TJHSST Class of 2017 College Destination List

[Anonymous]

Here’s a little tip: if most people don’t know about it, it’s bc it’s probably not that good.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And JMU isn't great either.

Then again you are talking about 8 students out of a class of 430 attending either JMU or GMU with the lowest WEIGHTED GPA around 3.14. And money is likely a factor as well.

UVA just announced its Echols Scholars (offered to about 5% of incoming first years) for its early admits and TJ seems to have an outsize # in its 2018 class.

My DC was offered Echols from her FCPS school. It seems like a nice perk, but comes with no $$$, so DC will probably attend elsewhere.

Any opinion on whether VCU, JMU, GMU are great schools to get into after attending TJ?! Do they require the rigor that is TJ?

Great schools? Nope. Bad options for the bottom 10% of the class? Nope. Do their general colleges require TJ level rigor? Again, nope. But VCU 6 year med school does. And GMU has an excellent and well regarded CS department.

Yes, I’m sure the students choose GMU for Computer Science.

GMU's computer science department has heavily recruited a few TJ kids that I personally know, and I am sure there have been others. They are offered very large merit scholarships in a strong department that provides them with many great opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Ok. Good thing Your DC went to TJ then.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is it just me or is this list underwhelming? If the primary goal of having a child attend TJ is to get them into an elite college, I think many of those TJ parents to be (and their kids) might be in for a rude awakening. Certainly not all TJ parents are pushing their kids to attend TJ so Johnny can get into Harvard, Stanford or MIT but prolly a large number do think this way whether they admit it or not.

+1,000!! Totally underwhelming.

First— 100% of TJ kids go to college. So you are seeing the destinations for kids with a 3.2 as well as a 4.6 GPA. And there is no NoVA or Longwood or Radford in the mix for the 3.2 kids.

Second, you send your kid to TJ for the education and the peer group and the research opportunities in an area of strong interest. Excellent chance your kid will end up at the same college from TJ— but probably much better prepared. Parents who use TJ for an ivy edge or for bragging rights do their kids no favors. Lots of kids love the TJ experience. Kids who don’t should move back to their base school— or not apply at all.

Sorry, but the list is still underwhelming to me. VCU and JMU?! From TJ????

JMU was a surprise, because this was the first kid to go in several years. Who knows their reasoning. Some kids have parents who went, or got a scholarship, or were ranked 432/435 at TJ. It happens. VCU is not a surprise. They have an excellent direct admit 6 year college/ medical school program. You do 2 years of college, and 4 years of med school there, without having to reapply to med school. Good scholarships, little or no debt for med school. Every year, several Tj kids do this program. Before you decide that a particular college is not worthy or should be discounted, so some reasearch. You may discover that a school you consider subpar is the best school in the country in geothermal energy research, so something equally esoteric, which is what the kid did their senior mentorship or research lab in. For example, my sophomore DD is working with the CubeSat program at TJ and applying for the senior astrophysics lab. She has the University of Alabama on her short list of colleges (first choice: Cal Tech to work with JPL). You would look down your nose at this. She sees the special programs they have that collaborate with NASA.

Don’t judge what you don’t know.

Before you discount

Do you know for sure the students going to VCU are doing the med school? No, you don’t.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And JMU isn't great either.

Then again you are talking about 8 students out of a class of 430 attending either JMU or GMU with the lowest WEIGHTED GPA around 3.14. And money is likely a factor as well.

UVA just announced its Echols Scholars (offered to about 5% of incoming first years) for its early admits and TJ seems to have an outsize # in its 2018 class.

My DC was offered Echols from her FCPS school. It seems like a nice perk, but comes with no $$$, so DC will probably attend elsewhere.

Any opinion on whether VCU, JMU, GMU are great schools to get into after attending TJ?! Do they require the rigor that is TJ?

Great schools? Nope. Bad options for the bottom 10% of the class? Nope. Do their general colleges require TJ level rigor? Again, nope. But VCU 6 year med school does. And GMU has an excellent and well regarded CS department.

Yes, I’m sure the students choose GMU for Computer Science.

GMU's computer science department has heavily recruited a few TJ kids that I personally know, and I am sure there have been others. They are offered very large merit scholarships in a strong department that provides them with many great opportunities.

Is that the case with the student who is going there? The bottom 10% as you noted earlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a little tip: if most people don’t know about it, it’s bc it’s probably not that good.

Like Harvey Mudd? Very, very few people know about it. Michigan State would be a better choice according to your view, correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a little tip: if most people don’t know about it, it’s bc it’s probably not that good.

Like Harvey Mudd? Very, very few people know about it. Michigan State would be a better choice according to your view, correct?

shhhhh, dang it.

[Anonymous]

I was talking about computer science. Sorry, GMU is not known for being a top computer science college at all. Here are some real top CS colleges:

MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Cal Tech, Yale, Rice, Georgia Institue of Technology, USC, U Penn...

GMU isn’t even in the top 50 for CS. So what I said stands. If it’s not we’ll know for it, it’s not that good. And yes, Harvey Mudd is well known for CS. Not frickin GMU!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a little tip: if most people don’t know about it, it’s bc it’s probably not that good.

Like Harvey Mudd? Very, very few people know about it. Michigan State would be a better choice according to your view, correct?

