TJ vs the Big 3
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Anonymous
| OP here. Thank your for all the responses, it does seem the general tide flows toward TJ (Yey!) To the person that said I'm an immigrant and I don't value my son's opinion in the matter, go ahead and believe what you will, I doubt I'll ever convince you otherwise. I AM an immigrant from South America, but not as you might think. My parents came to the US because my father was hired at a major international bank. I've been in the US since I was 5, so that makes it 40 years. Trust me, this is my country. My husband is American also. I'm not a type A mom (although I find nothing wrong with moms expecting the best from their children), I'm just a frustrated mom that can't help her son. My husband and I are educated intelligent adults, but we can't mentor our son's ideas, they are beyond us. What does my son want? He doesn't even know, he is so young in so many ways and such a happy go lucky kid. He does want to be able to build all this things that are in his head. Some teacher have been able to help somewhat for two science awards he won. He is surrounded by smart children at his school, but in math and science he is beyond. So, I know may son, and I know he would love to be among peers his own age, or close to his age for an exchange of ideas and collaboration. If this is impossible, a teacher that could mentor him would be wonderful. It seems like TJ would be the place to go for this, right? |
Anonymous
| OP If you are Hispanic that is a real help in admissions at TJ. |
Anonymous
| Agree with PP. 2% of kids are Latino at TJ, 1% are Black. So that should help slightly. |
Anonymous
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One thing to consider. All the kids at TJ have been through the tough selection process in 8th grade - there are no lifers who aced the playdate at age 3.
Because there are so many kids at TJ, your son is more likely to find his "tribe" i.e. a group with similar interests. This is harder at a school with 60-80 kids per grade. Check the curriculum for all the schools. Do private schools offer classes he is likely to want like AP Computer Science and beyond? Also look carefully at your local high school and what opportunities it can provide - as people have noted it is very hard to get into TJ. Your local high school might be a great option. |
Anonymous
To me, clearly, TJ. I really hope he gets there. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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If you were asking about a classical, well rounded education, I would say yes, Big 3, but if your focus is solely on math/science, it doesn't get much better than TJ.
This PP is correct. It depends on what you want. TJ doesn't offer the well rounded prep school experience. If you're shooting for MIT then TJ it is. |
Anonymous
No. Unless the private school offered a particular course of study that was not available at TJ. I see absolutely no reason to do it. |
Anonymous
| We recently hired a post-bacc from TJ followed by William and Mary, and holy cow, she already was functioning at the doctoral level. Incredibly smart and creative with a mind for science and research. |
Anonymous
agree with this, it is amazing the course offerings at many of the FFX high schools, I would not assume private is the way to go. visit your potential high school and investigate it. good luck either way! |
Anonymous
Not really, it would help w/ big 3. TJ has no racial quotas and that's why its mostly Asian. |
Anonymous
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No. We would pick private school over public magnets. I have cousins who attended Stuyvacent which is similar to TJ. Most of our family, however, attended private school. We are looking at private schools in NYC, Horace Mann and Collegiate, and elite boarding schools like Exeter, Lawrenceville, etc.
But we want to move out of DC. Our DS excels in math but we want a more traditional education for him. |
Anonymous
| Go to all of the open houses in the fall. You will get to meet current students, hear about the school, tour the facilities, look at the courses offered, etc. You and your son will get a better sense of where he will feel comfortable. |
Anonymous
| Having interviewed about 20 TJ kids for my college alma mater, there is no question that there are impressive STEM students at the school. If your child wants to study nothing but math, science, or engineering major, you can't really do any better. But, there are lots of smart students who just go there for the academic reputation despite not having much of an interest in math and science. The students I've interviewed have tended to read very little outside of class and what they read for their AP classes are pretty pedestrian high school level material. About half of the TJ kids cite Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird as the most influential book they've read. They discuss social problems without any more understanding than what they hear from a TED Talk. And history is primarily a collection of random timeline facts. This isn't much of a problem for a STEM student, but it is a major negative for those interested in anything else. In contrast, I found that students at the most selective privates, regardless of their field of interest, had much stronger evidence of intellectual depth. It's not that TJ students aren't every bit as smart (if not smarter) they just haven't been taught and exposed to the same material. |
Anonymous
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If we could afford it, we would unhesitantly choose a big three over TJ. There's a herdlike behavior that the TJ admission process fosters--most of these kids have been pushed into very similar extracurriculars and prep activities from a tender age in hopes of burnishing their application. It leads to a very homogeneous profile and a bit of a bubble atmosphere imo.
But we don't have very generous grandparents offering to foot the bill so we'll stick with the public school 
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Anonymous
| Big 3, hands down. |