Anonymous wrote:I'm probably the most active TJ reform advocate on these boards, and I don't have any need to see Curie or any individual students punished for what clearly happened here.

And what they did would not be an issue at all if the Quant-Q exam was not supposed to be secured. The SAT, ACT, LSAT, ACT Aspires, SHSAT, SSAT - all of these are unsecured exams.

Of all the prep academies that are out there - Optimal TJ Prep, Kate Dalby, Kumon, Mathnasium - this company got 51 kids in the first year, then 95 the second year, then 133 the third year. Those are enormous spikes for a company that has existed for as long as they have, in competition with a ton of other well-regarded companies in the area.

What we know because of what happened is that the secured exam is compromised. TJ Admissions makes a big deal every year about the fact that there's no prep available for this exam (unlike the two ACTs), and as a consequence, people believe that they must go into it blind. But there IS prep available, if you have $4200 and 16 months to spend on a company that has privileged access to it, that only exists in a part of Northern Virginia that is extremely far away from the major population centers of every race OTHER than Indian.

FCPS and TJ Admissions are not permitted to put out any prep material on the Quant-Q. They are disallowed legally by the company who makes the exam every year from doing so.

Other people want to go after Curie and the kids - fine. Whatever. My only point is that the exam is very obviously compromised at this point and therefore cannot be used(especially on a nationally-normed basis) to evaluate candidates for TJ.

In a year where holding the TJ exam under any circumstances is probably impossible because of COVID anyway, and where doing so would cause even more families to choose not to participate in the process, TJ Admissions needs to recognize that they have to make a change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Go on merit and how students perform on the tests. I have seen some brilliant poor students and really dumb rich kids. Merit and nothing else.

Ooops! If you go only by merit and performance what will happen to non-Asian-Americans? Oh no!!!

I would have no problem at all with that if the tests are kept under wraps and significantly changed on a yearly basis, such that prepping isn't quite as large of an advantage as it currently is. Likewise, I'd love to see the Young Scholars program be significantly strengthened, with free enrichment activities, summer camps, and some amount of general test prep given to URM and/or less wealthy students. I think both of these ideas would promote diversity, discourage extreme prepping, and still maintain TJ quality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In any international competitions, there is no such thing "racially balanced lottery".

International competitions can hardly be compared to public school. If TJ were an elite private school, I would have no problem with the admissions process working exactly how it does. Since it's a public school, it needs to be free from bias. Right now, it's nearly impossible for poor kids to get in, and still highly unlikely that solid middle class kids can compete with wealthy kids who can take expensive prep classes. On top of that, tightly knit cultural groups tend to share resources and information in a way that will give them an edge. Since AA and Hispanic kids will not have that level of a network providing advantages, the system needs to be revamped.

Also, you're somewhat wrong. . Most international competitions might not have racial balance, but they do have country balance. If the US gets only 6 slots, and you're the 7th best US competitor, you don't get to compete, even when you're better than the top person from most of the other countries competing.

Go on merit and how students perform on the tests. I have seen some brilliant poor students and really dumb rich kids. Merit and nothing else.

Ooops! If you go only by merit and performance what will happen to non-Asian-Americans? Oh no!!!

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Go on merit and how students perform on the tests. I have seen some brilliant poor students and really dumb rich kids. Merit and nothing else.

Ooops! If you go only by merit and performance what will happen to non-Asian-Americans? Oh no!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In any international competitions, there is no such thing "racially balanced lottery".

International competitions can hardly be compared to public school. If TJ were an elite private school, I would have no problem with the admissions process working exactly how it does. Since it's a public school, it needs to be free from bias. Right now, it's nearly impossible for poor kids to get in, and still highly unlikely that solid middle class kids can compete with wealthy kids who can take expensive prep classes. On top of that, tightly knit cultural groups tend to share resources and information in a way that will give them an edge. Since AA and Hispanic kids will not have that level of a network providing advantages, the system needs to be revamped.

Also, you're somewhat wrong. . Most international competitions might not have racial balance, but they do have country balance. If the US gets only 6 slots, and you're the 7th best US competitor, you don't get to compete, even when you're better than the top person from most of the other countries competing.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the parents get a discount or some other perk if their child brings back a question or two they saw on the test.

It hasn't remained underwraps - see facebook posts.

This school did not get 25%+ of those accepted in one year by chance. Absolutely no way.

Anonymous wrote:
Hypothetically speaking, for tests like this, they wouldn't ask any kid to memorize the whole thing. Instead, they would encourage each kid to memorize one problem, or after the test, they would ask the kids if they can remember any of the problems. If enough kids can give you even one problem, you end up with a decent question bank of what ought to be protected material.

I agree, though, with the PPs who said that the real problem is lazy professors or lazy test companies that re-use problems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's a fairly ridiculous assertion. AFAIK, the QuantQ is an online test. How would anyone provide it to Curie? The students don't bring home anything. That must be some fairly elaborate scheme. Some student decides to memorize the whole test instead of trying to solve the questions in the limited time available, and they commit the test to memory even while taking the other sections of the test (ACT Aspire). Then when they get home the decide to go to Curie and tell them all the questions that they memorize. And then lo and behold somehow the same test is repeated the following year? But if you or anyone has evidence of this elaborate scheme please come forward and report it to the authorities.