Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And it's ironic that you'd use inflammatory rhetoric to attack those trying to preserve what they saw as a merit-based process when the current School Board could just as readily be accused of doing its utmost to tear the place apart by favoring students with "experience factors" that are a soft proxy for race and lower SES.

Or pretending to use experience factors. They are using a question that every student can answer yes and get those experience factors.
They just want to be seen as taking more low-income kids, knowing that they are just taking high-income kids who checked the box.

+1. The free meals question should have been thrown out.

I heard they checked this and disqualified anyone who lied.

If they have lied on the application, what is the guarantee they haven't gotten outside help in writing essay answers using some high schoolers or parents themselves helping the kids. It is unethical and should be disqualified. It is FCPS making admission decision and they know who are in the meals program and who are not.

That's why the essays should be proctored but even that may be unfair when you consider many kids take classes on exactly how to write these. This also confers an unfair advantage to them over anyone who did not spend the time and money on third party help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sad part about the new vetting process is that many people will assume admitted students lied on the application and received assistance with the essays. I do believe that the admissions process was due for an overhaul but the redesign wasn’t very thoughtful.

How could you offer it online and not expect cheating, with mechanism to detect it?

While people could have done some copy and paste and tweaked the answers for SPS questions, for the Heredity question - you really had to know the stuff and how to solve it. There wasn't much time to google and writeup the answer in 30 mins. Hopefully they give more weightage to the STEM question than SPS.

There are many better ways to cheat than that including getting an adult to "explain" the question.

Hopefully that is not parents are teaching their children

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sad part about the new vetting process is that many people will assume admitted students lied on the application and received assistance with the essays. I do believe that the admissions process was due for an overhaul but the redesign wasn’t very thoughtful.

How could you offer it online and not expect cheating, with mechanism to detect it?

While people could have done some copy and paste and tweaked the answers for SPS questions, for the Heredity question - you really had to know the stuff and how to solve it. There wasn't much time to google and writeup the answer in 30 mins. Hopefully they give more weightage to the STEM question than SPS.

There are many better ways to cheat than that including getting an adult to "explain" the question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sad part about the new vetting process is that many people will assume admitted students lied on the application and received assistance with the essays. I do believe that the admissions process was due for an overhaul but the redesign wasn’t very thoughtful.

How could you offer it online and not expect cheating, with mechanism to detect it?

While people could have done some copy and paste and tweaked the answers for SPS questions, for the Heredity question - you really had to know the stuff and how to solve it. There wasn't much time to google and writeup the answer in 30 mins. Hopefully they give more weightage to the STEM question than SPS.

Anonymous wrote:The sad part about the new vetting process is that many people will assume admitted students lied on the application and received assistance with the essays. I do believe that the admissions process was due for an overhaul but the redesign wasn’t very thoughtful.

How could you offer it online and not expect cheating, with mechanism to detect it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A thirteen year old who has been getting free lunch for the past two years would say yes without trying to be clever.

This is so true. DC replied honestly to this question b/c he had been getting free lunch (and eating it). I didn't even find out about this question/his answer until fairly recently.

Run with that, go for it. But no one really believes that. Too many people on this board and in other places have discussed selecting that they get free meals based on the last few years knowing the intent of the question and that they are using a loop hole.

+1

The sad part about the new vetting process is that many people will assume admitted students lied on the application and received assistance with the essays. I do believe that the admissions process was due for an overhaul but the redesign wasn’t very thoughtful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A thirteen year old who has been getting free lunch for the past two years would say yes without trying to be clever.

This is so true. DC replied honestly to this question b/c he had been getting free lunch (and eating it). I didn't even find out about this question/his answer until fairly recently.

Run with that, go for it. But no one really believes that. Too many people on this board and in other places have discussed selecting that they get free meals based on the last few years knowing the intent of the question and that they are using a loop hole.

My 13 yo DD has been getting free lunch all year but she is smart enough to know the intent of the question. Also, parents were supposed to look over and sign off on the application.

Anonymous wrote:A thirteen year old who has been getting free lunch for the past two years would say yes without trying to be clever.

This is so true. DC replied honestly to this question b/c he had been getting free lunch (and eating it). I didn't even find out about this question/his answer until fairly recently.

A thirteen year old who has been getting free lunch for the past two years would say yes without trying to be clever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And it's ironic that you'd use inflammatory rhetoric to attack those trying to preserve what they saw as a merit-based process when the current School Board could just as readily be accused of doing its utmost to tear the place apart by favoring students with "experience factors" that are a soft proxy for race and lower SES.

