You would be surprised how wealthy public school parents are. |
Private HS this season has way better Ivies admissions than last year, some school doubled. Guess Ivies really need money, hence better chose families that have donation potentials. |
This is a WAG but I think TJ is having a rough admission cycle and that is creating more room for admissions from other schools in the area. |
And also go if your kid wants access to lab courses and teachers with expertise in science that doesn’t exist at base schools. And if they want to have a group of peers who have similar interests. It’s fun to watch kids who didn’t have a large peer group at their base school find a group of peers who also enjoy geeking out about rocketry, quantum physics, astronomy, biotech, etc. |
Curious, for students that are high stats (all As), but not geeks, into quantum physics, etc, would they be a good fit at TJ? My dc does have a very small cohort of friends at base school, because many others are preppy, less interested in academics. Dc will be doing Geometry at 8th grade. |
Really, nobody know. |
My kid is at TJ. Most kids at TJ are serious students but do not study recreationally. Most of them are not doing independent research until their senior year when everyone does a research lab. If your kids is athletic, the team sports opportunities are wide open. Individual sports tend to be more competitive. |
I had one child go to Langley and one went to TJ. The Langley child went to an Ivy, the TJ child is at UVA. Both STEM majors. The child that went to Langley was overall better prepared than the child that went to TJ. (And had MUCH better college admissions.) The one exception is Math and Spanish - the TJ classes were much harder. The Senior lab was nice for the TJ child, but also was not life-changing. My Langley child was easily able to get research at the IVY while the TJ child had to fight to get research opportunities at UVA Would choose Langley for both if I could go back in time. If Langley is your base school or you can pupil-place for Russian, I would seriously consider it. Others advice and experience may vary. Both schools have lots and lots of cheating. |
My kid dominated academics at his base school. He'll be solidly middle of the pack at TJ.
My biggest beef with TJ is teachers playing "gotcha" e.g. my son couldn't complete an assignment in a class due to a technical issue with the computers in class and the teacher said- tough break. It feels like they want them to fail so they don't have to give everyone As. |
Most parents do not have Langley as an option. |
I call BS |
The cheating at Langley has likely gotten worse since the PPs child graduated. Many stories of cheating in the AP classes this year with no consequences. Cheating at TJ has always been overblown. |
Cheating how? Using chatGpT for papers? |
Question for above poster- in what ways was your Langley child better prepared for college? What did you mean by that? Thanks, |
DC is currently Sophomore at TJ.
Taking pre-calc. Half the class is struggling. Latest test, mid-term - class average was 62 - thats a F. You can imagine what this does to college applications. Unless ur kid is out of this world smart and good at math - TJ is not good for college applications. Base school has many of the same courses up to AP Calc BC and no reason to stress at TJ |