Official TJ Admissions Decisions Results for the Class of 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
+1 Except I think the new system needs more discernment to identify the strongest kids who lack access. Maybe it's a test that's only slightly weighted? Maybe it's teacher recommendation? I think some stratification by middle school is a good idea--distributes access more widely and will likely improve the STEM EC offerings at more middle schools.

14:32 PP here. I certainly don't disagree with anything you've posted here. Identifying brilliant kids who lack access or even bright, exceptionally hardworking kids who lack access is great. The new system does not do this, as it lacks any meaningful metrics. Taking the top 1.5% from each middle school is fine, but they're not taking the correct 1.5% with the new system. Perhaps the best system would be a hybrid approach of the old and new systems. Re-establish the TJ test, but only use it to identify kids who have amazing scores and kids who have scores that are so low that they indicate that the kid will struggle at TJ. For everyone else, they shouldn't really give the test much weight. They can still look at ECs and teacher recommendations, but all students should be evaluated only in comparison to the other kids from their middle school. Math placement also should be evaluated in comparison to the other kids at the same MS. If it's a school where few kids are taking Algebra in 7th, then 8th grade Algebra is fine. If it's a school where 10%+ take Algebra in 7th and even a decent number are taking Algebra II in 8th, then 8th grade Geometry should be the minimum requirement.

FWIW, I think the Curie kids are a bit of a red herring. For the most part, they're taking the LCPS allocated seats and not really competing with FCPS kids.

I agree with this. The prior approach was not working; the new approach lacks meaningful discernment. I personally think it will be easier to add meaningful metrics to improve the new system than to have meaningfully tweaked the old system, but who knows really. I think advocates should definitely focus on finding meaningful improvements that increase access and identify strongest students distributed across FCPS (and Arlington/LCPS etc).

Ugh. While I agree with the sentiments of the latest posts, I can't let stand the swipe at the "prior approach" which produced the top school in the nation. If there's a better metric, I'm all ears. And the primary criticism is one of "equity" based almost solely on race, with claims of "not fair!" for those who prioritized and actually prepared for entrance exams...

Producing a top public school in the nation (as ranked by organizations with weird metrics too) when it has extremely uneven distribution in the county is an issue. We live in an area dense with lots and lots of people with really high aptitude, ambition and means--that's what produced the school's rankings. Other schools in the nation have kids who prep, but don't get to draw from such a deep well. The qualities of TJ that I actually value most (the access to advanced curricula, research projects, quality of extracurricular STEM) don't even figure that much into its ranking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

FWIW, I think the Curie kids are a bit of a red herring. For the most part, they're taking the LCPS allocated seats and not really competing with FCPS kids.

LCPS has 130 seats?

When Curie published the names of admitted kids, over half of them were admitted to TJ and at least one of AOS or AET. I could be wrong, but I thought only Loudoun kids could apply to AOS/AET.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I guess I'm perhaps bothered by the idea of a public high school as a "reward" and the pressures it imposes on the people (or parents of people) who desire it. We will see whether the new system will result in admitted TJ students "blooming where they are planted" or not. I hope we can all wish them well rather than hoping for bad outcomes. The new policy may improve the STEM offerings of all FCPS schools if the focus isn't on working towards a TJ prize and those same highly motivated parents seek opportunities for their brilliant, motivated children in their local high schools.

Admission to TJ is not a reward. The bottom half of the kids at TJ will get worse college admission offers and scholarships than they would have if they remained at their base school. The bottom half of kids often consider TJ to be "Torture Jail." The main points of TJ are that it offers some very advanced math and STEM classes that aren't available at other schools, and it has some elite academic extracurricular teams. Kids who are not advanced enough or gifted enough won't gain anything from attending TJ. Every FCPS high school offers AP Calc, one year of post-AP calc, AP Bio/Chem/Physics, AP Comp Sci, etc. If a kid is only going to meet the prerequisites to take those courses, there's no point in doing so at TJ. Likewise, TJ has phenomenal STEM competition teams, which will only benefit the kids who are good enough at those competitions to make the team.

Like it or not, the kids from Curie who were admitted to TJ because they also had the attributes that suggested admission in the old holistic process were highly successful TJ students who could take full advantage of the school and would also have been somewhat under-served at the base school. While I wish the class of 2025 well, it's likely that kids selected on just GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS kids, ESOL kids, etc. are being set up to fail. It's also unlikely that they will be equipped to take advantage of any of the special TJ offerings, as they will not meet the pre-requisites.

