TJ College Admissions Results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear getting into UVA, VT is really tough from TJ. A large majority of TJ kids go out of state (with parents footing the bill!)

I agree with this comment. My kid graduated from TJ last year with high stats but is attending an out of state university (with very high costs) because of rejection at UVA and wait list at VT. Many TJ kids go out of state for college.

Available data simply do not support this. 49 kids went to UVA from TJ. UVA yield is around 40% that means at least 120+ kids were accepted from TJ. UVA's overall acceptance rate is 21%. That means 583 kids from TJ applied must have applied to have that many acceptance which cannot not be the case because TJ class size is less than 450 kids. So the only way the math works if the acceptance rate is higher - between 35% - 40% ( almost double the UVA's overall acceptance rate). This means about 300 -350 kids applied to UVA which is very very close to actual application number UVA received from TJ in 2022.

My bet would be that the acceptance rate from TJ to UVA is significantly higher than the in-state average, the yield rate is lower than the in-state average, and the stats (standardized test) scores of the accepted and enrolled kids from TJ are considerably higher than the in-state average. I say this because the average Asian admitted to UVA has higher stats than other groups (and by a large margin over other minority groups), and TJ may well have the highest percentage of Asians of any public school in the state.

The 49 kids attending TJ is up from 37 the prior year which is a bit of a reversal of a long term trend of fewer TJ kids going to UVA (105 enrolled at UVA from the class of 2012).

VT had a high of 42 kids from TJ from the class of 2017, but the 7 from 2022 is probably an all-time low. The percentage of VT's class coming from TJ is significantly lower than it is for W&M and UVA.

TJ standardized test score has always been higher than the county, state and national averages. Below link has the average score for class of 2021.

https://tjhsst.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/2022-23%20TJHSST%20Profile_0.pdf

My point was that the scores for students accepted to and enrolled at UVA are likely higher than those of any other Virginia high school enrolling more than a certain number of students. That doesn't necessarily flow from TJ having the highest standardized test scores, which is clear from published data. It comes from TJ having a very high Asian population and data from FOIA requests showing Asians accepted to UVA have higher stats than other groups.

https://www.ceousa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Preferences20in20Virginia20Higher20Education20-20September202019.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid that applied to TJ this year, and a senior non-TJ kid in a regular public HS so just curious. How is the college admissions from TJ looking so far, now that a lot of EA/ED decisions are out? Are TJ parents happy (so far) with how things turned out? We are not too keen but kid wanted to try taking the test.

My DC loves TJ and so far, we are happy with the admission results.
He applied to VT, UVA, UMD, Purdue, UIUC and Georgia tech. Got accepted by VT, Purdue and UMD. Deferred by UIUC and rejected by GT.
Had he stayed in base school, he probably would have a shot at CMU or Cornell. But we, the parents, don't have the money to send him there.
He loves VT. So we are satisfied with the results.

4-years of hardworking but overall it worth it.

[Anonymous]

Adding, my DC is average or below average in TJ. Probably in the third quartile? Not sure.
SAT math 800 English 720 - English below 748
GPA 4.2x. Not sure about the average but feels like below average a bit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear getting into UVA, VT is really tough from TJ. A large majority of TJ kids go out of state (with parents footing the bill!)

I agree with this comment. My kid graduated from TJ last year with high stats but is attending an out of state university (with very high costs) because of rejection at UVA and wait list at VT. Many TJ kids go out of state for college.

Available data simply do not support this. 49 kids went to UVA from TJ. UVA yield is around 40% that means at least 120+ kids were accepted from TJ. UVA's overall acceptance rate is 21%. That means 583 kids from TJ applied must have applied to have that many acceptance which cannot not be the case because TJ class size is less than 450 kids. So the only way the math works if the acceptance rate is higher - between 35% - 40% ( almost double the UVA's overall acceptance rate). This means about 300 -350 kids applied to UVA which is very very close to actual application number UVA received from TJ in 2022.

My bet would be that the acceptance rate from TJ to UVA is significantly higher than the in-state average, the yield rate is lower than the in-state average, and the stats (standardized test) scores of the accepted and enrolled kids from TJ are considerably higher than the in-state average. I say this because the average Asian admitted to UVA has higher stats than other groups (and by a large margin over other minority groups), and TJ may well have the highest percentage of Asians of any public school in the state.

