While staying out of the wider discussion, I do want to say we get results comparable to TJ pulling from a much smaller population and with a much less selective standard. We have maybe 300 in-district applications a year and maybe 250 meet our fairly modest standards.
We have another 100 or so put of district applications, but most years, none of them are offered a seat. So I think TJ will survive.
Also, that article said the plan was to open some seats to a lottery, not all of them.
There is certainly a minimum standard. You have to be able to read college level textbooks and formulate written answers to complex questions. And writing reveals logical thinking. A kid with a middling math score but a top English score is as likely to be successful in our program as one with a top math score and a bad English score.
Certainly there is a minimum standard; the kid who cannot write coherently at all isn’t likely to be a good fit. However, there’s a difference between “meets minimum standard” and “selected based upon writing a great essay.” If you are using the essay as a selector, then the student with a top math score and so-so to poor English scores isn’t going to be in the program anyway, even though that combination isn’t a predictor of lack of success in the program.
Are the students with a 3.5 GPA as likely to be successful at TJHSST as the ones with a 4.0? I could see it going either way. OP assumes the answer is no, but that in turn assumes that the current greater selectivity is focusing on factors that really predict success, and that last is not yet in evidence.
I don’t think we really disagree; my point is just that there is a place for an English assessment in a STEM program assessment.
Students who sit right at the minimum requirements (3.5 GPA and currently enrolled in Algebra 1 – i.e. a sizable chunk of my 8th grade class) are unlikely to even access most of the school’s advanced curriculum. Although that may very well be the case now; just because they offer multivariable and real analysis doesn’t mean many kids are actually taking them.
To give a sense of relative scale, 250 seats in a district (assuming DISD) with ~40k high school students vs 500 seats across five districts with ~100k* students. So roughly similar availability. But much much greater demand for TJ, based on the application numbers. I don’t know if that’s due to a disparity of alternative programs in NOVA, or different attitudes about education in NOVA vs TX (certainly true of west TX, where I lived, but I can’t speak for the rest of the state.)
*I just divided total enrollment by 4, so there’s some uncertainty here.
How many of those kids are ambitious enough to try and get into this kind of school, deal with the longer commute, all knowing that the work is going to be much, much harder than what they have now?
Once again, this will destroy the school as it is today. If that is the goal then this is a success. If there is any merit to having a school for the best and brightest of a community, then this is a failure.
Once again 90% of applicants have a 3.5 GPA. It is not even close to being as selective as the current standard. Tjhsst is currently the best high school in the country according to several metrics. It will cease to be so after this.
As for the big fish in the little pond effect, there is an opposite effect that I would call “run with the swift” There is a benefit to be gained from exposure to appropriate competition. Sure some kids are better off being big fish in small ponds but every child already has that option, noone is forced to attend tjhsst. This proposal eliminates the other option.
If we take the top 3% of a group and put them together, that top 3% will benefit from internal competition that they would not gain in a more diluted general population. And sure the kids at the 90th percentile could probably keep up and benefit as well but it is of doubtful benefit to the kids at the 80th percentile or 75th percentile. If we are going to dilute that group for social justice purposes, that social justice benefit has to be more than merely equality of outcome. If the child is a descendant of slaves or native american, then I would put aside all qualms. I actually don’;t have a problem with modest quotas. If the dilutes the pool to make room for kids based on poverty, I put aside my qualms and would support a preference for poor kids. But that is not what this does.
It dilutes the pool overwhelmingly for hispanics and whites at the expense of asians.
Generally I agree that this is a reasonable standard. Academic performance is a reasonable gauge of academic ability. I would note that the “math and science” grades are not broken out until phase 2. The first cut is made based on test scores (which mostly tests, math, science and english) and overall gpa. This creates a pool of qualified applicants, only then are the other things considered.
I would be perfectly happy with eliminating the second phase of the admissions process. That is the holistic phase that is intended to help bolster “diversity” I think that purely academic criteria is more fair than adding subjective criteria at the end that is purportedly intended to bolster urm admissions but has really only ever bolstered white admissions.
