Disappointed by TJ decision?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid didn’t get in, you just need to get over it and move on. Life goes on and everything happens for the best.

12:10 poster here +1 - This is exactly what I was trying to say. The kid isn't really missing much if they don't get in. Base schools aren't as bad as many think and if the kid is interested, there are plenty of opportunities for courses, stem activities etc. To be honest, I was initially worried about academics at base schools and disappointed that my kid didn't get into TJ, but this last year definitely changed my perspective. If you feel like your kid won't be challenged, don't worry, competition at base schools is fierce as well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is coming from my HS kid, so take it with grain of salt. He was initially very disappointed that he couldn't get into TJ last year when he was considered one of the sure shots among his friends. But, when he learned who actually got in and who didn't he was pretty surprised and his disappointment faded away. Now, he is much more happier in base HS as he loves the school, its proximity and all the conveniences that come with it i.e. sports, after school, friends etc. Since he is taking pretty much all HN/AP courses with a long list of courses to choose from, he is surrounded by highly competitive kids that keep him challenged. In fact, he is quite humbled by how smart some of his friends are and he now says if they didn't make it to TJ and happy at base HS, there is no reason for him to be unhappy. He is still friends with kids who are going to TJ and apparently they tell that so many kids in TJ are just dumb (he showed me texts when I didn't believe) and its definitely not worth the commute and effort. In my opinion, if the base school is well rated (Langley, McLean, Oakton, Chantilly etc), your kid isn't really missing much by not going to TJ. Again, I understand my kid may be biased, so you don't need to take this at a face value!

This is exactly what people who couldn't make the cut like to tell themselves.

If your kid got in, its great and congrats! If not, its ok! Either way, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this next year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid didn’t get in, you just need to get over it and move on. Life goes on and everything happens for the best.

12:10 poster here +1 - This is exactly what I was trying to say. The kid isn't really missing much if they don't get in. Base schools aren't as bad as many think and if the kid is interested, there are plenty of opportunities for courses, stem activities etc. To be honest, I was initially worried about academics at base schools and disappointed that my kid didn't get into TJ, but this last year definitely changed my perspective. If you feel like your kid won't be challenged, don't worry, competition at base schools is fierce as well!

Is you DC considering for the Sophmore round admission to TJ? The selection by teachers should not be subjective like the essays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid didn’t get in, you just need to get over it and move on. Life goes on and everything happens for the best.

12:10 poster here +1 - This is exactly what I was trying to say. The kid isn't really missing much if they don't get in. Base schools aren't as bad as many think and if the kid is interested, there are plenty of opportunities for courses, stem activities etc. To be honest, I was initially worried about academics at base schools and disappointed that my kid didn't get into TJ, but this last year definitely changed my perspective. If you feel like your kid won't be challenged, don't worry, competition at base schools is fierce as well!

Is you DC considering for the Sophmore round admission to TJ? The selection by teachers should not be subjective like the essays?

The Sophomore round selection process is absolutely subjective. You can tell it is because it is done by teachers. If it were purely objective and score based, it could be done with a computer with no need for human involvement.

Every selection process that has ever existed for TJ has had some measure of subjectivity to it. The only thing that wasn’t subjective was the old process - actually the first few old processes back in the days of the infamous “sliding scale” - that they used to get to a semifinalist pool.

Parents would be well served to start getting their kids used to subjective selection processes. Every job and every college they ever apply for will have a subjective selection process. And colleges and businesses are doing just fine with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they give a breakdown of how many girls are admitted each year?

If the essay matters more, then I would expect more girls to be getting in the past few years.

Interestingly enough, the Class of 2026 was the first class admitted that was majority female in the school's history - and it was 55-45!

This is in fact interesting. But, I wonder if there is a reason behind it especially since a much higher percent of male students apply for TJ, but the opposite is true for those who are admitted. This wasn't the case in the earlier admission process. Could it be that new admission criteria is somehow favoring the female students?