The 49 kids attending TJ is up from 37 the prior year which is a bit of a reversal of a long term trend of fewer TJ kids going to UVA (105 enrolled at UVA from the class of 2012).

VT had a high of 42 kids from TJ from the class of 2017, but the 7 from 2022 is probably an all-time low. The percentage of VT's class coming from TJ is significantly lower than it is for W&M and UVA.

TJ standardized test score has always been higher than the county, state and national averages. Below link has the average score for class of 2021.

https://tjhsst.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/2022-23%20TJHSST%20Profile_0.pdf

My point was that the scores for students accepted to and enrolled at UVA are likely higher than those of any other Virginia high school enrolling more than a certain number of students. That doesn't necessarily flow from TJ having the highest standardized test scores, which is clear from published data. It comes from TJ having a very high Asian population and data from FOIA requests showing Asians accepted to UVA have higher stats than other groups.

https://www.ceousa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Preferences20in20Virginia20Higher20Education20-20September202019.pdf

At TJ, the scores are high in general, Asian or not. Our non-Asian child was accepted to UVA last year with an SAT score of 1580.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adding, my DC is average or below average in TJ. Probably in the third quartile? Not sure.
SAT math 800 English 720 - English below 748
GPA 4.2x. Not sure about the average but feels like below average a bit

That is certainly not below average but will likely be outside the top quartile. Are they a senior? If so, what were the college outcomes and what do they want to study?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear getting into UVA, VT is really tough from TJ. A large majority of TJ kids go out of state (with parents footing the bill!)

I agree with this comment. My kid graduated from TJ last year with high stats but is attending an out of state university (with very high costs) because of rejection at UVA and wait list at VT. Many TJ kids go out of state for college.

Available data simply do not support this. 49 kids went to UVA from TJ. UVA yield is around 40% that means at least 120+ kids were accepted from TJ. UVA's overall acceptance rate is 21%. That means 583 kids from TJ applied must have applied to have that many acceptance which cannot not be the case because TJ class size is less than 450 kids. So the only way the math works if the acceptance rate is higher - between 35% - 40% ( almost double the UVA's overall acceptance rate). This means about 300 -350 kids applied to UVA which is very very close to actual application number UVA received from TJ in 2022.

My bet would be that the acceptance rate from TJ to UVA is significantly higher than the in-state average, the yield rate is lower than the in-state average, and the stats (standardized test) scores of the accepted and enrolled kids from TJ are considerably higher than the in-state average. I say this because the average Asian admitted to UVA has higher stats than other groups (and by a large margin over other minority groups), and TJ may well have the highest percentage of Asians of any public school in the state.

The 49 kids attending TJ is up from 37 the prior year which is a bit of a reversal of a long term trend of fewer TJ kids going to UVA (105 enrolled at UVA from the class of 2012).

VT had a high of 42 kids from TJ from the class of 2017, but the 7 from 2022 is probably an all-time low. The percentage of VT's class coming from TJ is significantly lower than it is for W&M and UVA.

TJ standardized test score has always been higher than the county, state and national averages. Below link has the average score for class of 2021.

https://tjhsst.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/2022-23%20TJHSST%20Profile_0.pdf

My point was that the scores for students accepted to and enrolled at UVA are likely higher than those of any other Virginia high school enrolling more than a certain number of students. That doesn't necessarily flow from TJ having the highest standardized test scores, which is clear from published data. It comes from TJ having a very high Asian population and data from FOIA requests showing Asians accepted to UVA have higher stats than other groups.

https://www.ceousa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Preferences20in20Virginia20Higher20Education20-20September202019.pdf

At TJ, the scores are high in general, Asian or not. Our non-Asian child was accepted to UVA last year with an SAT score of 1580.

Of course! Pretty much every kid going there is highly intelligent and hard working so high SATs are to be expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adding, my DC is average or below average in TJ. Probably in the third quartile? Not sure.
SAT math 800 English 720 - English below 748
GPA 4.2x. Not sure about the average but feels like below average a bit

For the class of 2022, the average was 1533. Obviously at any other school in the state, your student would be crushing it!!
https://www.fcps.edu/news/fairfax-county-sat-scores-continue-surpass-state-and-global-averages

[Anonymous]

But these data points reflect a time when admission to TJ was precisely based on doing well on standardized tests, correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But these data points reflect a time when admission to TJ was precisely based on doing well on standardized tests, correct?

