TJ Admissions question

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How does admissions work if our kid goes to an Arlington middle school and more than 1.5% of kids have the highest possible GPA? Does it matter if most of those kids don't apply to TJ?

Arlington is not part of the 1.5% set aside. That is a FCPS thing. Any kid meeting the minimum requirements can apply and sit for the essays. The students are then selected to fill the 20 seats allotted to Arlington.

I’m not sure that’s correct. Per the video presentation on TJ’s website regarding the admission process, the 1.5% allocation applies to all public schools in the sending jurisdictions, not just those in Fairfax.

Arlington has 20 seats and 6 public middle schools and a number of private schools. Fewer than 1.5% of Arlington middle schoolers get to go to TJ.

Where are you getting this information? It is in direct conflict with what the TJ admissions person told everyone at the meeting in Arlington for students interested in TJ. She said 1.5% of EVERY middle school from any of the eligible counties.

That was my understanding as well. The 20 seat allocation PP was talking about was a budget issue from last year where Arlington paid for 20 seats. I was under the impression it won't apply this year and Arlington will have more like 30 seats based on the 1.5% of enrollment guarantee.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How does school decide top 1.5 % student? How is GPA calculated? FCPS only gives A grade (row score 93-100), does that mean all student have 4.0 GPA?

A 93 - 100
A- 90 - 92
B+ 87 - 89

Any students getting raw score of 93-100 will have GPA of 4.0.If more than 1.5% studnet qualifies with equal GPA then probably students are selected randonly.If student is taking Algbra 1 Honors then they get extra 0.5 GPA.

Incorrect on several fronts. At many schools, there will be more students with 4.0 GPAs than there are TJ spots. The students are picked primarily based on their essay responses. Scoring for the top 1.5% is the essay score + the GPA score + any experience factor points, with the essays being pretty heavily weighted. There is no GPA bump for math level or Honors classes. The kid taking the minimum required courseload, meaning Algebra I Honors, Honors Science, Honors Social Studies, and gen ed English who earns a 93% in each class will earn more points for GPA than the kid taking Pre-Calc Honors and AAP in all subjects, with 100% in everything except a 92% in AAP English. It is likely, however, that the second kid would have much better essays and still come out ahead of the first kid in the final rankings.

AAP kids have no choice but to take AAP courses in 7th/8th grade, are you saying, admission is designed to give priority to non-aap courses/expereince factor? 96% in AAP English will be much better than 98% in non-aap English. Same is true for 96% in Algebra 1 Honors vs 98% Algebra 1 (moin requirement).

The minimum bar is that the kid needs to be in Algebra I Honors by 8th grade and needs to take at least Honors for 3 out of the 4 core classes. There is no bonus weighting for anything above the minimum bar. Likewise, they're just looking at GPA and not the kid's percent in the class. They cannot tell the difference between a 100% A and a 93% A.

Then how will they calculate GPA? many kids will have 'A' grade with raw score between 93-100 raw. Does that mean all kids having A grade are having 4.0 GPA?

Yes.