If a kid will fall in top 30-50% in TJ, is going to TJ a better idea

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 5% or it’s bad to attend TJ for college admissions.

This. Obviously, if a family cares about the best education and opportunities for their kids, they care about that for both HS and college. Very short sighted to only think about HS.

It might be short sighted only looking at college when grad school is on the horizon.

TJ will prepare you for college better than other schools as long as you don't drown.

I think anyone that can reasonably expect to be in the top 20% at TJ should go.
How do you know if you will be top 20%?
Anyone that gets 99th percentile on standardized test scores should probably go. Maybe even 98th.

Bolded is -1000. You’re saying the number one kid at Langley or McLean is not equally prepared for college? Or that an unhooked ivy admit from a base school/any other school is less prepared than the 10th/200th kid at TJ? Unhinged.

—This is why TJ needs to be very carefully considered. It hurts college chances and as much as some say eh, so…it matters.

I agree that for a lot of students it hurts college chances but I think it really depends on the student.

IMHO,

If a student is top 10% at TJ, they are probably better off in every way for having attended TJ.

If a student is bottom 10% at TJ, they are probably worse off in every way for having attended TJ.

For most of the kids in the middle it's probably a relatively even trade-off of college admissions vs the TJ experience.
Unless you want to go to UVA, then stay at your base. UVA says they don't have a cap on TJ admissions, but it is absolutely wild the people you see getting rejected from UVA at TJ because there are already 50 people that got in during ED/EA that cycle.

UVA doesn't have a cap on admissions, but they do reject regular decision applicants whom they don't believe will accept their offer of admission. Indeed, a lot of elite schools do this.

Yield (percentage of offers accepted) matters in college rankings and it matters for admissions staffers with respect to their job performance. Applicants in the regular cycle are given a separate score that estimates the student's likelihood of accepting an offer of admission and if that score is low for whatever reason, there's a strong chance they'll be waitlisted even if they are stronger than some of their admits.

TJ students historically apply to too many schools and don't do a good enough job with their school-specific writing supplements to receive strong "yield scores".

[Anonymous]

Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

[Anonymous]

According to MIT

“ standardized tests also help us identify academically prepared, socioeconomically disadvantaged students who could not otherwise demonstrate readiness⁠ because they do not attend schools that offer advanced coursework, cannot afford expensive enrichment opportunities, cannot expect lengthy letters of recommendation from their overburdened teachers, or are otherwise hampered by educational inequalities.⁠ By using the tests as a tool⁠ in the service of our mission, we have helped improve the diversity of our undergraduate population⁠ while student academic outcomes at MIT have gotten better,⁠ too; our strategic and purposeful use of testing has been crucial to doing both simultaneously.⁠”

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our-sat-act-requirement-for-future-admissions-cycles/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

DP

It's the emphasis and spin. They play up the costs and play down the benefits.

The value of the extra rigor at TJ is significant. You cannot get this rigor at any other FCPS public high school because they don't have the student body to tolerate it.
The penalty in college admissions is not catastrophic. You are not dropping from CMU at your base school to VT at TJ. You might drop from CMU to Purdue or UIUC.
The one group that should not go to TJ are the students that are not prepared for the academic rigor.
You should have geometry by end of 8th grade. Your standardized test scores through your academic career should consistently be putting you in the 99th or 98th percentile but absolutely no lower than 95th.
Math specifically should be easy for you up to 8th grade. If math was challenging at all, don't go to TJ. That is the class where you see kids getting Cs and Ds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 5% or it’s bad to attend TJ for college admissions.

This. Obviously, if a family cares about the best education and opportunities for their kids, they care about that for both HS and college. Very short sighted to only think about HS.

It might be short sighted only looking at college when grad school is on the horizon.

TJ will prepare you for college better than other schools as long as you don't drown.

I think anyone that can reasonably expect to be in the top 20% at TJ should go.
How do you know if you will be top 20%?
Anyone that gets 99th percentile on standardized test scores should probably go. Maybe even 98th.