Look those of who are still hung up on the admission process change to TJ must understand that it has not fundamentally changed things at TJ. Look at the admission data - The number of Asian kids were admitted after the admission process change is about same as the number of admitted Asian kids before the change. What actually happened after the admission process change were- 1) The class size increased and that allowed more URM kids to be recruited ( this is better for diversity) 2) Eliminated the test prep industry which frankly not all but a significant number of Asian/Indian communities were patronizing to game the system 3) Allowed more schools to send their best students to TJ.

The problem is the admission process change was politicized by the right wing disinformation machine and what the county and the admin failed to do was communicate clearly and got wind up in their own politics. And off course most in the Asian/Indian communities had a knee jerk reaction and fell pray to the disinformation machine to vote in a right wing Governor.

Again, data never lies.

[Anonymous]

Should be "Data never lie" but you miss the point - the thread was talking about superior scores. That is unsurprising when the admissions test is based on being able to score well on standardized tests. Deemphasizing that will mean lower scores in the future. Some are ok with that; some are not. But you can't ignore it and just cry about the "right wing."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should be "Data never lie" but you miss the point - the thread was talking about superior scores. That is unsurprising when the admissions test is based on being able to score well on standardized tests. Deemphasizing that will mean lower scores in the future. Some are ok with that; some are not. But you can't ignore it and just cry about the "right wing."

Dear grammar police, last time I checked data can be used as singular or as plural. But sure I am the one who missed the point. Are you going to tell me I can't start a sentence with "But" next?

I am curious to know - is it your assumption, spite or some data driven research that makes you confident to say that in 2 years standardized score for TJ will decrease because the admission test was eliminated? If you are going to make a claim please back it up!

And BTW, I didn't cry about "right wing", I cried about "disinformation machine". Then again what is the difference between them these days anyways? Cheers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear getting into UVA, VT is really tough from TJ. A large majority of TJ kids go out of state (with parents footing the bill!)

DS was a senior at TJ last year. Getting into UVA isn't easy for anyone, but I wouldn't say that TJ has it harder, unless you're expecting the vast majority of applicants to get in. DS and about 60 other kids from his year went from TJ to UVA just fine. VT was more of a problem: lots of kids got WL -> R at TJ, including DS and some of his friends. Only about a dozen TJ kids went to VT in the 2022 batch.

Out of state is probably the majority outcome for TJ kids, but the most common schools for TJ kids last year were apparently UVA (in-state), W+M (in-state), and UMD (out-of-state, but not that far and they're pretty generous with scholarships). Make of that what you will, I guess.

UVA ls a safety for most TJ grads except for the bottom 10 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get to TJ, college really doesn't matter. These kids are best of the best.

Respectfully disagree. I think high school is important, and college is important too. I am not saying the colleges have to be the prestigious colleges or anything. They are both important time periods that influence the kids' development.

High school is more important for developing connections. The best benefit of graduating from TJ is the connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear getting into UVA, VT is really tough from TJ. A large majority of TJ kids go out of state (with parents footing the bill!)

I agree with this comment. My kid graduated from TJ last year with high stats but is attending an out of state university (with very high costs) because of rejection at UVA and wait list at VT. Many TJ kids go out of state for college.

Do you think your kid would have had a better shot at UVA/VT if they had stayed at their base school?

My sense is that it is probably true that staying at the base school would have provided a better shot. With so many high stats kids from TJ applying to UVA and VT, and the issue of yield protection, I think it is harder for a TJ kid to stand out and/or show that they would likely accept an admission offer and actually attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But these data points reflect a time when admission to TJ was precisely based on doing well on standardized tests, correct?

Look those of who are still hung up on the admission process change to TJ must understand that it has not fundamentally changed things at TJ. Look at the admission data - The number of Asian kids were admitted after the admission process change is about same as the number of admitted Asian kids before the change. What actually happened after the admission process change were- 1) The class size increased and that allowed more URM kids to be recruited ( this is better for diversity) 2) Eliminated the test prep industry which frankly not all but a significant number of Asian/Indian communities were patronizing to game the system 3) Allowed more schools to send their best students to TJ.

The problem is the admission process change was politicized by the right wing disinformation machine and what the county and the admin failed to do was communicate clearly and got wind up in their own politics. And off course most in the Asian/Indian communities had a knee jerk reaction and fell pray to the disinformation machine to vote in a right wing Governor.

Again, data never lies.

+1 billion