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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous
I don't get it.  If you pay for baseball camps, golf lessons, or swim coaching to be a better athlete we celebrate your effort.  If you pay for tutoring to become a great at math we look down on you as wasting your life.  Academic achievement takes people much farther professionally than does athletic achievement.  I think the country is better served by greatness in the classroom rather than on the athletic fields.  [/quote]

While I understand what you're saying, I don't think there's an easy answer. I can see both sides of this issue. For example, one of my kid's was very bored by the hardest math taught by the county. They showed an unusual aptitude at an early age and I felt that maybe I should help cultivate this interest of theirs. Over a period of time, they did began doing math outside school. I wasn't pushing them to do this either. They pu tin the time and effort to understand many concepts far beyond their grade level. I'm all for this, but I also don't think it's fair to others who have not had such opportunities to be excluded. It's very possible there are others who are just as capable but just didn't have parents who helped cultivate these skills. Sure, there's a point after which that doesn't matter, but we're talking about middle school kids so if not now then when? I I  don't honestly have a solution but like I said I can see this isn't a simple problem.[/quote]

A balanced perspective that is greatly appreciated.

There are a decent number of kids who are very much like your child and who are well-served by those additional opportunities. You're doing the right thing by your child and should be commended for it.

The problem is this - for many years, it became apparent that TJ was specifically looking for these types of students, and all of a sudden a market industry popped up that allowed parents to make their kids appear to be just like your kid. [b]It's one thing for a child to organically become that type of student, and it's quite another for parents to attempt to manufacture that type of student.[/b]

The problem is, the old admissions process couldn't tell the difference between the two, even though the faculty at TJ definitely can once students are in class for a few months. [b]The solution, then, is to change what you're looking for[/b] - and in so doing hopefully significantly reduce the problematic behavior of trying to sand down one's round-peg kid to fit into the square hole that the old process mandated. [/quote]

So how exactly did they solve what they are looking for? How are they now better measuring organic vs manufactured students? What are the data points that allow them to do that given the lack of any testing?

The issue is removing a test and not having any in its place is making it worse at figuring out who can handle the rigor for 4 years. There will always be prepping, everyone serious about wanting to apply preps to some degree. The purpose of the admissions committee is to figure out who has the interest and the problem solving ability to be able to thrive. Yes, it will never be close to perfect, because just like top colleges, there will always be a LOT more students that can totally cut it there vs the number of admits. Now that there is no test, there is no measure of problem solving ability, (other than perhaps kids who have meaningful math/science results on their resume, i.e placing high in well known contests, chess/other results, etc). One can argue that this is unfair to a small portion of students who have strong problem solving abilities but did not have the parental resources to participate in competitions from a young age. They would have scored very highly on a problem solving test giving letting them stand out to some degree, but now they cannot. Having an A or A+ in the typical algebra 1 class does not differentiate applicants abilities in math/science, because everyone will have that. Teacher recommendations does not really differentiate applicants, and essays certainly don't.

The test is never really a problem, it was used as just another data point and could be worth a whole little or a whole lot, depending on the applicant's other portions and if the admissions committee felt they needed it to weigh in decisions that were not clear cut. Now there is not much visibility into the students anymore, so I don't see the current process as very different from a lottery. Why pretend to have a painful admissions process that doesn't really distinguish students when they could have made it simple and just have a lottery? [/quote]

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