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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Former staff here.  Agree with previous commenter that if this stops over-acceleration in math that would be a good thing, although I still think parents will push their kids ahead.  However, I have several concerns about this process:

-Most teachers that I know feel that the student information sheet as it exists now is a terrible part of the application and measures what activities parents push their kids into, not anything intrinsic to the student.  Several years ago they did an analysis that found that the student information sheet was negatively correlated with performance at TJ, and now that's the only qualification for the lottery other than GPA?  Doesn't seem great.

-A ton of kids get straight A's in middle school, and you need some way of differentiating those who get straight A's because they are really smart, and those who get straight A's because they spend all their time being tutored, retake everything, etc.  In an ideal process the test and teacher recommendations would provide this information, but it does seem like the test is more and more reflective of who had access to certain prep programs rather than actual ability.

-The lottery offers the potential for the very best student in all of FCPS to be rejected because they were unlucky.  This seems awful.

My proposal would be to include grades and teacher/principal recommendations and no student information sheet (I do feel that ideally there should be an admissions test, but I don't know that in reality there exists a test that reflects ability rather than prep courses), and use this to select the top ~150 students for admission.  Then the remaining ~350 students who meet minimum qualifications can be accepted through some sort of geographic lottery.  This way the kids who truly need to be at TJ would not be subject to the whims of a lottery, and there are still plenty of opportunities for students from all backgrounds to gain admission.  (The 150/350 numbers are flexible; if data shows that it's closer to ~100 students who stand out from the pack, we could make it a 100/400 split; just have some way to provide a better "guarantee" that the very top students get accepted.)[/quote]

Alumna here.  This sounds like a great proposal.  I think I would have been fine at my base school, although I was certainly challenged more at TJ, but thinking of certain of my classmates, it blows my mind to think they might be denied admission under this system. [/quote]

Even with the old system, not every deserving student got in. Just like with top colleges, not every deserving student is admitted.

The harsh truth is that there will always be winners and losers in any system.

Larlo and Larla won't fail at life because they didn't get into TJ. Odds are, they will be perfectly fine. Their parents though...[/quote]

Of course no system is perfect.  But IMHO, the admissions process was pretty good at identifying the superstar students; it was differentiating between the very good vs somewhat above average students where it struggled more.  An admissions process would certainly be better at identifying these superstar students than a random lottery.

And I don't think it's fair to say that many of these superstar students will be "perfectly fine" if they don't go to TJ.  I think a lot of them would be pretty miserable to be in a school where there are only a couple other kids on their intellectual level.[/quote]

The snotty reference to Larlo and Larla is just as offensive as the Amazon argument, IMO. I agree that there are some truly exceptional kids at TJ (think about 20 or so in each class) who will not be best served by remaining at their base school - I agree that some system that allows MS principals to identify these kids - just a handful - outside a lottery would be a good idea. Believe me - they are not the prep course takers - they are so beyond that level. [/quote]

Pro-TJ reform and I agree with this. I actually think the number is a little larger overall. There is a person in Student Services at each MS who, as part of their job, is responsible for liaising with the TJ Admissions Office. That person would be a good person to make those calls.[/quote]

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