Tjhsst is it worth it?
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Anonymous
 Gotta be kidding me. That's your source?
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Anonymous
| Naviance has the same information. |
Anonymous
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"TJ ranks as one of the top (if not the top) schools in the US. The number of National Merit Semis from this school often outnumbers those of some States overall. The students have to compete to get in and Fairfax/Nova has among the best public education systems in the US; therefore, they draw in students whose previous performance indicates they will do well in the school and beyond. That’s what magnet schools were designed to do and they have accomplished their mission. (Why are there not more magnet schools like this opening up around the US—a good question---.)
I have visited the school many times and lectured there, so I speak literally from experience rather than just from some data points. Walking into TJ and being in the halls when classes change is far different than going into most schools. It can’t quite be classified in simple ways, but there is an energy that exists in and out of classes (I’ve sat in on a good number) and in the school as a whole that I have rarely encountered (at least in the US; I've felt this same thing at a significant number of the ‘best’ schools around the world). You are lucky indeed to be going there, as it will prepare you for success at virtually and college or university in the world. Feeling good? I hope so, because here comes the sad part. Not all that long ago the Harvard Crimson ran an article on ‘feeder’ schools, those few schools that send quite few students to Harvard year in and year out. The schools are well known and are great. Yet, TJ is not among them. Why would this be? It isn’t as though TJ is not known there, but the nature of selective admission to top schools is such that where you go to school and how you do does not always follow a pattern most would expect. Universities and colleges (and the smaller the school like the most elite small liberal arts schools of the world) the morel likely they are, in a de facto way, to restrict the numbers coming in from any given school. These days, the most elite colleges and universities want to have a student body from all over the US and the world. Part of this stems from trying to get past the past-- the composition of the educational landscape several generations ago. Back in the 50’s and 60's the students who entered laces like Harvard or Williams, for example, consisted far more dramatically than today, of a large group from boarding schools and private schools, mostly located in the northeast (and a few other places). The elite schools catered to men (most of the top schools were single sex back then) who were from schools that were known as great. This was before colleges and universities began to travel, all fall, first regionally, then nationally and now internationally in search of students. There were no marketing budgets and for the most part the admission committees were made up of faculty. They took what they saw as sure bets and so those secondary schools with great reputations tended to receive large numbers of admission offers. It was clubby and chummy. Back then there were no US News rankings and there was not competition to get to the top of “best" lists the way there is now. But all that has changed. And there are some great reasons for making this change but there are also consequences that affect schools like TJ that some would argue are not meritocratic. When women finally permitted to enroll in the best schools it doubled the applicant pool and made admission much more selective. Not long after that, rankings came into play. All of a sudden things got way harder for students even from the best schools. More important, however, schools wanted to play down the press (and, in part, the reality) that they were bastions of privilege. They wanted to offer spaces to students from all walks of life that were great students. Diversity became the mantra and to some degree this word and the ideology behind it still ranks as one of the top goals of the most selective schools. Diversity means lots of things but all of these are important at some level now: socioeconomic, first generation, under-represented populations, and geographic diversity are all of interest to schools and the media. As a result, schools have gone to great lengths to demonstrate they are diverse in all these ways. This may seem off point but let me try to show why going to TJ is not in and of itself good or bad, but a little of both. Given the focus on diversity in all its forms, the most selective schools with huge applicant pools do not often want to enroll a large group of students from a single school or even, in some cases, from a single region. This effort to spread the offers means that going to TJ will not help you get in to the top schools in the US even though virtually every school in the US knows it ranks near the top of high schools anywhere. Does this make rational sense? It does from their point of view if you remember that they are looking for students from many places and backgrounds. But for those who argue for a flat meritocratic system (something that has never existed in the world and never will), then they will be disappointed with this approach .In addition, TJ has a very high percentage of Asians students and as everyone knows (but schools can’t say,) there are just too may great Asians studens applying to the most selective schools. In your particular case, your standing at TJ now will get you into many of the top schools in the US, but it’s very unlikely you could crack the top of the top unless you are an Intel winner or a special (under-represented group, first generation, athlete etc.). If the top schools won’t offer to more than a handful of TJ students it should come as no surprise that they will take the 4.5 students first. But going to a different Fairfax school might not have helped either. If you were at the top of the top at Langley or Marshall or Woodson you’d still be competing in a region where some places are only going to take but so many students. And there is no guarantee (although many students assume it to be so) that a student at TJ with lower GPA would be at the very top of another school. It well could be true, but then the top schools turn down the valedictorians of many schools around the world. If you are now feeling depressed, let me see if I can pitch something that should make you feel, if not elated, at least a bit better. Is TJ a feeder school to some of the best schools in the US? Absolutely. What are these schools? I will list 3. William and Mary, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. These are 3 of the top public schools in the US; in addition, they are among of the top schools overall. Hundreds of TJ students are accepted to these schools and many choose to attend. I can say from personal experience (I was in charge of overseeing the selection of honors students into one of these schools) that these students do exceptionally well on campus. Each year, I ran a report tha listed the average GPA, by high school, of all enrolled students. With the exception of some international schools, TJ students’ performance was the best of any school that enrolled 10 or more students in a four-year cycle (what I considered