TJHSST 2025-26 Enrollment by FCPS Pyramid
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Anonymous
There is certainly truth to what you are saying and it does have an impact. There is also a huge selection bias. The most tigerish parents choose Haycock/Longfellow/McLean and it goes down a little each pyramid down. The Haycock/Longfellow/McLean parent/child combo if some reason end up at a lower/less performing school pyramid, they are going to perform at the same level. Compared to the peer group, they would shine brighter, the recommendation letters are going to be much more glowing, leadership opportunities easier, academic stress lower leading to more spectacular EC's. |
Anonymous
These kids aren’t going to perform at the same level without having equally strong peer groups. If what you are claiming was true families would save money and work the system so their kids could shine at Whitman, Key, or Poe. They know they’ll have better outcomes coming from Longfellow, Carson, Rocky Run, Cooper, or Kilmer. These “tigerish” parents aren’t stupid. |
Anonymous
The students do get pulled in due to the peer group, but that is only for the say top third or so of the students. Take Science Olympiad, if you to to Longfellow, you get an immense well oiled support system + deep knowledge of each event + coaches who are trained and pass on the knowledge to next group, practice sessions drilled into the plan, etc. Any student who is able to get into the program, does not matter who, will do well, just like you suggest. The students who want to but cannot qualify miss out on this opportunity. Same with Mathcounts and so on. So the top kids do get a benefit. Most parents (as we all do) expect our kid to also be in that top cohort. But if they are not, it is a disadvantage. |
Anonymous
This must be true. There is one middle school, I can't remember which one, that has sent 4 or 5 students to TJ and every student was dismissed to their base school each of the past couple years. |
Anonymous
Meh. This is like the academic equivalent of arguing you should send your kid to Lewis because it’s easier to make the team that won’t win any games. |
Anonymous
Parents did discuss doing just that when the new admissions process was put in place. Most everyone knew it was BS talk but it was discussed. |
Anonymous
If that’s true, it’s sad. But it’s not surprising since the quotas are for every middle school and treat non-AAP schools the same as the schools with AAP centers. |
Anonymous
The families who want TJ learned how to work the new system without putting their kids in low performing schools. |
Anonymous
Or they come and complain that their kid was not accepted and how it is a travesty after the fact. Many of those posts include the kid was in Mathcounts or Science Olympiad at Carson/Rocky Run/Longfellow/Cooper and how it is a travesty that such a dedicated kid was not accepted at TJ. The ones whose kids are accepted will say they worked the system, the ones who are not accepted will complain. It has happened every year. DC is at Carson, we know kids in Mathcounts and Science Olympiad who apply to TJ with perfect grades in AAP who are not accepted. I am not sure how you game the system, nor am I looking for a way to game the system. We told DC to do their best with their classes and on the test. We looked up some previous prompts so they had an idea about what they would look like and could practice a few times. It is almost a lottery at the top 4 MS and most of us are aware of it. DC will do well if they end up at their base school but would love TJ for the additional challenge. |
Anonymous
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. |
Anonymous
DP. It’s anecdotal, but FCPS would always withhold the evidence. What is clear is the pyramids that were sending the most kids to TJ before the admissions policy changed continue to send the most kids there. In addition, the high schools in those pyramids remain among the strongest in FCPS, even though they send so many kids to TJ. There are a few exceptions where there isn’t as much of a culture of aspiring to attend TJ. It’s not because those high schools are any better, but simply that the enrollments skew whiter and less Asian. |
Anonymous
The problem is that FCPS has all the evidence and they will not share it with anyone because of privacy issues (less than 10 students involved) |
Anonymous
They don’t want to share the evidence because it would show that letting students in based on bonus experience factor points isn’t finding the students who will thrive be at TJ. |
Anonymous
This is one of my primary gripes with the TJ Admissions Office over the course of the past... let's say 15 years or so. 25 years ago there were approximately 3,000 applications to TJ year over year for 400 spaces. The population size of the catchment area has absolutely exploded over the past quarter century and yet for the past dozen years or so (including the times when TJ was repeatedly crowned the best high school in the country) the application numbers have settled at around 2,500 per year. We should be seeing application numbers of 5,000+ every year if we want a truly exceptional class every year. There are more than enough phenomenal students in Northern Virginia to create a super high-performing, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse cohort each year that excels to a far greater extent than TJ already does. The Admissions Office and the school itself need to do a much better job of telling the story of its excellence. |
Anonymous
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FCPS needed to make changes to how kids were admitted to TJ because of the threat of litigation by the NAACP. They cannot add racial quotas. Setting a percentage guarantee from each MS provides every student in FCPS, and the other counties that participate, an opportunity to attend TJ. The other requirements cut the number of kids who can apply far more substantially then the people who post on this forum think. The Honors math and science requirement is more of a hurdle then people here think it is.
There are students who are accepted who are going to struggle at TJ and that number has increased. But FCPS needs to have an admissions system that they can point to that is as unbiased as they can make it. Opening TJ to every MS if you meet certain criteria opened TJ to MS that were under represented that happen to have more kids who are from under represented minorities and poor. It stopped the threat of litigation. Now the kids from Title 1 MS that could not get into TJ under the old system have a path to TJ. Some of them ill succeed, and their definition of success might be very different then your definition of success. Many will return to their base schools but they were given the opportunity. You don't have to like it but it is what it is. |