Does Fall church pay the tuition for kids to attend TJHSST? Or do admitted families have to pay their own way?
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It’s paid for. Falls Church also pays tuition and transport for its students to attend the Arlington Career Center. |
Just be aware that only 1 or 2 kids get to go to TJ each year from FCC. |
why "Be aware?" FCC is much smaller than APS. |
For expectation management, that's all. We're in FCC and some parents don't seem to realize how limited the enrollment is from our district to TJ. |
They accept 1.5% of 8th grade enrollment from each school division that they accept students from. for FCCPS that's about 3. They typically get a whole lot more apps than they accept from every division. |
There are only about 200 kids per grade, so makes sense. |
There aren't that many students that apply from FCCPS. And it is not uncommon that at least one of the accepted students goes and then returns to FCCPS before 10th grade. |
Current FCC students at TJ:
2 in 9th 4 in 10th 2 in 11th 1 in 12th https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fccpsva/Board.nsf/files/D2XRFQ6DBFF7/$file/FY24%20Student%20Membership%20Rpt%20-%20FINAL.pdf |
Do you know why? |
Many FCC kids have left TJ in 9th grade over the years. One even left two weeks in! I suspect they are not used to the large and diverse student body. I an pretty sure the admitted ones can handle the rigor. |
I think it’s just such a different vibe. Plus you have to spend so much more time on a bus every day to get to school. I don’t really think fcc kids fear the diversity of TJ I think it’s more that they realize it’s not worth the daily commute time and the miss the small town comfort of fcc. |
DC's friend went to TJ, it was very invigorating academically. But that kid could never hang out with school friends, and missed out on a lot by being on the bus for so long. |
FCCPS parent; what I have heard is that they really don't like the social scene there. A lot of kids already know each other, understandably. The school cliques seem very split up based on race. A very cutthroat environment, which makes sense, since those kids can't ALL be accepted to the elite colleges that they would be accepted to if they stayed at their regular school and graduated in the top 1% of students. At TJ, they might just be in the top 40% of students - not good enough to even go to UVA. |