Academic merit in this context seems pretty easy to measure. There is always some fuzziness at the margins but that fuzziness does not work in favor of or against any large group.
Application numbers have been discussed.
I was specifically referring to those kids on the bubble that you mentioned. It’s not really a “risk” to the school that those kids would apply and get in, since it takes a level of initiative that kids on the bubble, who weren’t planning on taking advanced classes anyway, just don’t have.
Unless I read you wrong, I thought you were worried that kids with a 3.5 average and are in Algebra 1, but not otherwise academically ambitious would apply and bring down the school. If that’s not what you meant, I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part.
Your average SAT score is ~1510 without high selectivity among applicants? What school is this?
I don’t see that in their announcement. Which article are you referring to?
I think that a 3.5+ students will do just fine in a population randomly selected from a group of 3.5+ students. I think that randomly selected population will necessarily be less competitive than a population of students that have a median gpa of 4.0
90% of the 3000 student applicant pool would qualify for the lottery. Presumably the overwhelming majority of the kids that applied are willing to make this commute. ironically, the dilution of standards is likely to reduce the applicant pool significantly and reduce the challenge level of the work.
Our SAT score is not quite that high but we regularly rank right up with them on the US News and World Report rankings; we were ahead once or twice in the last ten years, but they keep changing the metrics and there is some flux. You don’t just go to a school like TJ (or us, or the other twenty or so) because it’s the same classes as your homeschool but better classmates; you go because they offer programs and a culture of achievement your home school does not.
I messed up my numbers. We have about 300 apply from in district; we take 125 or so. Of the 300, about 150 meet our admissions standards, usually.
1136 applicants were in algebra 1; 931 of them had GPAs below the current median of 4.0, 286 of them had GPAs above the required 3.5 under the new proposal. 4 of them were offered admission. Under the new plan (assuming the same exact applicant pool about 50 of them (or 10% would be admitted, about 10% of the entering class).
931 out of 3067 applicants had a gpa of 4.0.
With this change I suspect the pool of applicants will shift dramatically to a much more localized pool that won’t have to travel very far to attend.
I agree but i don’t see how you get the concentration of that kind of talent without a fairly selective admissions process. Do you have some method of maintaining a high quality talent pool (like you only accept applications from gt programs or something?).
Nope. We have substantial remediation programs, though. Look at my above description of how we approach our slowest math track, about a quarter of our kids.
To test in, you need to have a solid algebra background. But our admissions test basically looks like an Alg 1 final exam. Kids who get half the questions correct often get in: there is a logic test and an essay to shore them up, if they are good thinkers but have had poor instruction.
Now, I believe TJ has sports and shit. We don’t do that . . .math and CS and science all the way down. But you can do a lot with solid kids and a solid program.
ETA: the criteria to apply is a B average in your academic classes and top 30% on state assessments.
I care very little about “bringing the school down”, ranking, etc. Others here might. I care about having content available to students at a level that’s appropriate for them. If kids are capable of the advanced content this school is offering, and it’s the only place offering it, and there aren’t enough seats for them, then that’s a problem. Then maybe lotterying it is the best path (although I’d push for expanding the program.)
However, I don’t believe that even motivated students are likely to access that advanced content if they’re only meeting the current minimum requirements. We’re talking 8th graders in algebra 1 – not exactly wizards. I think it would be a shame to bump a kid who can only take real analysis at TJ for a kid who can take calc 1 wherever.
I do hope that for those students, there is still appropriate content being offered, either at their local school or at other magnet schools.
And maybe there’s only like 10 kids taking the really advanced coursework. If that’s the case, then this whole partial lottery thing that’s being implemented makes more sense than if if most of the kids are taking the really advanced stuff.
The overwhelming majority of kids at tjhsst are taking geometry in 8th grade. Calculus is probably sophomore year for many of the students.
I’ve been trying to find this information, if you could direct me to it.