Actually, Michigan State was #76 in the top Computer Science colleges list...GMU wasn’t even on the list. So yes, it would be a better choice than GMU for computer science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And JMU isn't great either.

Then again you are talking about 8 students out of a class of 430 attending either JMU or GMU with the lowest WEIGHTED GPA around 3.14. And money is likely a factor as well.

UVA just announced its Echols Scholars (offered to about 5% of incoming first years) for its early admits and TJ seems to have an outsize # in its 2018 class.

My DC was offered Echols from her FCPS school. It seems like a nice perk, but comes with no $$$, so DC will probably attend elsewhere.

Any opinion on whether VCU, JMU, GMU are great schools to get into after attending TJ?! Do they require the rigor that is TJ?

Great schools? Nope. Bad options for the bottom 10% of the class? Nope. Do their general colleges require TJ level rigor? Again, nope. But VCU 6 year med school does. And GMU has an excellent and well regarded CS department.

Seriously? I have not heard that. It’s not on any of the rankings of top computer science colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a little tip: if most people don’t know about it, it’s bc it’s probably not that good.

Like Harvey Mudd? Very, very few people know about it. Michigan State would be a better choice according to your view, correct?

You’re kidding me, right? Harvey Mudd is #15 on the list of top colleges for CS. It is very well known for CS.

[Anonymous]

Although I admit this is quite impressive, I always think of Princeton High School, the public high school in New Jersey, where (at least several years ago) nearly a third of the kids every year went Ivy.

Is it because the high school was so great? No. Not at all.

It's just because most of them were children of Princeton professors.

If you take a group of kids who are smart and hard working and have engaged parents who care about education, they are going to end up at a great university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Although I admit this is quite impressive, I always think of Princeton High School, the public high school in New Jersey, where (at least several years ago) nearly a third of the kids every year went Ivy.

Is it because the high school was so great? No. Not at all.

It's just because most of them were children of Princeton professors.

If you take a group of kids who are smart and hard working and have engaged parents who care about education, they are going to end up at a great university.

And they will do fine, whether or not they went to TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And JMU isn't great either.

Then again you are talking about 8 students out of a class of 430 attending either JMU or GMU with the lowest WEIGHTED GPA around 3.14. And money is likely a factor as well.

UVA just announced its Echols Scholars (offered to about 5% of incoming first years) for its early admits and TJ seems to have an outsize # in its 2018 class.

My DC was offered Echols from her FCPS school. It seems like a nice perk, but comes with no $$$, so DC will probably attend elsewhere.

Any opinion on whether VCU, JMU, GMU are great schools to get into after attending TJ?! Do they require the rigor that is TJ?

Great schools? Nope. Bad options for the bottom 10% of the class? Nope. Do their general colleges require TJ level rigor? Again, nope. But VCU 6 year med school does. And GMU has an excellent and well regarded CS department.

Seriously? I have not heard that. It’s not on any of the rankings of top computer science colleges.

GMU is not as well known for CS, no. BUT they do have a strong program. It attracts a lot of minority / low SES students. Personal experience here, recruiting programmers out of GMU--so far, all excellent, mostly latino, whose parents could not afford to send them elsewhere and many of whom worked to put themselves through college. Some were caring for sick relatives while attending college, so had to be close by. Very strong work ethic, and very talented folks.

It's hard to see outside your bubble of privilege to try to understand why a student may choose GMU even if they had other options. But that doesn't mean that graduates of schools that are not nationally well-recognized are somehow inferior. I would call it a hidden gem, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And JMU isn't great either.

Then again you are talking about 8 students out of a class of 430 attending either JMU or GMU with the lowest WEIGHTED GPA around 3.14. And money is likely a factor as well.

UVA just announced its Echols Scholars (offered to about 5% of incoming first years) for its early admits and TJ seems to have an outsize # in its 2018 class.

My DC was offered Echols from her FCPS school. It seems like a nice perk, but comes with no $$$, so DC will probably attend elsewhere.

Any opinion on whether VCU, JMU, GMU are great schools to get into after attending TJ?! Do they require the rigor that is TJ?

Great schools? Nope. Bad options for the bottom 10% of the class? Nope. Do their general colleges require TJ level rigor? Again, nope. But VCU 6 year med school does. And GMU has an excellent and well regarded CS department.

Seriously? I have not heard that. It’s not on any of the rankings of top computer science colleges.

GMU is not as well known for CS, no. BUT they do have a strong program. It attracts a lot of minority / low SES students. Personal experience here, recruiting programmers out of GMU--so far, all excellent, mostly latino, whose parents could not afford to send them elsewhere and many of whom worked to put themselves through college. Some were caring for sick relatives while attending college, so had to be close by. Very strong work ethic, and very talented folks.

It's hard to see outside your bubble of privilege to try to understand why a student may choose GMU even if they had other options. But that doesn't mean that graduates of schools that are not nationally well-recognized are somehow inferior. I would call it a hidden gem, actually.

It’s fine if students attend GMU for reasons such as finances, needing to live close by to take care of sick relatives... but don’t make up reasons such as “they go for computer science”. A TJ student woukdnt choose GMU for CS. Now, if their life circumstances necessitate that they go there, then that’s a completely different thing. And if it happens to have a good CS department, then that is a plus.