This. Best and likely most accurate post in this whole thread.

Have to disagree. The Curie kids would be served fine at their home school or gone on to more enrichment at Curie and been fine. It's the kids who lack access to it but are equally gifted that are better served by the new system.

PP you are laughable. A good GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS, ESOL does not make a kid gifted - far from it.

I grew up poor and had a good GPA. I’m definitely not gifted and no way in hell would I send my kid to TJ if he turned out to be like me. You just set them up for failure and what little self confidence they had will be destroyed being among the kids who are truly gifted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Ugh. While I agree with the sentiments of the latest posts, I can't let stand the swipe at the "prior approach" which produced the top school in the nation. If there's a better metric, I'm all ears. And the primary criticism is one of "equity" based almost solely on race, with claims of "not fair!" for those who prioritized and actually prepared for entrance exams...

TJ has been the top school in the nation largely due to the top 100-200 of their students. The bottom half doesn't really tip the scales that much. As long as the true top 100-200 or so kids are identified, and as long as all other admitted kids are smart and hardworking enough to handle the course load at TJ, I'm not particularly concerned with the demographic makeup of the bottom half of TJ. If the school board strongly feels that they need more geographic, racial, etc. diversity, then that's fine, as long as they're making sure that the kids who need TJ and are eminently qualified for TJ get in.

I hate the new system, because it has no mechanism for identifying those top kids. The most likely outcome is that many of the top kids are overlooked during admissions, many of the admitted kids wash out after Freshman year, and then TJ has a huge Froshmore class formed from many of the kids who should have been admitted in the first place. This is bad for everyone, since the kids who wash out will have their college admissions as well as self confidence sabotaged, and the other kids will end up behind where they should have been by TJ standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Have to disagree. The Curie kids would be served fine at their home school or gone on to more enrichment at Curie and been fine. It's the kids who lack access to it but are equally gifted that are better served by the new system.

PP you are laughable. A good GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS, ESOL does not make a kid gifted - far from it.

I grew up poor and had a good GPA. I’m definitely not gifted and no way in hell would I send my kid to TJ if he turned out to be like me. You just set them up for failure and what little self confidence they had will be destroyed being among the kids who are truly gifted.

Don't forget that the essay was written at home with no proctoring, so it's questionable whether the kid got help or wrote any of the essay. GPAs were largely from covid virtual learning, where cheating was rampant and kids were given As for doing the bare minimum. Also, FARMS and ESOL status were apparently self-reported with no verification. IEP/special needs status is often something that wealthy people seek out for their fairly neurotypical kids to gain advantages. The new system is a lottery, with cheaters and parents who know how to game the system given a golden ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
issue. We live in an area dense with lots and lots of people with really high aptitude, ambition and means--that's what produced the school's rankings. Other

There are lots of places with much higher numbers of high aptitude people with ambition and means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ugh. While I agree with the sentiments of the latest posts, I can't let stand the swipe at the "prior approach" which produced the top school in the nation. If there's a better metric, I'm all ears. And the primary criticism is one of "equity" based almost solely on race, with claims of "not fair!" for those who prioritized and actually prepared for entrance exams...

TJ has been the top school in the nation largely due to the top 100-200 of their students. The bottom half doesn't really tip the scales that much. As long as the true top 100-200 or so kids are identified, and as long as all other admitted kids are smart and hardworking enough to handle the course load at TJ, I'm not particularly concerned with the demographic makeup of the bottom half of TJ. If the school board strongly feels that they need more geographic, racial, etc. diversity, then that's fine, as long as they're making sure that the kids who need TJ and are eminently qualified for TJ get in.

I hate the new system, because it has no mechanism for identifying those top kids. The most likely outcome is that many of the top kids are overlooked during admissions, many of the admitted kids wash out after Freshman year, and then TJ has a huge Froshmore class formed from many of the kids who should have been admitted in the first place. This is bad for everyone, since the kids who wash out will have their college admissions as well as self confidence sabotaged, and the other kids will end up behind where they should have been by TJ standards.

