Reply to Using Noetic Math Contest Results in TJ Application?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your kid can try to weave this in to one of the essays, but the key is not to force it.  First and foremost, the kid should make sure that they are actually answering the essay prompt.  If the prompt is about being an ethical and global citizen, the answer should not be about doing well in a math competition.  If the prompt is about being a goal-directed and resilient individual, the answer still shouldn’t just be that the kid did well in a math competition.  But if the kid overcame an obstacle and/or set a goal to do well in the competition, then the accomplishment can be slipped-in on that prompt.  But even then, the essay shouldn’t just list this as an accomplishment; instead, it should focus on the kid and say something about the kid’s personality and how it maps on to the attributes they are looking for, perhaps noting that this was the end result of the kid’s overcoming an obstacle or achieving a goal.  At the end of the day, the priority should be to write an essay that 1) says something about the kid and why they would fit into TJ; and 2) why TJ would benefit from having them attend (in other words, what would the kid add to the TJ community and its learning environment).  The accomplishments can support those themes, but they need to serve the essay’s overall goal of responding to the prompts.[/quote]

I agree.  If a kid were to force it and somewhat clumsily weave a major achievement into the essays, like making USAJMO, Mathcounts nationals, Science Olympiad nationals, or even AMC 10 top 1% honor roll, it still may likely help the kid.  For everything else, they really need to answer the portrait of a graduate essay question being asked.  They're likely to still be impressed by great results at known math or science competitions if the results are well integrated into an essay that is responsive to the question.  I doubt it's worth even trying to insert fringe contest results or somewhat mediocre achievements into the essay, unless they somehow are a perfect illustration of whatever trait the essays is requesting.

If anything, I would think that using Noetic Math contest results in absence of other math competition results would backfire.  It's a largely unknown contest that gives out a lot of awards and is relatively easy.  If your kid is portraying themselves as a math whiz who is into math contests, but they don't have good results from the two most known and most major middle school contests, it would not speak highly of your kid's abilities.  [/quote]

OK that's a bit extreme.

Only about 40 kids from NoVa qualify for Mathcounts State. Far fewer USAJMO (even ignoring they were talking about 7th grade achievements for TJ admissions.)
Thats plenty impressive for showing a math whiz who puts in sustained effort, even if you  consider 80% of TJ as being non-math specialists who pursue other  less-mathy sciences. (A lot of the other sciences still have people who excel at math)

Someone who qualified for their school mathcounts cohort of 12 students (especially doing so in 7th grade) and scored at least around median at Chapter, is well qualified for TJ. [/quote]
But we're not talking about what makes a kid "well qualified" for TJ.  We're talking about what makes the kid stand out in the applications process or makes TJ admissions overlook the fact that the kid's answer to the essay wasn't really responsive to the essay prompt.   You're arguing about what would make a kid TJ material.  I'm arguing about what would make a kid be in the top 50 kids who absolutely deserve to be admitted to TJ.  [/quote]

Not sure if you’re the same poster, but up thread the argument was that if a kid didn’t make it to AMC8 honor roll he might not be a good fit for TJ.

You don’t seem to have a good sense of how often this occurs. There’s about 140000 students taking AMC8 and presumably 14000 get to the honor roll from about 4 million 8th graders nationally.

FCPS has about 15000 students per grade so if the ratio is the same then on average about 50 students make the honor roll. That’s rare enough to be considered outstanding for TJ admissions.[/quote]
Quoted PP here.  I'm not the same poster who suggested that everyone admitted to TJ should be making AMC 8 honor roll.  I am, however, the poster who suggested that a lot of the top kids stop bothering with AMC 8 once they're at AIME level.  I totally agree that AMC 8 honor roll kids would be among the top 100 kids in math admitted to TJ out of each cohort.  That being said, only having AMC 8 honor roll and not having some sort of AMC 10 or Mathcounts achievement, or even fringe/lesser contests like MOEMS, CML, Noetic, Math Kangaroo, would make the kid look like they were a lucky guesser or heavily prepped rather than being a true math talent.  Even in the old system that rewarded accomplishments, I doubt that AMC honor roll in isolation would have much of an impact on admissions.

You're still overlooking the main point, though, which is that TJ changed the admissions process to give no weight to significant achievements.  The achievement would need to be HUGE for them to either award bonus points beyond what the essay would normally merit or to bypass their process altogether.  I'm not sure that they even care about admitting kids with elite achievements, like qualifying for USAJMO or Mathcounts nationals.  [/quote]

Many of the very top math kids don't care about these silly contests because they are more focused on real math.[/quote]

I wouldn’t discount the achievement of making the honor roll, but I agree there are other areas of math, science, or engineering where a student can excel.

I’d say the student has a good chance of admission if it’s weaved into the essay and it comes through in their voice to show internal drive as opposed to “my tiger mom made me do it”.

In the end competition math is just one manifestation of being both passionate and good at math. Some honors in AMC show the good ar math part, but the the passion still needs to come through.[/quote]

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