a large enough number for caparison data). This outcome should come as no surprise. TJ deserves its great reputation and the data proves that the students do better, at least in terms of GPA, than almost anywhere else. My guess is that if this data were run by other schools (and I hope that this is being done) that the performance of TJ students across all the schools they attend would be exceptionally high relative to almost all other schools too. From this point of view, TJ has prepared you for success. But given what I have written does not mean that even this data will help increase the numbers of TJ students getting into the most selective schools. It could help but my guess is that schools would not release this data. If schools starting showing, publicly at least, how students from specific secondary schools did on their campuses, there would be surprises, outcry, and lots else. It’s this kind of deep data that should be gathered but there are many reasons that it won’t or if it is it won’t see the light of day in public (To explain why would involve a book-length digression). But for you life should be good as you do have great options ahead. But life is never that simple. This time, the problem is not with what schools decide about TJ aps; rather, it’s the culture that goes on within the walls of TJ itself. I have talked to many, many TJ students over the years and for some, especially those with top gpas, schools like the great public universities within the Commonwealth of Virginia, are perceived by them as back ups at best. The expectation of these students is that not only should they get in to the State schools, but that the ‘deserve’ to be a part of the honors programs. And in many cases I think they are correct. But because so many TJ kids go to the great State schools some students there look down upon the school. They forget they live in a very elite bubble and while there may a number of classmates ion campus this does not mean the school itself is not near the top. Those schools have what I would call the wisdom to accept lots of these great students rather than using other non-academic rubrics too liberally. Instead of viewing these State colleges and universities as less than great opportunities compared to higher ranked schools, I think more top students there should think seriously about turning down higher ranked schools. Of course given my background I can be expected to say this, but again I’d point to the data. First of all, the cost for attending a top state school is half what a private would be. Some students go into a lot of debt to trade up a few places on some rankings that don’t mean much. As important, however, is something I have written about a lot on Quora, my blog and lots of other places too. Students from a magnet school like TJ who go to a college and university (especially as an honors scholar) have the data in hand to demonstrate that it is likely that at the end of 4 years they will graduate near the top of the class. And if a student graduates from a great college or university with a stellar GPA, research, honors major etc. that will help these students get into the best graduate schools. For the high flyers that are TJ students, undergraduate degrees are usually just one part of the academic journey. A TJ student coming out at the top of a great state school will have the chance to get into the top of the top grad schools. I have seen this happen again and again. Gladwell writes about this in “David Goliath”, and he’s is pretty convincing. But I have nearly 30 years of watching great kids from TJ do very well and then go on the top companies and grad schools. Why am I saying this? Because you are a wonderful student who will likely have the chance to go to one of this great state schools and maybe even be a part of the honors programs. Your chances of getting into most Ivies may not be all that high, but so what? Go where you’ll shine and then you will have as many or more options than if you went someplace that might cost much more and give you fewer options later. Best of luck no matter where you go." |
Anonymous
Looking at the stats, where they list how many kids were accepted to each school per class, I can not find any year where Harvard is listed: https://www.tjhsst.edu/abouttj/schoolprofile/docs/2014-15TJHSST%20Profile.pdf. This lists those with 10 or more acceptances. |
Anonymous
| Harvard will NOT pick kids from schools like TJ as much as you think they should b/c schools like Harvard (H in particular) are looking for not only the students but also the "family" connections. So, wealthy kids with fathers/mothers with big titles (Executives, high power lawyers, top-tier Govt managers..etc.) but slightly lower stats than TJ kids will have much better chance of getting picked than smart kids from TJ with parents owning dry cleaning businesses. |
Anonymous
| 01:58, TL to make a such a commonplace point. However, prestige-crazed parents will not get it anyway. |
Anonymous
Ohh, Executives....of course, they're looking for Executive families. |
Anonymous
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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. 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. My DS choose to go to UVA because he was offered a full tuition merit scholarship (and he liked UVA a lot) It was not a Jefferson Scholarship, the offer came as a nice surprise and after considering it and weighing other offers, including Cornell and others, he chose UVA Engineering, no regrets whatsoever. So yes, going in-State does not mean one was not good enough for private elites. No doubt the TJ was an amazing opportunity for him, UVA was also terrific. For us, we would not have gotten need aid at private elites but also, we could not afford them, so they were not a reasonable option. |
Anonymous
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Best HS to attend not only to receive top education with access to unique advanced courses only available at TJ but the school has advanced cutting edge tech labs not even available at some colleges as well as teachers with PhDs who gave up teaching at colleges to teach at TJ.
Most TJ grads go on to UVA, W and M, Michigan, Cornell, Duke , MIT etc. and other top colleges including Ivys. In addition, there is no bullying, violence, gangs, mean girls, alcohol, drugs, spoiled rich kids acting entitle, etc. Very social and academic environment for learning and exploring with built in 8th period which offers more than 160 clubs and activities. Finally, there is actually more chance to participate in sports since everyone gets to play unlike other FCPS schools. Ironic. |
Anonymous
and in most sports the bar is typically lower talentless. |
Anonymous
So what, it's more inclusive. |
Anonymous
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When I went there in the late 90's, which I realize is a long time ago, each year there were students who went to harvard but not as many as 10. Definitely 4-8 per year.
Very very rough and speaking from memory--25% to ivy; 25% to non ivy but exclusive such as MIT, Hopkins, Duke; more than 50% to UVA; most of rest to V. Tech, 7 year med program at george mason, schools I wasn't interested but are probably good such as Univ of Texas; about 10-20 go to local schools like james madison. |
Anonymous
| Fairfax is lucky to have TJ. |
Anonymous
I meant talent-wise. being more inclusive is a result of that. |