Any large school system that puts 2000 of their top students at one school will be a top-ranked HS in the US. These metrics really aren't that meaningful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I guess I'm perhaps bothered by the idea of a public high school as a "reward" and the pressures it imposes on the people (or parents of people) who desire it. We will see whether the new system will result in admitted TJ students "blooming where they are planted" or not. I hope we can all wish them well rather than hoping for bad outcomes. The new policy may improve the STEM offerings of all FCPS schools if the focus isn't on working towards a TJ prize and those same highly motivated parents seek opportunities for their brilliant, motivated children in their local high schools.

Admission to TJ is not a reward. The bottom half of the kids at TJ will get worse college admission offers and scholarships than they would have if they remained at their base school. The bottom half of kids often consider TJ to be "Torture Jail." The main points of TJ are that it offers some very advanced math and STEM classes that aren't available at other schools, and it has some elite academic extracurricular teams. Kids who are not advanced enough or gifted enough won't gain anything from attending TJ. Every FCPS high school offers AP Calc, one year of post-AP calc, AP Bio/Chem/Physics, AP Comp Sci, etc. If a kid is only going to meet the prerequisites to take those courses, there's no point in doing so at TJ. Likewise, TJ has phenomenal STEM competition teams, which will only benefit the kids who are good enough at those competitions to make the team.

Like it or not, the kids from Curie who were admitted to TJ because they also had the attributes that suggested admission in the old holistic process were highly successful TJ students who could take full advantage of the school and would also have been somewhat under-served at the base school. While I wish the class of 2025 well, it's likely that kids selected on just GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS kids, ESOL kids, etc. are being set up to fail. It's also unlikely that they will be equipped to take advantage of any of the special TJ offerings, as they will not meet the pre-requisites.

This. Best and likely most accurate post in this whole thread.

Have to disagree. The Curie kids would be served fine at their home school or gone on to more enrichment at Curie and been fine. It's the kids who lack access to it but are equally gifted that are better served by the new system.

Agree the kids from affluent families investing in test prep and enrichment will be fine anywhere but TJ will be life hanging for the top but unprepped students from less affluent schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I guess I'm perhaps bothered by the idea of a public high school as a "reward" and the pressures it imposes on the people (or parents of people) who desire it. We will see whether the new system will result in admitted TJ students "blooming where they are planted" or not. I hope we can all wish them well rather than hoping for bad outcomes. The new policy may improve the STEM offerings of all FCPS schools if the focus isn't on working towards a TJ prize and those same highly motivated parents seek opportunities for their brilliant, motivated children in their local high schools.

Admission to TJ is not a reward. The bottom half of the kids at TJ will get worse college admission offers and scholarships than they would have if they remained at their base school. The bottom half of kids often consider TJ to be "Torture Jail." The main points of TJ are that it offers some very advanced math and STEM classes that aren't available at other schools, and it has some elite academic extracurricular teams. Kids who are not advanced enough or gifted enough won't gain anything from attending TJ. Every FCPS high school offers AP Calc, one year of post-AP calc, AP Bio/Chem/Physics, AP Comp Sci, etc. If a kid is only going to meet the prerequisites to take those courses, there's no point in doing so at TJ. Likewise, TJ has phenomenal STEM competition teams, which will only benefit the kids who are good enough at those competitions to make the team.

Like it or not, the kids from Curie who were admitted to TJ because they also had the attributes that suggested admission in the old holistic process were highly successful TJ students who could take full advantage of the school and would also have been somewhat under-served at the base school. While I wish the class of 2025 well, it's likely that kids selected on just GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS kids, ESOL kids, etc. are being set up to fail. It's also unlikely that they will be equipped to take advantage of any of the special TJ offerings, as they will not meet the pre-requisites.

This. Best and likely most accurate post in this whole thread.

Have to disagree. The Curie kids would be served fine at their home school or gone on to more enrichment at Curie and been fine. It's the kids who lack access to it but are equally gifted that are better served by the new system.

Agree the kids from affluent families investing in test prep and enrichment will be fine anywhere but TJ will be life hanging for the top but unprepped students from less affluent schools.

Lottery school will not be TJ though. Just being part of another lottery gifted/magnet school that used to be good. What is life changing is understanding how to work hard, prep and excel in a strong peer group. I am trying to get my DD to understand that. She is now getting more focused on equity, doing the minimum possible, hating wealth creators, merit and generally complaining about everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Agree the kids from affluent families investing in test prep and enrichment will be fine anywhere but TJ will be life hanging for the top but unprepped students from less affluent schools.