Or pretending to use experience factors. They are using a question that every student can answer yes and get those experience factors.
They just want to be seen as taking more low-income kids, knowing that they are just taking high-income kids who checked the box.

+1. The free meals question should have been thrown out.

I heard they checked this and disqualified anyone who lied.

If they have lied on the application, what is the guarantee they haven't gotten outside help in writing essay answers using some high schoolers or parents themselves helping the kids. It is unethical and should be disqualified. It is FCPS making admission decision and they know who are in the meals program and who are not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And it's ironic that you'd use inflammatory rhetoric to attack those trying to preserve what they saw as a merit-based process when the current School Board could just as readily be accused of doing its utmost to tear the place apart by favoring students with "experience factors" that are a soft proxy for race and lower SES.

Or pretending to use experience factors. They are using a question that every student can answer yes and get those experience factors.
They just want to be seen as taking more low-income kids, knowing that they are just taking high-income kids who checked the box.

+1. The free meals question should have been thrown out.

I heard they checked this and disqualified anyone who lied.

The way it was worded everyone could have answered yes. It would be easy enough to verify.

Not really people knew they were lying and should be disqualified if they answered yes when financially they don’t qualify.

OR

THE TJ ADMISSIONS OFFICE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN HOW TO WRITE THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS.

Seriously. Did they not have ANYONE with half a brain read the meals questions ahead of time?

I was wondering if the question was purposely worded the way it was. That way the admissions office could claim “economic diversity” wink wink nod nod.

I’ve wondered this as well. Would not surprise me. It was pointed out to the admissions office and they choose not to fix or address it.

Wasn't lunch free for everyone?

Yes. The question is more appropriate for years were lunch isn't free for everyone because it identifies kids who have been at an economic disadvantage and less likely to have had some of the extra curriculars that other kids have done. COVID funds have been used to make lunch free for everyone so some people felt they were being clever by saying that they qualified for free meals. It wasn't a lie, because everyone was eligible for free meals, but it is not what the admissions people were looking for. Legally allowable, ethically questionable but some folks don't care because they see it as a way of increasing their chance to be selected for TJ and that is all that matters to them. Because the TJ Admissions folks won't see through that BS when they are looking at the candidates from MS that feed into the high SES high schools and see that the number of kids "eligible for free meals" applying for TJ is far higher then the number of FARMS kids attending those MS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And it's ironic that you'd use inflammatory rhetoric to attack those trying to preserve what they saw as a merit-based process when the current School Board could just as readily be accused of doing its utmost to tear the place apart by favoring students with "experience factors" that are a soft proxy for race and lower SES.

Or pretending to use experience factors. They are using a question that every student can answer yes and get those experience factors.
They just want to be seen as taking more low-income kids, knowing that they are just taking high-income kids who checked the box.

+1. The free meals question should have been thrown out.

I heard they checked this and disqualified anyone who lied.

The way it was worded everyone could have answered yes. It would be easy enough to verify.

Not really people knew they were lying and should be disqualified if they answered yes when financially they don’t qualify.

OR

THE TJ ADMISSIONS OFFICE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN HOW TO WRITE THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS.

Seriously. Did they not have ANYONE with half a brain read the meals questions ahead of time?

I was wondering if the question was purposely worded the way it was. That way the admissions office could claim “economic diversity” wink wink nod nod.

I’ve wondered this as well. Would not surprise me. It was pointed out to the admissions office and they choose not to fix or address it.

Wasn't lunch free for everyone?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And it's ironic that you'd use inflammatory rhetoric to attack those trying to preserve what they saw as a merit-based process when the current School Board could just as readily be accused of doing its utmost to tear the place apart by favoring students with "experience factors" that are a soft proxy for race and lower SES.

Or pretending to use experience factors. They are using a question that every student can answer yes and get those experience factors.
They just want to be seen as taking more low-income kids, knowing that they are just taking high-income kids who checked the box.

+1. The free meals question should have been thrown out.

I heard they checked this and disqualified anyone who lied.

The way it was worded everyone could have answered yes. It would be easy enough to verify.

Not really people knew they were lying and should be disqualified if they answered yes when financially they don’t qualify.

OR

THE TJ ADMISSIONS OFFICE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN HOW TO WRITE THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS.

Seriously. Did they not have ANYONE with half a brain read the meals questions ahead of time?

I was wondering if the question was purposely worded the way it was. That way the admissions office could claim “economic diversity” wink wink nod nod.

I’ve wondered this as well. Would not surprise me. It was pointed out to the admissions office and they choose not to fix or address it.