Current TJ Student answering questions
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Anonymous
My TJ kid was accepted off of the wait list and graduated with all As and A+s and went to an elite school. Waiting list is full of kids who were "unlucky" with the essays portion. |
Anonymous
| What do you plan to study for college and where are you thinking of applying? |
Anonymous
I am not fully certain what I will study in college but I’m currently thinking Chemistry and Public Health. I am looking at colleges with various TJ acceptance rates (likely, target, reach) with strong Public Health programs like Rutgers, Boston University, or Brown. |
Anonymous
| How was TJ's switch to distance learning? |
Anonymous
| How awkward is the racial and gender imbalance? |
Anonymous
OP, you don't have to respond to this person. She's been trolling this board bashing TJ for years. Nothing constructive will come out of her mouth. Just ignore her. |
Anonymous
It’s more than one person but OP still doesn’t have to answer unless they want to answer |
Anonymous
OP here: Like the rest of FCPS, it was pretty unexpected but a blessing for kids who needed to raise grades. The grading policy benefitted pretty much everyone (except people taking upper-level semester math courses who currently had a D/C since the class had only recently begun) and people regarding academics were pretty happy that online class meant less work for a potentially higher grade than they would have otherwise received. The teachers themselves I think adapted pretty smoothly, given the circumstances? It's not easy to essentially lose/condense so much of the year and since nothing is graded in a way that negatively affects your final grade, some students don't show up to class. The lessons are discussions or lectures, and some teachers just straight up say that you don't have to show up to the blackboard collaborate session unless you have any questions about the work assigned on Google Classroom. I don't think this is very different to the rest of FCPS though. There are a lot of google classroom and blackboard resources used to turn in assignments and weekly due dates are clear. But, kids know what classes to focus on -- for example, if you're taking AP Chem next year, then you'll be continuing to learn the content as best you can in honors chem, or if you're in Math 5, you'll be paying attention to the recorded lectures and turning in the work because you'll be taking AP Calc next year. So people aren't entirely checked out. The seniors were not able to complete their senior research projects without access to the labs at TJ, but still completed their presentation for their lab directors that stated the interruption to their research. There were a lot of items left at TJ on that Thursday because we thought we'd be coming back. Socially, distance learning hasn't been very easy for a lot of people. While some students say that they prefer the opportunity to be self-guided in learning and the large amount of free time, others miss the structure of a school day and especially getting to see friends. Messenger (TJ runs off of Facebook) is a godsend. TJ's Student Services (counselors) send out helpful emails about motivation or encouragement to the student body often. |
Anonymous
OP here: I am female and I have never really noticed any effects of TJ's gender imbalance while in class or socially. I may be lucky or not paying close attention or something but I don't think many people really judge based on gender, and those that might will definitely be called out if someone decent hears. The most advanced person in math in my class (took Multivariate Calculus and Linear Alg freshman year) is a female. My classes so far have generally been close to 50:50 male:female or sometimes (more accurate to my class) 60:40. Often classes where we're allowed to choose seating are split by gender, but in terms of numbers the girls don't really notice that there are more boys, if there are in that class? Girls at TJ are just like any normal student at TJ, because...we are. Girls maybe might feel awkward in certain classes that I've heard are male-dominated some years--like Mobile App Development or AMT--but even then, I haven't heard that any teachers or students in these classes have any prejudices against the intelligence or presence of girls. We're equals. There are also a few female-oriented STEM clubs like Coding Lady Colonials which is pretty cool and also a lot of crazy-good female teachers at the school (though I've never thought of them as a "female teacher" as opposed to just a "teacher" before...which might be irrelevant) but I don't feel that the gender imbalance really feels that awkward? I spoke a little bit about the racial imbalance at TJ in a past response, but again--I am not a minority student (black, hispanic) at TJ and cannot speak to their experience. I do not know if they feel awkward but I will not assume anything about their experience for them. However, it is plausible that there are both minority students who do not notice the racial disparity that often and rarely think about it, but also minority students who are very conscious about this disparity and feel awkward immensely. Seeking to alleviate this, there are multiple diversity initiatives seeking to create more conversation around minority students at TJ, and even in this next week the SGA and some minority students are holding meetings or speaking with Bonitanibus about this important topic. |
Anonymous
It's okay!! It's a genuine question 
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Anonymous
| Just curious. How do kids in TJ know if they are in top 10% of their class or not. Do kids share their grades and thats how they know? I am assuming school does not share kids grades. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| Does it frustrate TJ kids when kids attending their base schools get into better universities? |
Anonymous
OP here: We don’t have class ranking or valedictorians. People can only assume things based on their GPA and the GPA range given at the graduation of a senior class (in the School Profile) but there’s no actual way for us to know. People might assume—like, if you have a 4.4 freshman year...you’re probably pretty high up there. Generally it’s thought that an average GPA after freshman year is 4.05, 4.15 after sophomore year, and then 4.3 after junior year would be in the upper half of the class. However, this is arbitrary and not everyone really thinks about their grades in comparison to others that much. |
Anonymous
OP here: Altogether the matriculation from TJ is still really good and normally ”better” than base schools, but for an individual student that did not do as well as they would have liked, it has been frustrating before. TJ has a lot of students who play the “college game” (taking as many AP credits as possible, doing empty leadership and random clubs) but there are many hard workers that utterly deserve acceptance to top universities, and TJ does give them the opportunities to take in high school to bolster likelihood of acceptance. The schools that TJ students generally consider safeties/likelies (UPitt, W&M, Penn State for example) are all already pretty good though. |
Anonymous
I think it is clear by the OP's responses that he/she can handle reading something like this and and answer honestly and gracefully- unlike you and the one other PP. No need to get all bent out of shape for this kid who can obviously handle it. |