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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yeah not taking the Currie parent or employee posts seriously on this thread. Its self serving to rant about going to the FBI and trying to shut down the conversation. Obviously they have an interest in keeping things under wraps[/quote]Good for you and bless your heart. You are free to choose what you want to take seriously and what you consider to be "self serving rant" and to be as cynical as you choose. I'm not sure what it is you (or as many of you who are perpetuating this) are trying to achieve, but good luck with that.[/quote]

I mean, I’ve tried to be clear.

The Quant-Q is supposed to be so secure that FCPS and TJ admissions are not allowed to release any prep materials. So plenty of kids and families believe that they have to go in relatively blind and have no idea what to expect. TJ admissions changed to this for the class of 2022 for this reason and to create this outcome, limiting the influence of prep and leveling the playing field.

From 2021 to 2022, the numbers of Asian admits went down by 10 points and the numbers of everyone else went up.

Then in 2023 and 24, the numbers went back to more or less regular.

TJ kids are saying that one specific prep center gave an amount of information that is supposed to be impossible, because no one who sees the exam is allowed to discuss it per their pledge.

Given that FCPS can not legally release materials to prep, they need to change the exam or else the admissions process will be unfair to anyone who didn’t pay thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours at this prep center.

Regardless of why this happened, or who is at fault, it happened and therefore the Quant-Q cannot be used. Familiarity with the problem types on this exam is a GIGANTIC advantage - many students who take it run out of time even if they have the ability to solve the problems.[/quote]QuantQ is a math/logical reasoning test. It is not rocket science or a mythical unicorn as it is being portrayed on this forum. Acing a math test of any type at or ahead of their grade level is the least of the problems for most kids applying to TJ. Most of them take Algebra2/Trig in 8th grade, have won or ranked high on a number of math competitions (math counts, math olympiad, VML, other school/city/state/national math bowls etc.) As far as Curie somehow getting access to "protected material" that nobody else has access to, I don't know what exactly the protected material is, but I found at least 6 TJHSST QuantQ books on Amazon from different prep centers (Solomon Academy, A4E, Young Scholars Circle). Just search for QuantQ on Amazon. My child and his friends all said at the time the the math portion of the TJ test, as well as for AOS/AET was much easier compared to what they had already been exposed to at school, at all the math competitions and at Curie. Go spend some time with 7th or 8th Grade kids at Rachel Carson or Longfellow. You'll quickly realize that they don't need any extra helping hand or shady tricks to ace QuantQ or any such math/reasoning test. Also, since the most important premise of your conspiracy theory is this supposed pledge, my child doesn't remember signing any pledge. But I'll take your word that there is a pledge since its been a few years now. Even if there is a pledge, I doubt it is enforceable against or even understood by a tween/teen. And the business model of this super secretive QuantQ test publisher that runs tests around the country relies on pledges given to tweens/teens, Really?[/quote]

Good grief. The Quant-Q is supposed to be a test of native quantitative ability. It should be very easy for some students and very difficult for others because it relies on mathematical reasoning ability and processing speed rather than pure math exposure and advancement.

Students are not exposed to these types of problems in any type of traditional schooling - even in AAP. But some students are naturally gifted at figuring these out - and that’s what using it for TJ admissions was for. Because it was secured. But students can be taught to identify these problems and how to strategize to solve them quickly and efficiently.

The point was to separate the kids who are truly gifted from the ones who had been prepped.

If you’ve been around TJ for any amount of time at all, you see students there who will run into something they’ve never seen before and completely freeze. They have no native problem-solving skills - they’ve spent their whole lives relying on being taught every single thing they know. These are the students who are at TJ because they have been prepped beyond their actual ability to masquerade as a student with real talent, and they struggle mightily when they arrive at TJ. They suffer from intense self-worth issues because their colleagues are so much more naturally talented than they are. They don’t have to stay up until 1 AM every night just to keep up. They get worse grades than their talented peers, and they get hammered by their parents, who invested tons of resources to get them to this point. And they get into worse colleges than their peers because they are compared with TJ students in the application process.

These are the kids who do not belong at TJ. But their parents love the social status, and the bumper sticker, and the feeling of superiority - bought and paid for with their kids’ emotional well-being. Seen it hundreds of times over the years. It’s one of the saddest parts of the TJ experience. And more talented, less advanced students don’t suffer that same fate. They just don’t. But they’re crowded out of a flawed process by parents who are obsessed with prestige and status at the expense of development.[/quote]

And yes, if you are a gifted problem solver, the Quant-Q will be easier than an SHSAT-style algebra exam. If you are not, it will be much, much harder - unless someone has shown you how to identify the specific problem types and the precise strategies for solving each one. Prep for the Quant-Q makes the Quant-Q pointless.[/quote]

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