Among STEM students, the girls will be much better at writing essays than boys, particularly in middle school.

[Anonymous]

The issue is not really if the selection process is subjective. It is going to be subjective.

The main issue is lack of enough information in the current selection process to be able to actually assess the students. A very narrowly tailored essay from Portrait of a Graduate, basically boils down to a dozen possible questions that students all prepare ahead of time. So very difficult to differentiate.

[Anonymous]

TJ is the Asian Howard University

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is waitlisted for TJ. School is from LCPS, a competitive middle school. Not selected for AET/AOS. Wondering realistically what are the chances and how long should we wait? Not sure if there are/would be many declines from DC's school. And even if there are some, what is the possibility that other school/county would get the slot? I read somewhere that spots declined by Loudoun are going to Fairfax. DC also mentioned they thought the test went well but did not provide more details. DC has no 'experience factors'. So just wondering if we should still keep our hopes up.

Honest answer: Your hopes have no impact on the process. Just keep your options open, plan on going to your base school (Loudoun publics are by and large excellent) and if you get the call, you can make a decision at that point.

But sitting around waiting for the call won't do you any good. Some families will withdraw from the waitlist - you should only do that if you have a good reason to, but otherwise don't give it a second thought.

Loudoun schools are generally mediocre to terrible. Anybody who says otherwise is either affiliated with a teacher/LCPS or loves the low standards and grade inflation. It isn't hard to demonstrate how poor LCPS schools are using objective data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is coming from my HS kid, so take it with grain of salt. He was initially very disappointed that he couldn't get into TJ last year when he was considered one of the sure shots among his friends. But, when he learned who actually got in and who didn't he was pretty surprised and his disappointment faded away. Now, he is much more happier in base HS as he loves the school, its proximity and all the conveniences that come with it i.e. sports, after school, friends etc. Since he is taking pretty much all HN/AP courses with a long list of courses to choose from, he is surrounded by highly competitive kids that keep him challenged. In fact, he is quite humbled by how smart some of his friends are and he now says if they didn't make it to TJ and happy at base HS, there is no reason for him to be unhappy. He is still friends with kids who are going to TJ and apparently they tell that so many kids in TJ are just dumb (he showed me texts when I didn't believe) and its definitely not worth the commute and effort. In my opinion, if the base school is well rated (Langley, McLean, Oakton, Chantilly etc), your kid isn't really missing much by not going to TJ. Again, I understand my kid may be biased, so you don't need to take this at a face value!

Two things:

1) Always remember, folks - posts like this may be legit, but at this time in the cycle it's just as likely that they're troll posts that are designed to create waitlist movement.

2) If you are legit, and you and your kid are making judgments about 15 year olds based on the content of text messages, it's probably for the best that neither of you are at TJ.

PP here - well, didn't I say you need to take it with grain of salt and if its perfectly fine you don't believe any of it. This is anonymous forum, so you can call it a troll or even go to the extent to even say that "its probably the beset that neither of you are at TJ". If it actually makes you happy, thats great! Thank you for that and we are actually long past that! . If your kid makes it to TJ and happy about it, I am happy for you! All I am trying to say is, if your kid doesn't, there is no need to feel disappointed as base HS isn't as bad as you might think especially if your kid chooses the HN/AP curriculum and there are plenty of STEM activities available. What you say here doesn't really affect me or my kid as we are long past that and perfectly happy where we are.

I am not going to take back what I said. I know a few of my kids friends at MS who are currently at TJ (I volunteered at MS quite a bit - I still volunteer at HS) and run into a few who live in my neighborhood or at birthday parties etc. While no one actually said TJ is dumb to my face, they did say its not the same anymore, but I just assumed they feel that way because their friends group was split up. However, my kid insists that TJ kids shouldn't be considered smart anymore and only about a quarter of kids from his MS actually deserved to get in and rest is just luck/lottery etc.

