s/o: Force child to go to TJ?

[Anonymous]

It's laughable to say TJ is for sports kids. Do they even care what prior sports involvement the admitted students have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some kids are stupid. When they realized they've wasted their lives, it'll be too late.

My kids have no passion for anything at this time, except for video games. Maybe I should let them follow their passion? What an absurd concept.

This is obviously an oversimplification. My kid barely plays video games and has several passions. He just didn’t want to go to TJ. He takes rigorous classes, does a sport and band, has friends and excellent grades. I hardly think this is a waste of his life because he’s doing these things at a non-TJ school.

For anyone still undecided, I suggest talking to as many people with firsthand knowledge of TJ in real life as you can—not just people on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For sports focused kid, what's better- TJ or Base HS? I want DC to accept TJ but DC thinks Base school is better for athletics.

It depends on the sport.

It is almost always going to be easier for a good athlete to make a team at TJ than at a base school.

Tennis might be an exception.

A lot of the "individual" sports are going to be more competitive than team sports.

Individual sports schedules can be molded around academic schedules. With team sports, the academic schedule has to be molded (at least a little bit) around the team schedules.

A lot of team sports are decent to good and you can be a leader on your team if you are good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hypothetically, if your child does NOT want to go to TJ but ends up admitted to the class of 2029, should you, as the parent, force them into going anyway?

Yes / no. Why / why not?

No. At some point, the kid is going to have to do the work themselves. You can't (and don't want to) be constantly hounding them to get stuff done - they'll never learn how to manage their own workload. And TJ's workload is big. I also understand the mental health aspect of the workload can present a challenge - your kid really needs to want to be there if they're going to succeed.

If they don't want to go, let them go to a base school. They'll be able to succeed in life from there too.