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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow. I am the PP who didn’t have the stats. 
I guess my gut feeling and cursory review of some data was right. That’s a huge increase in students applying to application schools over time. [/quote]

It is obviously an increase but it’s hard to say if it is a huge one.  We can’t know if those are all discrete students or overlap.[/quote]

Obviously a lot of overlap between the schools, but by following a single school’s numbers over time you can see an obvious increase in absolute application numbers.  That doesn’t tell you whether the number of “good” applicants is increasing, but PP pointed to some other data (eg the NMSF).

So there are more applicants, plus more and more of the applicants are highly qualified students. [/quote]

You don’t know that more and more of the applicants are highly qualified.  [/quote]

Out of curiosity, why would you make the assumption that with more applicants fewer are in fact highly qualified?  It just seems like a weird hill to die on.  And an illogical assumption.[/quote]

DP.

Because the admissions requirements change every year and have altered dramatically over the past 5 years or so, because the admissions standards don’t weed out less qualified applicants, because there is more grade inflation, etc.  As a result, it is easier for less qualified applicants to get in.  Hence, more applicants but relatively fewer higher-quality admits.[/quote]

I think the effect of dropping the exam is counteracted by the rising number of qualified students in DC.

Think about it: both TJ and Walls dropped their exam the same year. This year is the first senior class admitted without exams. The number of NMSFs at TJ went down, from like 150 to 80. But the number of NMSFs at Walls actually went up, from 5 to 6. Of course the number of NMSFs in DC went up by even more, from 28 to 47. This means that without the exam Walls isn’t capturing as high a portion of the high-scoring kids in DC, but the quality of the student body is not declining. [/quote]

The TJ stats are shocking though, a 50% decline compared to like a 12% decline in VA. [/quote]

Yes and not only that but the caliber of the kids who got in is definitely lower. They needed to support kids with remedial math, teachers complaining that kids are not prepared to take freshmen classes, teachers leaving, etc…

They have also dropped significantly in rankings and are no longer #1 school in the country.

It’s sad to see, because TJ is probably the only school in the DMV who could support gifted kids, challenge them, and offered courses base schools did not.  Sure, smart above average kids were there but they had to work their ass off.

I hope the families win the lawsuit against FCPS.

Ironically, these equity moves does nothing to help the kids they want. Many kids can’t handle it and end up dropping out of TJ and go back to their base school.  At least the courses have not been summed down yet. [/quote]
Just to compare it to Walls and greater DC, it does seem first that Walls is at least stable in selecting kids who can get the NMSF (small sample size warning!), and second that DC is holding on to kids who can get NMSF but were leaving for whatever reason. [/quote]

Those statements don’t really hold up with such a small sample size and 1 year difference.

The bigger and more important question is why does DCPS lose such great students to the private schools instead of keeping them. Look at the percentages at schools that have finalists.

We all know what the answer to that is. [/quote]
The small privates are some of the best high schools in the world. If my kid were on the IMO track or whatever, I’d move heaven and earth to get them into St Albans (my smartest coauthor went there, easily one of the smartest people I have ever met in any capacity). So it’s not quite fair. [/quote]

Hmmmm. Definitely making me think. I placed in math Olympiad, and my younger son is a total math savant. Both parents NMSF. he's still in elementary in DCPS and his older brother is doing fine at BASIS (he's a very strong student but not off the charts like my younger). Right now I'm doing Beast Academy with the little one, but I wonder every day how to do the right thing for them both. [/quote]

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