The new admission process basically flattens out the students as pretty much every kid (especially at center schools) meets the base criteria of 3.5 unweighted GPA along with couple of HN courses. There is no teacher input, credit for electives or after school activities etc. Then rest is up to who can write essays well enough to stand out. I wouldn't necessarily call it a lottery, but essay grading is pretty subjective.

You can't really believe what kids say, but I would like to add that there are couple of my kids friends, amazingly smart, taking precal and cal BC in the 9th grade in base HS, scored 1550+ in SAT in their 'fun' first attempt. My kid is nowhere close to their level and if TJ kids are supposed to be smarter than these two, there is no way in the hell my kid belongs in TJ. If anyone belongs to TJ, its them and in an alternate world, they would be in TJ.

It is quite sad those kids didn't get in because that is who TJ was designed for originally.

Currently, kids only need Algebra 1 to be accepted. So they won't take calculus until their senior year. Many of the higher level courses at TJ require calculus. This was the big benefit to gifted STEM students:

(1) there is a critical mass so that taking advanced genetics, machine learning, or other courses that simply will never be available at base schools are taught at TJ. You need both a sufficient number who will complete BC Calculus by 10th grade and enough who will have interest in these classes.

(2) if a student cannot score a 1400 on the SAT, the kid simply cannot compete with someone who scores 1550. Teachers must either slow down to accommodate the slow kids or fail a lot of them out (which is frowned upon by the "equity" administrators).

Many on here see TJ as a status symbol as opposed to a solutyfor kids who are truly brighter than their peers. And now that there is no objective way to distinguish the 1550 kids from 1400 kids, the committee cannot identify those who need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is coming from my HS kid, so take it with grain of salt. He was initially very disappointed that he couldn't get into TJ last year when he was considered one of the sure shots among his friends. But, when he learned who actually got in and who didn't he was pretty surprised and his disappointment faded away. Now, he is much more happier in base HS as he loves the school, its proximity and all the conveniences that come with it i.e. sports, after school, friends etc. Since he is taking pretty much all HN/AP courses with a long list of courses to choose from, he is surrounded by highly competitive kids that keep him challenged. In fact, he is quite humbled by how smart some of his friends are and he now says if they didn't make it to TJ and happy at base HS, there is no reason for him to be unhappy. He is still friends with kids who are going to TJ and apparently they tell that so many kids in TJ are just dumb (he showed me texts when I didn't believe) and its definitely not worth the commute and effort. In my opinion, if the base school is well rated (Langley, McLean, Oakton, Chantilly etc), your kid isn't really missing much by not going to TJ. Again, I understand my kid may be biased, so you don't need to take this at a face value!

Two things:

1) Always remember, folks - posts like this may be legit, but at this time in the cycle it's just as likely that they're troll posts that are designed to create waitlist movement.

2) If you are legit, and you and your kid are making judgments about 15 year olds based on the content of text messages, it's probably for the best that neither of you are at TJ.

PP here - well, didn't I say you need to take it with grain of salt and if its perfectly fine you don't believe any of it. This is anonymous forum, so you can call it a troll or even go to the extent to even say that "its probably the beset that neither of you are at TJ". If it actually makes you happy, thats great! Thank you for that and we are actually long past that! . If your kid makes it to TJ and happy about it, I am happy for you! All I am trying to say is, if your kid doesn't, there is no need to feel disappointed as base HS isn't as bad as you might think especially if your kid chooses the HN/AP curriculum and there are plenty of STEM activities available. What you say here doesn't really affect me or my kid as we are long past that and perfectly happy where we are.

I am not going to take back what I said. I know a few of my kids friends at MS who are currently at TJ (I volunteered at MS quite a bit - I still volunteer at HS) and run into a few who live in my neighborhood or at birthday parties etc. While no one actually said TJ is dumb to my face, they did say its not the same anymore, but I just assumed they feel that way because their friends group was split up. However, my kid insists that TJ kids shouldn't be considered smart anymore and only about a quarter of kids from his MS actually deserved to get in and rest is just luck/lottery etc.

