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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What do you mean when you say top students? All As or something else.[/quote]

Someone posted on here there were rejections of kids who qualified for USAJMO in 7th grade.  This is a contest that takes around the top 100 math students in the country.  And that is among 10th graders and below.
7th or 8th grader to make this in Virginia is rare, but they couldn't find room in a class of 500.  They also reject5 winners of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, and other contests.
Really anyone who qualifies for the earlier round AIME should be accepted.[/quote]

Followup- I described the top students statewide who were getting rejected.  But TJ has a minimum quota per school and selects from within a school first.  By top students I am looking at top MathCounts students who qualify for state, vs your all A students that are just OK at math, taking geometry or maybe algebra 1.  Last year- the school had students who didn't accept four algebra 2 kids, one qualified for MathCounts nationals, another was in top 12 at MathCounts State, another was on a top team at state MathCounts and won awards in computer programming, another won lots of awards in chess rated 2000+.  The students who were accepted probably had all As but were not known as standout students.   One was plausible- an Algebra 2 student who was solid on the MathCounts team but not winning at the chapter level.  Almost all accepted were Asian so it not a racial factor as many are suggesting.[/quote]

The proposal I've had for some time to enhance the present admissions process is to create a standardized teacher recommendation form asking teachers to evaluate applicants against students in their own class.

So essentially, design a form that lets teachers rate the students across a broad spectrum of metrics:
- command of the material
- academic integrity
- commitment to learning for its own sake
- contributions to the overall class environment
- intellectual curiosity in STEM
- 
- etc.

... using a rating scale including "Poor", "Below Average", "Average", "Above Average", "Superior", and "One of the best I've seen". But the key is that the teacher should be evaluating the students more or less against each other, so that when an application evaluator is reviewing a batch from, say, a Geometry teacher at Carson, they should be seeing ratings across the spectrum. If that teacher is rating every student as "Superior" or higher, it becomes clear that that teacher's evaluations aren't to be taken seriously.

A recommendation form of this type should take no more than 5 minutes to fill out at most. I'd also invite the opportunity for each teacher recommender to select a maximum of 3-5 students to write more expansively about if they so chose - whether to encourage the admissions personnel to admit the student or, perhaps equally importantly, to let them know to avoid a student who, for example, cheated on an assignment or would otherwise contribute negatively to the TJ environment.

PP, would you agree that a process like the above would enhance the likelihood that the right 45 students or so were selected from places like Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run, etc?[/quote]

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