Waitlisted at TJ - now what?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

My DC didn't get in, so you are trying to substantiate the outcome. Some of my DC's friends with similar profiles got in while some others didn't just like my DC. The reality is we don't know why one got in and the other with a similar profile didn't because at the end, it is all subjective. "different backgrounds and with different interests" are NOT the only things in consideration. On top of all these, the schools have not increased their sizes to match the growing demand.

Of course it's subjective. Job applications are subjective, choosing a mate is subjective - that's life.

The college admissions process MUST remain subjective so that colleges can continue to make decisions about which students are the right fit for the campus that they want to have. Objectivity in any selection process leads to homogeneity in the selected body - witness TJ for essentially its entire previous history, including, obviously, the time during which it was far too white.

Then lets just stop with saying the admissions process is subjective. Let's not glorify by saying "very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school." This is just BS. Not all accepted students are intellectually curious or gifted or share genuine deep enthusiasm for the school.

...Subjectivity and intent are not mutually exclusive. People get paid extremely well for their skill in identifying talent, and the only reason that it's a valued skill is subjectivity. If evaluating talent were objective, a computer could do it.

Subjectivity by definition is open to abuse. Human nature is to gravitate one way or the other based on your biases. Else we would not have fair housing laws, for example.

Subjectivity is open to abuse, and objectivity is open to gaming the system. At least subjectivity allows for easier fail-safes in the case that you have someone who is qualified on paper but doesn't belong anywhere near the respective school environment.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

DP. I had a family friend with one of those major top-end TJ kids a few years ago, one of the captains of a very prestigious academic team, BC Calc as a freshman, high-4s GPA, and played a sport.

Asked me for help with the interview process for an Ivy League school so I did, having gone to TJ myself and through the interview process. First time we sat down, was incredibly nervous and saw the experience as an opportunity to run down all of their accomplishments in an extremely robotic fashion. Brow furrowed the entire time, fairly obviously searching for points to make and talking points to get across.

After a few sessions of work on relaxing, smiling, engaging with the interviewer about their experience and demonstrating curiosity, and talking more about the reasons why this kid was attracted to this school, we had made incredible progress. The kid had to be reminded repeatedly that the person interviewing them had already seen their resume.

A couple of weeks later, the kid left their interview feeling confident and like it was a really positive back-and-forth. They're getting ready to start their third year at Yale.

Sometimes, these kids just need to be told to relax, be a human being, and enjoy interacting with someone else who is like-minded. It's nothing brilliant, but the family is convinced that it was the key to success in the process.

It is really helpful for making the kid feeling confident and engaged during conversations. But do the alumni interviews really have a say in the admissions? I don't think so.

Former college employee here again. Alumni interviews basically can go one of three ways; enthusiastic approval, enthusiastic disapproval, or "meh". The job is largely for the interviewer to report back to the admissions office on the personality characteristics of the interviewee, and their judgment about whether or not the kid is a good fit for the school's dynamic/ethos. Many on this forum would be amazed at how many exceptional students on paper get a "meh".

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

It's this twisted idea diversity is racist. Similarly, I guess one could argue the civil war was racist against the south since it was against policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of other groups, but this is just crazy talk.

It's a bit crazy that leveling the playing field to allow more URM to participate is racist in the view of some.

It is absolutely insane that labelling an entire community as cheaters and segregators is not racist in the view of some.

No one is doing that. Pointing out that a school is segregated (which TJ inarguably was - fewer than 1% of students in most previous classes were economically disadvantaged) does not inherently ascribe intent to any actor, and pointing out that there are cheaters does not ascribe that characteristic to an entire race.

I'll give you credit - your logical fallacy seems to work on some but my hope is that a community interested in TJ would be substantially more educated than to fall for your sophistry.

I applaud your disingenuity in framing the “reform” as a crusade for economically disadvantaged students. Yes, the civil war was about states’ rights as well. I assume you contend that race had nothing to do with this notwithstanding the communication between the school board members that came out earlier?

For someone advocating for diversity, know your apples from your oranges. Segregation is different from a lack of diversity. TJ of old had a lack of diversity but it was not segregated as you claim.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

It's this twisted idea diversity is racist. Similarly, I guess one could argue the civil war was racist against the south since it was against policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of other groups, but this is just crazy talk.

It's a bit crazy that leveling the playing field to allow more URM to participate is racist in the view of some.

It is absolutely insane that labelling an entire community as cheaters and segregators is not racist in the view of some.

No one is doing that. Pointing out that a school is segregated (which TJ inarguably was - fewer than 1% of students in most previous classes were economically disadvantaged) does not inherently ascribe intent to any actor, and pointing out that there are cheaters does not ascribe that characteristic to an entire race.