Bolded is -1000. You’re saying the number one kid at Langley or McLean is not equally prepared for college? Or that an unhooked ivy admit from a base school/any other school is less prepared than the 10th/200th kid at TJ? Unhinged.

—This is why TJ needs to be very carefully considered. It hurts college chances and as much as some say eh, so…it matters.

I agree that for a lot of students it hurts college chances but I think it really depends on the student.

IMHO,

If a student is top 10% at TJ, they are probably better off in every way for having attended TJ.

If a student is bottom 10% at TJ, they are probably worse off in every way for having attended TJ.

For most of the kids in the middle it's probably a relatively even trade-off of college admissions vs the TJ experience.
Unless you want to go to UVA, then stay at your base. UVA says they don't have a cap on TJ admissions, but it is absolutely wild the people you see getting rejected from UVA at TJ because there are already 50 people that got in during ED/EA that cycle.

UVA doesn't have a cap on admissions, but they do reject regular decision applicants whom they don't believe will accept their offer of admission. Indeed, a lot of elite schools do this.

Yield (percentage of offers accepted) matters in college rankings and it matters for admissions staffers with respect to their job performance. Applicants in the regular cycle are given a separate score that estimates the student's likelihood of accepting an offer of admission and if that score is low for whatever reason, there's a strong chance they'll be waitlisted even if they are stronger than some of their admits.

TJ students historically apply to too many schools and don't do a good enough job with their school-specific writing supplements to receive strong "yield scores".

UVA explicitly states they do not yield protect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 5% or it’s bad to attend TJ for college admissions.

This. Obviously, if a family cares about the best education and opportunities for their kids, they care about that for both HS and college. Very short sighted to only think about HS.

It might be short sighted only looking at college when grad school is on the horizon.

TJ will prepare you for college better than other schools as long as you don't drown.

I think anyone that can reasonably expect to be in the top 20% at TJ should go.
How do you know if you will be top 20%?
Anyone that gets 99th percentile on standardized test scores should probably go. Maybe even 98th.

Bolded is -1000. You’re saying the number one kid at Langley or McLean is not equally prepared for college? Or that an unhooked ivy admit from a base school/any other school is less prepared than the 10th/200th kid at TJ? Unhinged.

—This is why TJ needs to be very carefully considered. It hurts college chances and as much as some say eh, so…it matters.

I agree that for a lot of students it hurts college chances but I think it really depends on the student.

IMHO,

If a student is top 10% at TJ, they are probably better off in every way for having attended TJ.

If a student is bottom 10% at TJ, they are probably worse off in every way for having attended TJ.

For most of the kids in the middle it's probably a relatively even trade-off of college admissions vs the TJ experience.
Unless you want to go to UVA, then stay at your base. UVA says they don't have a cap on TJ admissions, but it is absolutely wild the people you see getting rejected from UVA at TJ because there are already 50 people that got in during ED/EA that cycle.

UVA doesn't have a cap on admissions, but they do reject regular decision applicants whom they don't believe will accept their offer of admission. Indeed, a lot of elite schools do this.

Yield (percentage of offers accepted) matters in college rankings and it matters for admissions staffers with respect to their job performance. Applicants in the regular cycle are given a separate score that estimates the student's likelihood of accepting an offer of admission and if that score is low for whatever reason, there's a strong chance they'll be waitlisted even if they are stronger than some of their admits.

TJ students historically apply to too many schools and don't do a good enough job with their school-specific writing supplements to receive strong "yield scores".

UVA explicitly states they do not yield protect.

But this doesn’t fit the narrative for the only
Possible reason why a TJ applicant is rejected. Can you recheck this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 5% or it’s bad to attend TJ for college admissions.

This. Obviously, if a family cares about the best education and opportunities for their kids, they care about that for both HS and college. Very short sighted to only think about HS.

It might be short sighted only looking at college when grad school is on the horizon.

