Reply to How does one prep place account for 25% of TJ Admissions?

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[quote=Anonymous]
[quote=Anonymous]

Great! Now we have expanded the conspiracy to include the parents as well! So that increases the number of people involved in this grand conspiracy to closer to a hundred. You are implying that Dr. Nostradamus Rao had a crystal ball and he knew that the questions from QuantQ for CO 2022 would be repeated for CO 2023. Then he somehow got parents (of means) of 28 children to sign on to his conspiracy in exchange for a discount, because these parents are sheep with no morals or independent thought. Then these parents co-opted their own children in this fraud without any compunction about what lesson it would send to their teenage children. And not a peep from anyone for 2 years, until July 2020, when one TJ child vents about how prep is unfair and in response another child replies in a comment that CO 23 test was same as CO 22 test (because of course teenagers would never exaggerate or present hearsay as fact). That is all the info you needed (together with the boast that 133 Curie kids were offered admission to TJ) to be convinced of this grand conspiracy, and defaming Curie and a whole group of Indian american parents and children without ever meeting Dr. Rao or anybody at Curie or any of those parents or children.

Other things to note: 
1) Not all of the 133 Curie kids that were offered admission to TJ would have accepted it. Many Loudoun students choose AOS/AET instead, and a few choose their base school. 
2) Sunshine Academy, enrichment center popular with  east asians (Chinese, Korean) for TJ Prep, reported that 85 of their students were offered admission to TJ. One middle school (Rachel Carson) sends around 80 kids to TJ each year, and another (Longfellow) sends around 60. And I suspect you will see a similar disproportionate concentration in the applicant pool as well.
3) It is not a big mystery why 60-70% of kids at TJ are asian origin. For a variety of reasons, advanced STEM education, allure to attend a reputed school, and some amount of associated pride/prestige, makes TJ immensely popular with asians, relative to other race/ethnic groups. It is reflected in the disproportionate number of asians in the applicant pool (about 60%). 
4) It is also not a big mystery that asian students are relatively academically ahead compared to other groups at all grade levels, which is reflected in SOLs, Grades etc. It's a complicated issue and I don't want to get into stereotypes or speculate about why that may be the case. But all demographic data and aggregate academic achievement for every school, school district, state is available publicly.
5) This is anecdotal, but Curie is fairly well known and popular among Indian parents/children motivated to apply to TJ/AOS/AET, for a variety of reasons, including the rigor, company of like-minded kids, having a study pattern and schedule etc, none of which having to do with any kind of fraud or dishonesty. I suspect it is similar with east asians and Sunshine academy.
6) Many more children that go to Curie don't get admission to TJ, that those that do. If there was any kind of scandal going on at Curie, someone would hear about it and blow the whistle.
So, while it may seem shocking to you, with all this background, it is not a big surprise to me that 133 Curie kids got admission.[/quote]

There is a big difference between conspiracy and fraud. All that would have had to happen is that a teacher would have asked students back in 2017, "Hey, do you remember any of the questions from the Quant-Q?", and for the students to answer that they did, and say what they were. In so doing, they would be helping other members of their community and possibly their younger siblings, so there is some fairly obvious motivation there. [b]But they signed a pledge not to, and if they did, that's fraud.[/b]

Now, if the company that produces the Quant-Q used LITERALLY THE SAME EXAM for two years, then yeah, that's pretty stupid and lazy. And I honestly doubt that - TJ Admissions would have considered that a testing irregularity and probably invalidated the results.

But I would be willing to bet that they use a question bank and multiple forms, and that some of the questions on some forms of the test might be the same year over year - that's believable.

TJ kids talk. At this point, it's a thing that is pretty universally accepted within their environment that Curie has access that they shouldn't, and that parents are paying for access to a secured exam. And it may be the case that other prep academies do as well! And there's no realistic way to investigate this on a broad scale, so people need to stop harping on the idea that "the cheaters should be expelled" or "investigate Dr. Rao". None of that is realistic, and distracts from the real issue.

There are students walking around at TJ in the classes of 2023 and 2024 who made the semifinalist pool because of this leak, and that's unfortunate - especially because names have been published, which will create speculation as to who belongs and who doesn't. And there's no way on earth to know if they got in because of information that they should have had access to. As any member of an underrepresented group knows, TJ is a brutal place to be when people believe that you don't belong there.

But the reality, again, is that the [b]secured exam is compromised and must never be used again[/b], for the precise reason that [b]FCPS is not allowed to do anything to unsecure it for the people who can't afford or choose not to participate in these prep academies.[/b]

The vast majority of what's posted above is irrelevant to these points. FCPS needs to improve the admissions process so that, if there must be testing of any kind, there is equal and unfettered[b] in-school access to prepare for it[/b], no matter your pre-existing academic level. The test must be delivered during the school day, just like the AMC or AIME, so that students do not have conflicts or transportation issues.

Right now, privilege and parents are masquerading as merit.[/quote]

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