The new admission process basically flattens out the students as pretty much every kid (especially at center schools) meets the base criteria of 3.5 unweighted GPA along with couple of HN courses. There is no teacher input, credit for electives or after school activities etc. Then rest is up to who can write essays well enough to stand out. I wouldn't necessarily call it a lottery, but essay grading is pretty subjective.

You can't really believe what kids say, but I would like to add that there are couple of my kids friends, amazingly smart, taking precal and cal BC in the 9th grade in base HS, scored 1550+ in SAT in their 'fun' first attempt. My kid is nowhere close to their level and if TJ kids are supposed to be smarter than these two, there is no way in the hell my kid belongs in TJ. If anyone belongs to TJ, its them and in an alternate world, they would be in TJ.

It is quite sad those kids didn't get in because that is who TJ was designed for originally.

Currently, kids only need Algebra 1 to be accepted. So they won't take calculus until their senior year. Many of the higher level courses at TJ require calculus. This was the big benefit to gifted STEM students:

(1) there is a critical mass so that taking advanced genetics, machine learning, or other courses that simply will never be available at base schools are taught at TJ. You need both a sufficient number who will complete BC Calculus by 10th grade and enough who will have interest in these classes.

(2) if a student cannot score a 1400 on the SAT, the kid simply cannot compete with someone who scores 1550. Teachers must either slow down to accommodate the slow kids or fail a lot of them out (which is frowned upon by the "equity" administrators).

Many on here see TJ as a status symbol as opposed to a solutyfor kids who are truly brighter than their peers. And now that there is no objective way to distinguish the 1550 kids from 1400 kids, the committee cannot identify those who need it.

I'd say it's easier to distinguish between them today than it used to be since people were just buying the test answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
(2) if a student cannot score a 1400 on the SAT, the kid simply cannot compete with someone who scores 1550.

I don't think this is true. There are many studies that show small differences in SAT have no effect on college performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is not really if the selection process is subjective. It is going to be subjective.

The main issue is lack of enough information in the current selection process to be able to actually assess the students. A very narrowly tailored essay from Portrait of a Graduate, basically boils down to a dozen possible questions that students all prepare ahead of time. So very difficult to differentiate.

Perhaps, but still seems better than using a test that some people bought early access to.

[Anonymous]

They also had Aspire Reading and Science tests along with this QuantQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They also had Aspire Reading and Science tests along with this QuantQ.

Yes, but if you didn't perform adequately on the Quant-Q relative to the rest of the population, you weren't going to make the semifinalist round. That's the problem - it's not even that you had to achieve a minimum acceptable score - it's that you had to perform well enough to be in the top half of a pool that included a bunch of kids who (unknowingly, and through no fault of their own) had access to actual questions and sophisticated strategies for solving the various problem types.

I can't emphasize this enough - the whole point of the Quant-Q is to test a student's ability to develop a quick elegant solution to a problem. If they enter the exam already having those methods to solve the problems, the exam is worse than useless - it actually occludes the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They also had Aspire Reading and Science tests along with this QuantQ.

Yes, but if you didn't perform adequately on the Quant-Q relative to the rest of the population, you weren't going to make the semifinalist round. That's the problem - it's not even that you had to achieve a minimum acceptable score - it's that you had to perform well enough to be in the top half of a pool that included a bunch of kids who (unknowingly, and through no fault of their own) had access to actual questions and sophisticated strategies for solving the various problem types.

I can't emphasize this enough - the whole point of the Quant-Q is to test a student's ability to develop a quick elegant solution to a problem. If they enter the exam already having those methods to solve the problems, the exam is worse than useless - it actually occludes the process.

DP. This is the best explanation I've seen so far that addresses why the Curie scandal was such a big deal. TJ Admissions made such a big deal about the fact that no prep was available for the Quant-Q, while in fact the opposite was the case for a huge chunk of the applicants.