I'll give you credit - your logical fallacy seems to work on some but my hope is that a community interested in TJ would be substantially more educated than to fall for your sophistry.

Excellent points! The fact that the PP brings up the rampant cheating when nobody even mentioned that also seems odd...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

It's this twisted idea diversity is racist. Similarly, I guess one could argue the civil war was racist against the south since it was against policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of other groups, but this is just crazy talk.

It's a bit crazy that leveling the playing field to allow more URM to participate is racist in the view of some.

It is absolutely insane that labelling an entire community as cheaters and segregators is not racist in the view of some.

No one is doing that. Pointing out that a school is segregated (which TJ inarguably was - fewer than 1% of students in most previous classes were economically disadvantaged) does not inherently ascribe intent to any actor, and pointing out that there are cheaters does not ascribe that characteristic to an entire race.

I'll give you credit - your logical fallacy seems to work on some but my hope is that a community interested in TJ would be substantially more educated than to fall for your sophistry.

I applaud your disingenuity in framing the “reform” as a crusade for economically disadvantaged students. Yes, the civil war was about states’ rights as well. I assume you contend that race had nothing to do with this notwithstanding the communication between the school board members that came out earlier?

For someone advocating for diversity, know your apples from your oranges. Segregation is different from a lack of diversity. TJ of old had a lack of diversity but it was not segregated as you claim.

Do you happen to know what the demographic breakdown is for TJ's class of 2026?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious to know why folks are so mad at the new process:

- Min GPA requirement
- Math or Science Problem Essay
- Essay about skills/goals
- Pick the top 1-2 % from each school


Doesnt seem so different from a college application?

Harvard would look at experience factors also.

There is the small matter of teacher recommendations that colleges look at.

And Harvard is no gold standard - the Supreme Court will have a say soon.

And Harvard arrived at the “experience factors” because too many Jewish kids were making it on objective criteria. Yes there is your parallel with Harvard.

This was true a century ago but has not been for at least the past fifty years.

It's funny that you say that Harvard is no gold standard but that's still the school that every parent in your community wants the bumper sticker of. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Ironically one of the things that makes it great is its diverse student body.

BINGO. And it is rapidly becoming one of the great things about TJ.

“BINGO” - Great in the spirit of Make America Great Again. Congratulations

Make America Great Again exists in contradistinction to the forces seeking to desegregate TJ. MAGA wants to re-segregate TJ.

Foot in the mouth much! Did not know desegregation was a goal of reform. Such racism.

It's this twisted idea diversity is racist. Similarly, I guess one could argue the civil war was racist against the south since it was against policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of other groups, but this is just crazy talk.

It's a bit crazy that leveling the playing field to allow more URM to participate is racist in the view of some.

It is absolutely insane that labelling an entire community as cheaters and segregators is not racist in the view of some.

No one is doing that. Pointing out that a school is segregated (which TJ inarguably was - fewer than 1% of students in most previous classes were economically disadvantaged) does not inherently ascribe intent to any actor, and pointing out that there are cheaters does not ascribe that characteristic to an entire race.

I'll give you credit - your logical fallacy seems to work on some but my hope is that a community interested in TJ would be substantially more educated than to fall for your sophistry.

I applaud your disingenuity in framing the “reform” as a crusade for economically disadvantaged students. Yes, the civil war was about states’ rights as well. I assume you contend that race had nothing to do with this notwithstanding the communication between the school board members that came out earlier?

For someone advocating for diversity, know your apples from your oranges. Segregation is different from a lack of diversity. TJ of old had a lack of diversity but it was not segregated as you claim.

Do you happen to know what the demographic breakdown is for TJ's class of 2026?[/All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

[Anonymous]

Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

DP. I had a family friend with one of those major top-end TJ kids a few years ago, one of the captains of a very prestigious academic team, BC Calc as a freshman, high-4s GPA, and played a sport.

Asked me for help with the interview process for an Ivy League school so I did, having gone to TJ myself and through the interview process. First time we sat down, was incredibly nervous and saw the experience as an opportunity to run down all of their accomplishments in an extremely robotic fashion. Brow furrowed the entire time, fairly obviously searching for points to make and talking points to get across.

After a few sessions of work on relaxing, smiling, engaging with the interviewer about their experience and demonstrating curiosity, and talking more about the reasons why this kid was attracted to this school, we had made incredible progress. The kid had to be reminded repeatedly that the person interviewing them had already seen their resume.

A couple of weeks later, the kid left their interview feeling confident and like it was a really positive back-and-forth. They're getting ready to start their third year at Yale.

Sometimes, these kids just need to be told to relax, be a human being, and enjoy interacting with someone else who is like-minded. It's nothing brilliant, but the family is convinced that it was the key to success in the process.