Best typo ever!!!
I agree that TJ will be "life hanging" for kids who are as bright as the curie kids, but unprepped (i.e. unprepared) after they wash out of TJ altogether or finish in the bottom half. The brilliant kids who were unprepared from less affluent schools still got admitted to TJ in the old system, since they were naturally gifted enough to do well on the tests and motivated enough to enrich themselves. The "top but unprepped students from less affluent schools" who are being admitted in the new system are largely kids who are bright, but didn't bother to study enough math to qualify for 7th grade Algebra, to work hard enough to excel in the limited STEM ECs offered at their school, and to take advantage of the numerous free resources out there to prepare themselves in any way. What do you think will happen when those kids are being graded against the brilliant kids as well as the highly prepared Curie kids who also know how to work very hard?

As a white person, I 100% believe that the TJ reform has nothing whatsoever to do with admitting more URMs or poor kids. Enough fellow white people have expressed that they don't want to place their children in outside academic classes or enrichment, but they still feel like their kids deserve spots at TJ, even if their kids are objectively less advanced than the Asian kids who are doing outside academics. The entire change is being driven to benefit white people over Asians, and URMs are just being used as a tool by white people to justify the changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
issue. We live in an area dense with lots and lots of people with really high aptitude, ambition and means--that's what produced the school's rankings. Other

There are lots of places with much higher numbers of high aptitude people with ambition and means.

Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun have the highest median income in the country. Places with far more means send their kids to expensive private schools. Ambitious MC/UMC with means try to create the best public schools and and gain admission to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agree the kids from affluent families investing in test prep and enrichment will be fine anywhere but TJ will be life hanging for the top but unprepped students from less affluent schools.

Best typo ever!!!
I agree that TJ will be "life hanging" for kids who are as bright as the curie kids, but unprepped (i.e. unprepared) after they wash out of TJ altogether or finish in the bottom half. The brilliant kids who were unprepared from less affluent schools still got admitted to TJ in the old system, since they were naturally gifted enough to do well on the tests and motivated enough to enrich themselves. The "top but unprepped students from less affluent schools" who are being admitted in the new system are largely kids who are bright, but didn't bother to study enough math to qualify for 7th grade Algebra, to work hard enough to excel in the limited STEM ECs offered at their school, and to take advantage of the numerous free resources out there to prepare themselves in any way. What do you think will happen when those kids are being graded against the brilliant kids as well as the highly prepared Curie kids who also know how to work very hard?

As a white person, I 100% believe that the TJ reform has nothing whatsoever to do with admitting more URMs or poor kids. Enough fellow white people have expressed that they don't want to place their children in outside academic classes or enrichment, but they still feel like their kids deserve spots at TJ, even if their kids are objectively less advanced than the Asian kids who are doing outside academics. The entire change is being driven to benefit white people over Asians, and URMs are just being used as a tool by white people to justify the changes.

Wow. You're in the minority here and in conflict with what has been communicated officially. Also, I'm not sure your "fellow white people" reflect the majority of opinions of "white" people. As a "white" father whose daughter is wait-listed, I held no such expectation. FYI, DD has been in weekend and summer schools routinely to earn her way in, though that's a lost cause now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I guess I'm perhaps bothered by the idea of a public high school as a "reward" and the pressures it imposes on the people (or parents of people) who desire it. We will see whether the new system will result in admitted TJ students "blooming where they are planted" or not. I hope we can all wish them well rather than hoping for bad outcomes. The new policy may improve the STEM offerings of all FCPS schools if the focus isn't on working towards a TJ prize and those same highly motivated parents seek opportunities for their brilliant, motivated children in their local high schools.

Admission to TJ is not a reward. The bottom half of the kids at TJ will get worse college admission offers and scholarships than they would have if they remained at their base school. The bottom half of kids often consider TJ to be "Torture Jail." The main points of TJ are that it offers some very advanced math and STEM classes that aren't available at other schools, and it has some elite academic extracurricular teams. Kids who are not advanced enough or gifted enough won't gain anything from attending TJ. Every FCPS high school offers AP Calc, one year of post-AP calc, AP Bio/Chem/Physics, AP Comp Sci, etc. If a kid is only going to meet the prerequisites to take those courses, there's no point in doing so at TJ. Likewise, TJ has phenomenal STEM competition teams, which will only benefit the kids who are good enough at those competitions to make the team.

