Tjhsst is it worth it?

[Anonymous]

The top 10% at FCPS in general go to UVA. The top 10% at J go to Ivies, and Stanford. Very different. TJ is very diverse economically, so some students are going to state schools because that is what they can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given 1460 (or 2200 if you like) is around 75 percentile at UMD/UVA/UNC, I don't think use of "dime a dozen" is totally inaccurate. That means 1 out of 4 kids at those schools scored better. That's a LOT of kids.

A 2200 rocks. You're a top one percenter now. It places you in approximately the 99th percentile nationally for all students who took the SAT.
http://www.collegesimply.com/guides/2200-on-the-sat/

Score Number Percentile
2200 2,022 99th
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SATPercentileRanksCompositeCR_M_W.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top 10% at FCPS in general go to UVA. The top 10% at J go to Ivies, and Stanford. Very different. TJ is very diverse economically, so some students are going to state schools because that is what they can afford.

I think we are talking about "avg" students at the moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given 1460 (or 2200 if you like) is around 75 percentile at UMD/UVA/UNC, I don't think use of "dime a dozen" is totally inaccurate. That means 1 out of 4 kids at those schools scored better. That's a LOT of kids.

I see it differently. To me, that means the average student at TJ scores better than 75% of admittees at some of the very top public colleges in the nation. That's pretty impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top 10% at FCPS in general go to UVA. The top 10% at J go to Ivies, and Stanford. Very different. TJ is very diverse economically, so some students are going to state schools because that is what they can afford.

I think we are talking about "avg" students at the moment.

Since you cannot stay in the school with less than a B average, I would say the average at TJ is fairly high. Not every student at TJ wants to major in STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top 10% at FCPS in general go to UVA. The top 10% at J go to Ivies, and Stanford. Very different. TJ is very diverse economically, so some students are going to state schools because that is what they can afford.

I think we are talking about "avg" students at the moment.

Since you cannot stay in the school with less than a B average, I would say the average at TJ is fairly high. Not every student at TJ wants to major in STEM.

TJ is named the best high school in the country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/newsweek-best-high-schools_n_5811774.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Most of the TJ students attending UVA are average or below average students except for those students getting ton of merit aid or going for the in-state tuition. UVA is still considered a safety at TJ. TJ kids would not brag about getting into UVA. Average or below average student is not doing fine.

Bear in mind that every student at TJ has to keep their GPA above 3.0, so an average student at TJ is very different from an average student elsewhere. Have you seen the average SAT scores at TJ?

Have you heard college admission is more than just SAT scores?

Sorry, I was not indicating that college admission was based solely on SAT scores. I was pointing out that, because the lowest possible GPA at TJ is 3.0 and the average SAT is 1466 (M and CR), the "average" student at TJ is very different from the "average" student at other high schools. At other FCPS high schools, GPAs can range to well below 3.0 and the average SAT for FCPS is 1126 (M and CR). "Average" is dependent on the characteristics of the individuals in the group.

If you have a pretty good student, it's not hard to get mid 1400 SAT score from your home school. Plus the fact colleges probably prefer picking 1460 kids from home schools vs 1460 kids from TJ, what is the benefit of all the beating and grinding at TJ?

The point is that people are putting down the average kid at TJ who has a 1460/1600 SAT score. A score like that is not average at many schools other than TJ. Colleges know about TJ and know what is involved in graduating from there.

Kids choose their colleges for all kinds of reasons, some of which do not involve prestige and rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Most of the TJ students attending UVA are average or below average students except for those students getting ton of merit aid or going for the in-state tuition. UVA is still considered a safety at TJ. TJ kids would not brag about getting into UVA. Average or below average student is not doing fine.

Bear in mind that every student at TJ has to keep their GPA above 3.0, so an average student at TJ is very different from an average student elsewhere. Have you seen the average SAT scores at TJ?

Have you heard college admission is more than just SAT scores?

Sorry, I was not indicating that college admission was based solely on SAT scores. I was pointing out that, because the lowest possible GPA at TJ is 3.0 and the average SAT is 1466 (M and CR), the "average" student at TJ is very different from the "average" student at other high schools. At other FCPS high schools, GPAs can range to well below 3.0 and the average SAT for FCPS is 1126 (M and CR). "Average" is dependent on the characteristics of the individuals in the group.

If you have a pretty good student, it's not hard to get mid 1400 SAT score from your home school. Plus the fact colleges probably prefer picking 1460 kids from home schools vs 1460 kids from TJ, what is the benefit of all the beating and grinding at TJ?

"I've heard many admissions officers for elite colleges talk about how they "know" the high schools in their assigned region. I've always thought this a somewhat preposterous claim.

There are something like 30,000 high schools in the U.S. There's no way they can really know more than a small fraction of them. What's telling is that when admissions officers for elite colleges and universities come to our area, they all do their little dog-and-pony show at all of the most exclusive private high schools and at a handful of the wealthiest suburban schools. They generally don't bother with urban schools except for an occasional foray specifically seeking out potential URM candidates. As best I can tell they spend little or no time in public schools in less affluent suburbs or in small town.

