The highest GPA is lower at TJ than at the base high school

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According to TJ school profile, the Class of 2022 Final Grade Point Averages (8th semester) ranged from 3.255 to 4.663

Based on the multiple Naviance scattergrams for TJ, a weighted average of
4.65 or above is top 01%
4.64 or above is top 02%
4.60 or above is top 05%
4.55 or above is top 10%
4.53 or above is top 15%
4.50 or above is top 25%
4.45 or above is top 33%
4.40 or above is top 40%
4.38 or above is top 50%
4.35 or above is top 60%
4.33 or above is top 66%
4.30 or above is top 75%
4.00 or above is top 90%
3.75 or above is top 95%
3.25 or above is top 100%

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200980.page

Then there is definitely inflated grades at TJ.

How does it matter? grade inflation is relative and colleges know it. for instance, UVA does not even open applications from TJ with less than 4.4 GPA.

Again, this is completely and totally false.

It's more like hyperbole. 4.3 students rarely get in.

wow - at our magnet HS 4.75 is the bottom 15% of the class.

For most private selective schools, they use your raw scores and have their own weighting system.
They don't give AP basket-weaving the same weight as AP calculus

That statistic of <4.74 being in the bottom 15% of the class is from MCPS Montgomery Blair's SMCS program where 50% of the class is NMSF and the average SAT score is 10+ higher than TJ's average.

I see montgomery blair smcs program with an average SAT above 1530.
But to be fair, it seems to be a magnet within a magnet so the they seem to be using more objective standards than TJ used to.
The class size seems to be about 100 so I guess you can afford to be pickier.
If you filter for more merit, you end up getting more merit.
Is it a small group of students within the

Since smcs class is a handpicked 100, it's only fair to compare their average SAT to the average of top 100 students of TJ class, which likely is closer to 1570.
In 2024, there were 165 TJ students on the NMSF list, much more than the blair smcs's 41 count. Within that, 18 from TJ were named finalists, where as blair had 3.
The 4.74 gpa from blair smcs equates to about 4.2 gpa from TJ, since all TJ honors courses give just a +0.5 bump, where as blair provides +1.0 bump for plenty of basic honors courses.
Comparing the rigor taken on by students, blair had just 7 students attempt the AP Physics C: E&M, 4 signup for AP US History, and 28 sign up for AP Chem. At TJ, it's not just the top of the class, but well over two to three hundred students enroll in each of these AP classes and exams.

I am a big critic of the new admissions system but to be fair the top half of TJ is still very competitive.

The top half represents merit, while the bottom half supports diversity chart?

Sure, but we can improve the merit significantly by re-instituting a standardized test so that we get the brightest 1.5% kids from each of the middle schools.

The idea of selecting the top 1.5% is a promising approach that aims to enhance representation and indirectly diversity. However, using the same merit test across all schools brings to light some uncomfortable truths that ultimately place the responsibility back on FCPS. If the same math or english or science test is given to everyone, it most likely would show that the highest score from a lower-performing school is actually lower than the average score from a higher-performing school. This clearly would indicate that FCPS needs to improve the overall quality of education at the lower-performing schools. Instead of addressing this issue, it’s easier for FCPS to frame the situation as a matter of racial injustice, use skin color based politics, and blame individuals at the top school for the lack of admission from students at the bottom school.

In general, the lower performing schools in FCPS have higher funding, lower student teacher ratios, the best administrators, the best teachers, lots of direct instruction, extra help, tutoring, etc.

Go find someone else to waggle your finger at.

I doubt there is much of a difference between schools.

They have higher funding because they have more IEP and ESL kids.

If FCPS isn't failing these kids, why is their academic performance so low compared to kids at other schools?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The education at TJ is the best in VA. As a parent, I would like my daughter to get a B grade rather than get an A grade at a common base high school.

That is not quite right. TJ has the same teachers and cirriculum as any other fcps high school.

and a B at TJ would tank your daughters chances to getting admission at UVA, VT, W&M

To be fair, ED at W&M probably gets in with a weighted 4+ They have a real fetish about TJ students.

And they don't have the same curriculum.

Every class at TJ is honors except maybe language and PE.

The rigor at TJs honors classes is higher than the rigor of most AP classes at other schools.