into their essays, or the reviewer didn't understand what it means to be a JMO qualifier, it's highly likely that any of these kids could have been leapfrogged by a bunch of kids who are above average good students who wrote pretty essays.

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There has not, in any recent year (like the last dozen), been a place for students to list their achievements or accomplishments anywhere on the TJ application. The advice given by the admissions office has always been to weave those achievements into their essays in the Student Information Sheet.

One of the challenges that the admissions office has faced in previous years is that in the essays, students would flatly lie about their achievements. The admissions office does not have the bandwidth to actually go check every single achievement listed, and on top of that, applicants' names do not appear in the packet to prevent accusations of racial bias. Applicants know that, and thus have openly admitted during their time at TJ that they lied in their applications about their accomplishments. There's not really a good solution to this problem, other than to de-emphasize the importance of those accomplishments.

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There are multiple simple solutions.  One would be to automatically admit the 20 or so kids with truly elite achievements.  It's not like one can't easily get the names for kids who are JMO qualifiers, Mathcounts state team, or Science Olympiad state winners.  Another would be to use teacher recommendations, knowing that the teachers will highlight their mathcounts, AMC, and Science Olympiad champs.  There really is no excuse for missing JMO caliber kids.  Those kids were probably confused and devastated when they received their TJ rejection letters.  [/quote]

DC would have qualified on multiple grounds based on above. Mathcounts state team - check. In fact teacher noted that DC was the only child ever to qualify from that school as far as she can tell. 1st in science olympiad in all 3 events at VA state competition. Got close but did not qualify for JMO. Two of DC's teachers in 8th grade wrote to us about how much they enjoy having DC in class so teacher recommendations would have been very positive. Got rejected to TJ. I know people would say maybe DC does not know how to write, but one of the teachers who reached out to us is English teacher.

Again got very positive feedback from teachers (without any prompting from us) in 9th grade. Did not think of applying but when teachers wrote to us we knew DC would have a strong recommendation. Applied to sophomore round and got in.

More than anything how maturely DC reacted to not getting into TJ is what is most heart warming to us. Disappointed for a day, picked up math book next day and continued working on problems. Scored more than anyone at TJ on AMC at their grade level.

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Congratulations to ur DC to make it in sophomore round. Good to know at least that they are selecting good kids. Based on ur mathcounts state team comment (only child to ever qualify for mathcounts state team) ur DC does not come from any of the main feeder middle schools, so a bit surprising how he did not make it to top 1.5 % from a non-feeder school.

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We were very surprised as well. It is not a feeder school.

DC writes well so cannot think of essays may not be the issue. The only thing we can think of is that DC solved the math problem two different ways, compared them and detailed why one approach would be better than the other. We thought that should clinch it, but maybe it has come off as a show off and pissed off the reviewers. [/quote]

Difference when a TJ teacher reviews the application vs. the Gatehouse admission officer. They should have some more brighter kids now in the sophomore class. 
 [/quote]

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