TJ will prepare you for college better than other schools as long as you don't drown.

I think anyone that can reasonably expect to be in the top 20% at TJ should go.
How do you know if you will be top 20%?
Anyone that gets 99th percentile on standardized test scores should probably go. Maybe even 98th.

Bolded is -1000. You’re saying the number one kid at Langley or McLean is not equally prepared for college? Or that an unhooked ivy admit from a base school/any other school is less prepared than the 10th/200th kid at TJ? Unhinged.

—This is why TJ needs to be very carefully considered. It hurts college chances and as much as some say eh, so…it matters.

I agree that for a lot of students it hurts college chances but I think it really depends on the student.

IMHO,

If a student is top 10% at TJ, they are probably better off in every way for having attended TJ.

If a student is bottom 10% at TJ, they are probably worse off in every way for having attended TJ.

For most of the kids in the middle it's probably a relatively even trade-off of college admissions vs the TJ experience.
Unless you want to go to UVA, then stay at your base. UVA says they don't have a cap on TJ admissions, but it is absolutely wild the people you see getting rejected from UVA at TJ because there are already 50 people that got in during ED/EA that cycle.

UVA doesn't have a cap on admissions, but they do reject regular decision applicants whom they don't believe will accept their offer of admission. Indeed, a lot of elite schools do this.

Yield (percentage of offers accepted) matters in college rankings and it matters for admissions staffers with respect to their job performance. Applicants in the regular cycle are given a separate score that estimates the student's likelihood of accepting an offer of admission and if that score is low for whatever reason, there's a strong chance they'll be waitlisted even if they are stronger than some of their admits.

TJ students historically apply to too many schools and don't do a good enough job with their school-specific writing supplements to receive strong "yield scores".

UVA explicitly states they do not yield protect.

So do a lot of schools that yield protect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

It genuinely doesn't matter whether or not the things that people are saying are "true" or "false". Like... at all. They'll be true for some kids and false for others and there's not really a good way to determine which will be which unless you actually attend and make the experience what it's going to be for you.

This forum is not a good place to go to decide whether or not TJ is the right place for your kid. It never has been.

Think for a moment about the existing incentive structures. Posters here, in a lot of cases, have a really strong incentive to dissuade people from having their kids apply to or sending them to TJ. This causes them to come to places like this and put a magnifying glass on issues that exist for a small subset of students - or in some cases to invent problems out of whole cloth that don't really exist at all.

There doesn't exist a parallel incentive structure for folks who want to see kids apply to TJ and then accept their offers of admission to try to manipulate readers on this forum.

This is why my advice is almost always to take the negative things that you read here with a grain of salt.

Apply to TJ if there's some level of interest there. There's almost no drawback to doing so.
If your kid is admitted, go to Freshmen Preview Night - you'll get a pretty good sense of what you're signing up for between the commute and the experience.
If your kid doesn't like the vibe, or if they're not up for it, then fine, turn it down.
Otherwise, give TJ a shot. It truly is a unique and exceptional experience and you can't get it back if you turn down your offer - but you can always leave if it's not for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

DP

It's the emphasis and spin. They play up the costs and play down the benefits.

The value of the extra rigor at TJ is significant. You cannot get this rigor at any other FCPS public high school because they don't have the student body to tolerate it.
The penalty in college admissions is not catastrophic. You are not dropping from CMU at your base school to VT at TJ. You might drop from CMU to Purdue or UIUC.
The one group that should not go to TJ are the students that are not prepared for the academic rigor.
You should have geometry by end of 8th grade. Your standardized test scores through your academic career should consistently be putting you in the 99th or 98th percentile but absolutely no lower than 95th.
Math specifically should be easy for you up to 8th grade. If math was challenging at all, don't go to TJ. That is the class where you see kids getting Cs and Ds.

I appreciate the tone and tenor of this response, but even the bolded is exaggerated a little bit. Plenty of kids have come through TJ from Alg1 in 8th grade and come out with exceptional outcomes. UChicago, WashU, tons of UVA...