Like it or not, the kids from Curie who were admitted to TJ because they also had the attributes that suggested admission in the old holistic process were highly successful TJ students who could take full advantage of the school and would also have been somewhat under-served at the base school. While I wish the class of 2025 well, it's likely that kids selected on just GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS kids, ESOL kids, etc. are being set up to fail. It's also unlikely that they will be equipped to take advantage of any of the special TJ offerings, as they will not meet the pre-requisites.

This. Best and likely most accurate post in this whole thread.

Agree. Accurate take.

I am not sure many other posters here even have kids who may be eligible to go to TJ. Lots of people are just here for entertainment and trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I guess I'm perhaps bothered by the idea of a public high school as a "reward" and the pressures it imposes on the people (or parents of people) who desire it. We will see whether the new system will result in admitted TJ students "blooming where they are planted" or not. I hope we can all wish them well rather than hoping for bad outcomes. The new policy may improve the STEM offerings of all FCPS schools if the focus isn't on working towards a TJ prize and those same highly motivated parents seek opportunities for their brilliant, motivated children in their local high schools.

Admission to TJ is not a reward. The bottom half of the kids at TJ will get worse college admission offers and scholarships than they would have if they remained at their base school. The bottom half of kids often consider TJ to be "Torture Jail." The main points of TJ are that it offers some very advanced math and STEM classes that aren't available at other schools, and it has some elite academic extracurricular teams. Kids who are not advanced enough or gifted enough won't gain anything from attending TJ. Every FCPS high school offers AP Calc, one year of post-AP calc, AP Bio/Chem/Physics, AP Comp Sci, etc. If a kid is only going to meet the prerequisites to take those courses, there's no point in doing so at TJ. Likewise, TJ has phenomenal STEM competition teams, which will only benefit the kids who are good enough at those competitions to make the team.

Like it or not, the kids from Curie who were admitted to TJ because they also had the attributes that suggested admission in the old holistic process were highly successful TJ students who could take full advantage of the school and would also have been somewhat under-served at the base school. While I wish the class of 2025 well, it's likely that kids selected on just GPA and one essay with extra weight given to FARMS kids, ESOL kids, etc. are being set up to fail. It's also unlikely that they will be equipped to take advantage of any of the special TJ offerings, as they will not meet the pre-requisites.

This. Best and likely most accurate post in this whole thread.

Agree. Accurate take.

I am not sure many other posters here even have kids who may be eligible to go to TJ. Lots of people are just here for entertainment and trolling.

Some of these posters don't even have kids. The rest are white parents whose kids don't have the talent AND don't want to work. The "currie" post is just a red herring. FCPS did not spend this much time and energy to address an "outside enrichment problem" during a pandemic. They think they somewhat benefited from this 'reform' aimed at adjusting racial balance of a school that has the least needs to "fix". The reality is their kids will struggle. TJ is not some magic or award. It's just like any other high school but the work load is heavier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a white person, I 100% believe that the TJ reform has nothing whatsoever to do with admitting more URMs or poor kids. Enough fellow white people have expressed that they don't want to place their children in outside academic classes or enrichment, but they still feel like their kids deserve spots at TJ, even if their kids are objectively less advanced than the Asian kids who are doing outside academics. The entire change is being driven to benefit white people over Asians, and URMs are just being used as a tool by white people to justify the changes.

Wow. You're in the minority here and in conflict with what has been communicated officially. Also, I'm not sure your "fellow white people" reflect the majority of opinions of "white" people. As a "white" father whose daughter is wait-listed, I held no such expectation. FYI, DD has been in weekend and summer schools routinely to earn her way in, though that's a lost cause now.

Well, I'd hardly expect the officials to communicate that the goal is to admit more white kids. . But, white enrollment increased about 5% and Asian enrollment decreased close to 20%. Hmmmm.....

I've been on dcum long enough that I've seen countless threads where white people were complaining that other kids were more advanced than their kids due to outside enrichment. They often said that their kids deserved to be among the top kids in the class due to natural talent, and teachers should stop 'rewarding' the other kids by actually teaching them material at their level. The gist of so many threads is that many white parents prefer putting their kids in sports over academics, but also think that their kids deserve top spots in academic programs. They can't prevent Asian parents from putting their kids into outside enrichment, so, they're changing the rules to benefit their kids.