It is really helpful for making the kid feeling confident and engaged during conversations. But do the alumni interviews really have a say in the admissions? I don't think so.

Former college employee here again. Alumni interviews basically can go one of three ways; enthusiastic approval, enthusiastic disapproval, or "meh". The job is largely for the interviewer to report back to the admissions office on the personality characteristics of the interviewee, and their judgment about whether or not the kid is a good fit for the school's dynamic/ethos. Many on this forum would be amazed at how many exceptional students on paper get a "meh".

I am aware that the interviewer will report back to the admissions office. But I do not think the report has the power to sway the AO in either direction.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relax. Not the end of the world. Many TJ kids attending dame school as my non TJ senior. Except mine didn’t get the amount of stress Tj kids went through. Be a strong student at a base school. Tj is way over rated.

Depends on the base school. Let's not act like going to a mediocre base school provides the same peer group as TJ. And the bottom 10% of TJ students attend the same colleges as the top 10% of the base high school students.

This year top 10% of TJ are attending mediocre schools, my DC is one of them and so are many of her peers.

My DC is one of them too.

Precisely how are you defining the top 10% of TJ and precisely how are you defining mediocre schools?

DC has >4.6GPA, international/national/state awards in FPS, debate, hackathon, etc to name a few with 2 officer positions in school clubs and volunteering. And is going to a T50 school. I am pretty sure with this stats, kids went to a T10 or atleast T20 before.

DP. Used to be employed at a top-25 school where my office regularly interfaced with admissions. Two mistakes that high-end students make all of the time in the admissions process:

1) Especially with the prevalence of the Common App, they don't do enough to convince the school that they'll accept the offer if given. This is important because parents are obsessed with rankings, and therefore more and more admissions offices are obsessed with rankings (see the recent scandal at Columbia). Admissions offices want two numbers to be optimized - their admit rate (which needs to be low, and supported by a higher number of applications) and their yield rate (which needs to be high, meaning that a high percentage of students offered end up matriculating). This is the biggest reason why students who appear exceptional like yours do not get admitted to schools that they seemingly should coast into based purely on stats - it doesn't help admissions offices in any way to extend an offer to a student who they think will turn it down.

2) They don't do enough to explain to the school how they will contribute to the overall academic environment once they're there. Universities don't get very much (beyond a tuition check) out of a student who is simply going to show up on campus, excel in their schoolwork, and then take their degree off to the private sector never to be heard from again. There are no end of students who, believe it or not, have very similar profiles to your student. Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ - your assessment that they're in the top 10% is probably generous because you're placing too much weight on the GPA. Admissions officers love activities that show a student's desire to be a part of and contribute to something bigger than themselves; this is why activities like FPS, debate, hackathon, individual sports like golf or tennis or wrestling, and other such activities aren't looked upon as strongly as tutoring, team sports, performing arts, and service organizations.

In the end, most elite schools would rather graduate a student who was deeply engaged in campus activities than a 4.0 kid who did nothing but study - because the deeply engaged kid is more likely to donate and contribute in other ways to the school down the road. College is a business, and they behave as such.

"Hell, there are a ton of them just coming from TJ " ==> this is definitely NOT true. sure, there are more than a handful, but definitely not a ton from TJ. Volunteering involved tutoring & being a part of a service org. DC was genuine in essays and didn't embellish or extrapolate anything in them.

Our school alone, in a normal year, would have received something like 30-40 applications from TJ alone (amongst many others) that looked very much like what you described above. That's a ton from an admissions office perspective, given that most other schools would be lucky to have two.

By the way, this problem isn't solely related to TJ students. As a whole, most families have no idea what college admissions officers are looking for - and part of that is because they're very carefully trying to construct a class that brings students from different backgrounds and with different interests together who all share the goal of deep enthusiasm for the school. Colleges don't need hundreds of students in a class who all have similar resumes and profiles.

I wish I could understand how the AOs could figure out deep enthusiasm for the school from the applicant's short essay(s) that address a specific question.

It's a good thing that you can't, because then folks would be able to fake it. Curie would teach classes in it and charge thousands.

Wealthy people already can and do fake it using expensive college consultants who know precisely the best way to present a child. PP’s child was probably leapfrogged by less talented kids who had better college consultants.

Our TJ student was no less talented than the PP’s child (e.g., captain of the two school clubs, not just an officer), and we hired a college consultant to help the student present themselves. It’s not sufficient to manufacture a great product, you also need to advertise and sell it.

DP. I had a family friend with one of those major top-end TJ kids a few years ago, one of the captains of a very prestigious academic team, BC Calc as a freshman, high-4s GPA, and played a sport.