It's about the delta between what you're going to get from your base and what you're going to get from TJ. And honestly, just give it a shot. You can leave TJ once you're there, but you can't go to your base school, realize you made a mistake, and go "oops, just kidding, please let me into TJ".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

It genuinely doesn't matter whether or not the things that people are saying are "true" or "false". Like... at all. They'll be true for some kids and false for others and there's not really a good way to determine which will be which unless you actually attend and make the experience what it's going to be for you.

This forum is not a good place to go to decide whether or not TJ is the right place for your kid. It never has been.

Think for a moment about the existing incentive structures. Posters here, in a lot of cases, have a really strong incentive to dissuade people from having their kids apply to or sending them to TJ. This causes them to come to places like this and put a magnifying glass on issues that exist for a small subset of students - or in some cases to invent problems out of whole cloth that don't really exist at all.

There doesn't exist a parallel incentive structure for folks who want to see kids apply to TJ and then accept their offers of admission to try to manipulate readers on this forum.

This is why my advice is almost always to take the negative things that you read here with a grain of salt.

Apply to TJ if there's some level of interest there. There's almost no drawback to doing so.
If your kid is admitted, go to Freshmen Preview Night - you'll get a pretty good sense of what you're signing up for between the commute and the experience.
If your kid doesn't like the vibe, or if they're not up for it, then fine, turn it down.
Otherwise, give TJ a shot. It truly is a unique and exceptional experience and you can't get it back if you turn down your offer - but you can always leave if it's not for you.

But I am still wanting to know what are parents saying that’s largely not true to get people to turn down a spot? It’s like weeds in these posts and hard to see forest v trees.

So what exactly were the things said about what I Bolded?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

DP

It's the emphasis and spin. They play up the costs and play down the benefits.

The value of the extra rigor at TJ is significant. You cannot get this rigor at any other FCPS public high school because they don't have the student body to tolerate it.
The penalty in college admissions is not catastrophic. You are not dropping from CMU at your base school to VT at TJ. You might drop from CMU to Purdue or UIUC.
The one group that should not go to TJ are the students that are not prepared for the academic rigor.
You should have geometry by end of 8th grade. Your standardized test scores through your academic career should consistently be putting you in the 99th or 98th percentile but absolutely no lower than 95th.
Math specifically should be easy for you up to 8th grade. If math was challenging at all, don't go to TJ. That is the class where you see kids getting Cs and Ds.

If TJ kids would be number 1 at base - if that’s accurate - it’s not CMU…it’s an ivy or better (based on program).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Periodic reminder that TJ acceptances are going out soon...

... and that parents will say anything on these threads in order to sell you on turning down your spot so their kid can get in off the waitlist.

What was that that was false?

Plenty. Not here to debate, just to state a pathetic reality about this forum.

If it’s true or false, it’s factual and not up for debate. I am genuinely interested in finding out what was false (whether it is to open spots up or not).

DP

It's the emphasis and spin. They play up the costs and play down the benefits.

The value of the extra rigor at TJ is significant. You cannot get this rigor at any other FCPS public high school because they don't have the student body to tolerate it.
The penalty in college admissions is not catastrophic. You are not dropping from CMU at your base school to VT at TJ. You might drop from CMU to Purdue or UIUC.
The one group that should not go to TJ are the students that are not prepared for the academic rigor.
You should have geometry by end of 8th grade. Your standardized test scores through your academic career should consistently be putting you in the 99th or 98th percentile but absolutely no lower than 95th.
Math specifically should be easy for you up to 8th grade. If math was challenging at all, don't go to TJ. That is the class where you see kids getting Cs and Ds.

If TJ kids would be number 1 at base - if that’s accurate - it’s not CMU…it’s an ivy or better (based on program).

If a kid is getting into Ivy+ and is #1 at base, he would probably still crush it at TJ and get into the same or similar college.
It's not that kid that struggles at TJ and hurts their college admissions.