In some ways this is just efficient from their point of view; it's the high-end private high schools and most affluent suburban public high schools that are going to have the largest concentrations of potentially qualified applicants, so they might as well invest their time and energy where it's likely to yield the greatest rewards. So the admissions officers cultivate relationships with the GCs at those schools, and the GCs are only too happy to reciprocate because it gives the kids coming out of their schools an inside track over some random perfect GPA, 1550 SAT CR + M kid with great extracurriculars and impressive academic drive coming from some less distinguished school where such stats are more of a rarity and therefore the school rarely, if ever, sends its graduates to elite private colleges.

It's no wonder that half or more of the student bodies at most elite private colleges are full-pays, given where those colleges do their heaviest recruiting. Bottom line, I think when admissions officers say they "know the schools" in their region, they pretty much just mean they know and have relationships with the schools they consider to be the top feeder schools--elite private high schools and public schools in the most affluent suburban districts--and they relegate all the other schools (a far larger number) to a generic classification of "other."

[Anonymous]

Someone at TJ would be top 10% at any other public high school in Fairfax County

The admissions rate to an elite school is the same in either case

Therfore people going to TJ just for a legup on college admissions is dumb

The whole premise of asking if TJ is worth it is dumb too. Thats not the question you should be asking.

The question should only ever be is the child gifted AND interested in a STEM subject

Prior poster I agree with your general dsecription

Colleges have all sorts of targets

Say 5 people from TJ and 5 people from other districts in Fairfax County (Point being form above no matter where you go to school if you are good enough you will be one of those 10 people assuming 50% decided to go TJ and 50% decided to stay in their home school)

They have a category for "non target high schools" as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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The information is readily available. It is not exclusive, so there will be some overlap. My point, though, is the top kids from any school can do as well as TJ on admissions. There were about 150 students from TJ admitted to UVA, for example. or roughly 33% of the class. At madison, it was about 1/9th.

Since 150 students at TJ is a big number, I will assume that most TJ students can get into UVA/Tech/William and Mary.
That means that the top 1/9th at madison is roughly equivalent to the kids at TJ.

And we can't assume that all of the top students at these schools even applied to UVa. Among the friends of my child at TJ, I know of a number of excellent students who were very focused on particular schools that did not include UVa. These are kids who would have been accepted had they applied and are going to Top Ten or Fifteen schools. So that 150 number would have been even higher if all who were qualified had applied.

It's cute how you crunch those numbers. But did you check who made it into the Ivies from Madison? TJ has one of the highest acceptance rates in ivies of any school in nova. Those state schools are safeties for TJ students. But good spin job.

My point was that the top 10% students at any school can get into the same schools as the middle of the road students at TJ. Are you saying that every student at TJ is admitted to one of Tech, UVA or W & M? I bet any student accepted to UVA will do fine at TJ.

Most of the TJ students attending UVA are average or below average students except for those students getting ton of merit aid or going for the in-state tuition. UVA is still considered a safety at TJ. TJ kids would not brag about getting into UVA. Average or below average student is not doing fine.

Beyond the 25 to 30 full tuition Jefferson Scholarships awarded by an independent UVA alumni group throughout the entire country, with no more than one awarded per high school, there are NO merit scholarships awarded by UVA. ZERO. Like the Ivies, all aid awarded by UVA is based on financial need.

Like every other high school in the state, many top TJ students choose to attend UVA over other more highly ranked private schools because of the in state tuition. Maybe not Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, but routinely Duke, Penn, or Cornell. It simply isn't the case that "most" TJ students attending UVA are "average or below average." It's clearly more accurate to say that, compared to the neighborhood public high schools, relatively few of the very top TJ graduates attend UVA.

[Anonymous]

From TJ's Naviance for class of 2015 (about 420 graduates):

Apply/Admit/Enroll/Avg admitted GPA/SAT

302/191/82/4.33/2259 UVA
210/181/45/4.18/2220 W&M
186/155/40/4.18/2205 VA Tech

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From TJ's Naviance for class of 2015 (about 420 graduates):

Apply/Admit/Enroll/Avg admitted GPA/SAT

302/191/82/4.33/2259 UVA
210/181/45/4.18/2220 W&M
186/155/40/4.18/2205 VA Tech

IS schools admit more IS kids.

[Anonymous]

FWIW: Stats for McLean HS for 2015:

VPI 160/101/40
W&M 94/47/18
UVA 134/50/31

So almost 20% of MHS go to these three schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given 1460 (or 2200 if you like) is around 75 percentile at UMD/UVA/UNC, I don't think use of "dime a dozen" is totally inaccurate. That means 1 out of 4 kids at those schools scored better. That's a LOT of kids.

A 2200 rocks. You're a top one percenter now. It places you in approximately the 99th percentile nationally for all students who took the SAT.
http://www.collegesimply.com/guides/2200-on-the-sat/

Score Number Percentile
2200 2,022 99th
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SATPercentileRanksCompositeCR_M_W.pdf

Clearly not 99percentile in DMV area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW: Stats for McLean HS for 2015:

VPI 160/101/40
W&M 94/47/18
UVA 134/50/31

So almost 20% of MHS go to these three schools.

Omg, not to hijack this thread but only 50/134 McLean HS students got into UVA?! My kids are younger but I didn't realize it was that competitive. We are only budgeting for state schools.