HS Transfer
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Anonymous
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DC is a Sophomore at TJ. It's just not a right fit and DC is miserable. Wants to finish this year and transfer in the summer to BS.
Not sure if we let DC push it through this year in a toxic environment (mostly bad teachers) or pull DC out now. Grades are ok - A's and B's Will moving to the base school reflect badly on DC college applications? Please be kind. This is a stressful situation for us |
Anonymous
| My DC transferred from TJ to BS after freshman year. Best decision we took for DC. DC is now a Senior at a top Ivy. |
Anonymous
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I have. TJ grad. Since I think being honest is kind, the new principal watered down freshman year, and sophomore year is now when the rigor comes out. I’d transfer now for a lot of reasons— social (by junior year, friend groups and ECs are mostly set and it’s hard to join a team or group and become a core member) and academic (As and Bs are respectable grades. Depending on their math class, they may not stay that way this year at TJ).
Plus, 75% of a year is a long time to be miserable. Will it effect college? Maybe, but the effect doesn’t have to be negative. Junior, then sophomore, grades matter the most. So your kid still has a chance to shine. And if the freshman year grades are As and Bs, he can use the “anything else we should know” section of the common app to say he challenged himself, it was a bad fit, so he self corrected and fouNd a better program for himself. It’s a mature decision and colleges like kids who show resiliency. Now, will he get into an Ivy? Not likely. But, with Bs freshman and sophomore years, it isn’t happening at TJ anyway. I sent one to TJ and one to base school. Very similar SAT/ACTs. TJ kid was middle of the class— As and Bs and a couple of c+s in math 4/5. Base school kid was top 10-20%. As and Bs freshMan year, but only one B With 9 APs Junior and senior years, when it “clicked”. Both got into WM and similar caliber colleges. (And both got into each other’s colleges). And both chose well and are doing very well. You seem to be a parent who listens to their kids’ needs. If you ignore the crowd and listen to what your kid needs for college— big/small, rural/urban, STEM/humanities, he will end up in the right place. And maybe the same place as if he’d stayed at TJ. But for now, my vote says let him move this week. The level of stress on everyone will decrease so much. He’ll also get AP weighting for world history and probably turn some Bs into As, which will help his GPA. |
Anonymous
| OP here - Greatly appreciate the advice. We have asked DC to move and left it to the kid on the timing. Life is too short to go through this kind of environment. DC has to meet the counselor, social worker, and principal before they will agree to the transfer. I think we will have to forget about this semester's grades. |
Anonymous
It might be that your child is adjusting to a new work load and that process is hard. It sounds like they are doing fine academically. Do you think that there is benefit to completing another quarter and seeing if their experience changes now that they are used to a different work load and they are seeing that they can be successful with that new workload? Kids attending TJ are used to being smart and ahead. I would guess that a good number of those kids were not challenged in school. The first time that you are challenged can be a real shock to the system. It feels overwhelming and awful but once you adjust, it is easier to see that you are capable and realize that those feelings were something you can work through. A similar, but different I know, experience for myself. I have always struggled with math, I have LDs, so we choose a college that did not have a math requirement to graduate. I ended up taking stats as an undergrad and earned a C. I kid you not, we had a party to celebrate that C because it was hard earned. I ended up in a graduate program that turned out to be very mathematically intense (before the internet was available for research and the like) The first semester was painfully hard. I had to teach myself matrix algebra and basic Calculus but I earned a 3.5 in my initial stats class. I stuck out the year, earning 3.5s in my stats classes and 4.0s is my other classes. I was fine with my 3.5s, it wasn't an issue for continuing in the program, hell, I was proud of those grades. I stayed in the program, earned funding, and completed my PhD. It was hard and that first semester was a gut punch but I did well and ended up loving the program. It was hard to absorb that gut punch initially. No one would have been mad if I had dropped out. I would have been fine, my family would have been totally supportive. But I am glad that I stayed. I learned a lot about myself and went on to have a great experience. Is this a shock to your child's system because they are having to work harder then they have had to before or is this a really unhappy and bad situation? That is my question. Your child will be fine if they change schools but they could find that they were good at TJ once they absorbed the initial shock. Not judging but asking. |
Anonymous
OP, can you clarify what do you mean by "toxic environment (mostly bad teachers)" Toxic environment mainly created by teachers seems like a strong claim and I'm curious as to how teachers would create that. Others on this thread are mentioning that some classes and teachers are significantly more challenging than others with respect to workload, but I would certainly not think of this as toxic to kids. Unless the teachers hate their kids and don't want them to succeed, I have a hard time imagining how are teachers toxic? Maybe some are not as good at teaching the material than others? Still, that's normal at any school; always a few amazing teachers, a few duds, and most in between. |
Anonymous
OP here - it's not about the hard work. Even if my DC will move to a BS, the classes will still need the hours of study and may actually end up taking more than the current 3 APs. So many teachers brag about how many students failed their classes in the past. If they failed - in my opinion - YOU failed as well. It was YOUR JOB to teach them, and you didn't. Making tests needlessly difficult and testing outside the scope. What is the point of providing the scope if you don't intend to use it? So much negativity and demotivating kids that they are letting go of their own positivity. I am seeing that happen with my own DC, who was so upbeat and positive about things. |
pettifogger
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I don't know.. I'm highly skeptical that teachers are 'bragging' about kids having failed in the past. It's much more likely they actually care about their students and are trying to let them know early on in the course that they will need to put hours of effort and study each week to do well. In the past, whenever I've retaught math classes containing difficult material, I have always given kids a summary of the data from prior iterations of the course at the beginning of the year. I explained to them in a frank way that the material is more difficult than it seems, that they will need to put significant effort to be able to get an A (i.e completing all their homework, asking lots questions, doing all the assigned reading, and stopping by for help when stuck, doing extra practice problems if they don't feel comfortable with the material, etc), and that if they skip over these things, they could fail as was the case in the past. Is this toxic? I am sad when kids fail because overwhelmingly it is because they did not want (or have the time/priority, etc) to put the effort needed to master the material. Frankly, the only other alternative is to just water down the course and exams, but I think that would be a disservice to the students. I believe that they are capable of doing very well, but they have been exposed to very little rigor in the typical FCPS school and really need to learn how to learn. At some point they need to pick up this skill, and the earlier it happens the better it will be for them, especially in college and beyond. |
Anonymous
DP with a TJ Grad. The math department in particular takes pride flunking kids in Math 3/4. They are known as weed out classes. I think HSs having weed outs is insane. But, it’s true. Physics also takes pride in flunking 1/3 or so of its AP kids. They just leave room and standard physics for those kids to drop down after Q1. Again— pointless, when they could just require an A- in AP Calc AB or higher to take AP physics in 11th. But, that’s the culture. And I’m guessing that OP’s kid may have the one World History teacher who brags that it’s impossible to complete all her work in a 24 hour day. BuT, it’s TJ, so learn to triage. Meanwhile, the other 3 sections have teachers who give a semi-reasonable amount of work. Then there’s head of the Spanish Dept… |
Anonymous
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Not everyone has the same outside help or opportunities and if you fall under that, rest assured your kid will have an uphill battle to survive at TJ.
If anyone is telling you otherwise, they are lying. |
Anonymous
| Why is your sophomore taking 3 AP classes? That is THE problem OP. |
Anonymous
| I would wait out this year and then switch to base school. Don’t disrupt the learning this year. |
Anonymous
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OP here - After talking to a few professionals we have decided to pull out in the summer or sooner if DC decides to transfer before summer.
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