Asked me for help with the interview process for an Ivy League school so I did, having gone to TJ myself and through the interview process. First time we sat down, was incredibly nervous and saw the experience as an opportunity to run down all of their accomplishments in an extremely robotic fashion. Brow furrowed the entire time, fairly obviously searching for points to make and talking points to get across.

After a few sessions of work on relaxing, smiling, engaging with the interviewer about their experience and demonstrating curiosity, and talking more about the reasons why this kid was attracted to this school, we had made incredible progress. The kid had to be reminded repeatedly that the person interviewing them had already seen their resume.

A couple of weeks later, the kid left their interview feeling confident and like it was a really positive back-and-forth. They're getting ready to start their third year at Yale.

Sometimes, these kids just need to be told to relax, be a human being, and enjoy interacting with someone else who is like-minded. It's nothing brilliant, but the family is convinced that it was the key to success in the process.

It is really helpful for making the kid feeling confident and engaged during conversations. But do the alumni interviews really have a say in the admissions? I don't think so.

Former college employee here again. Alumni interviews basically can go one of three ways; enthusiastic approval, enthusiastic disapproval, or "meh". The job is largely for the interviewer to report back to the admissions office on the personality characteristics of the interviewee, and their judgment about whether or not the kid is a good fit for the school's dynamic/ethos. Many on this forum would be amazed at how many exceptional students on paper get a "meh".

I am aware that the interviewer will report back to the admissions office. But I do not think the report has the power to sway the AO in either direction.

PP. You’re wrong. Admissions work is about building narratives with respect to each individual candidate. Essays, teacher recommendations, and the transcript are all critical to building that narrative for the admissions officer. The interview lends further context. If it doesn’t match the pre-existing narrative, one way or the other, it will absolutely have an impact on the decision. These margins between applicants are paper thin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

So the largest cohort feels they're being discriminated against? I could understand parents of black students maybe being upset but seriously 59% vs 5%...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

So the largest cohort feels they're being discriminated against? I could understand parents of black students maybe being upset but seriously 59% vs 5%...

The issue, as I understand it, is that there are a series of text messages, emails, and comments that indicate that the Board was using anti-Asian language when discussing the changes. While the Asian population remains over represented, the anti-Asian language was racist and is unacceptable. The Board could have moved to include more URM while not discussing the changes using clearly racist language towards the majority population at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

So the largest cohort feels they're being discriminated against? I could understand parents of black students maybe being upset but seriously 59% vs 5%...

The issue, as I understand it, is that there are a series of text messages, emails, and comments that indicate that the Board was using anti-Asian language when discussing the changes. While the Asian population remains over represented, the anti-Asian language was racist and is unacceptable. The Board could have moved to include more URM while not discussing the changes using clearly racist language towards the majority population at the school.

Perhaps, but given the outcome that clearly isn't the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

So the largest cohort feels they're being discriminated against? I could understand parents of black students maybe being upset but seriously 59% vs 5%...

The issue, as I understand it, is that there are a series of text messages, emails, and comments that indicate that the Board was using anti-Asian language when discussing the changes. While the Asian population remains over represented, the anti-Asian language was racist and is unacceptable. The Board could have moved to include more URM while not discussing the changes using clearly racist language towards the majority population at the school.

Perhaps, but given the outcome that clearly isn't the case.

Racism and Racist language can still exist even when the majority group is of that race. The percentage of Asians at TJ has decreased, which is going to happen as kids from non-traditional schools are accepted. The language that was used was awful and undermines what the School Board is trying to accomplish.

[Anonymous]

The issue is whether you look at students as individuals or rather simply as members of a group.

The Democrats on the School Board don’t think of students as individuals with their own hopes, aspirations, and talents. They only thought of them as members of groups - Asian students, Carson students, non-economically disadvantaged students, etc - that they then felt comfortable trashing in order to push their pork-barrel agenda. This isn’t about education; it’s about giving some crass, retail politicians like Ricardy Anderson and Karen Corbett Sandets the ability to brag next year about how they brought home more TJ bacon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry - easier to see:

All FCPS middle schools are represented in the Class of ‘26.
Carson Middle School (50)
Cooper Middle School (16)
Frost Middle School (24)
Glasgow Middle School (13)
Kilmer Middle School (12)
Lake Braddock Middle School (16)
Longfellow Middle School (37)
Rocky Run Middle School (24)
Sandburg Middle School (12)
Twain Middle School (16)
All other middle schools had 10 or fewer offers.
Economically disadvantaged students comprise 20.73% of the class of ‘26.
5.09% of offered students are English Language Learners.
Female students represent 55.45% of all offers.
Black students received 5.82% of offers.
Hispanic students received 8.18% of offers.
White students received 21.27% of offers.
Asian students received 59.82% of offers.
97.09% of offered students come from public schools.

Where are you getting this data from? Is this for the call of 2026?