This bothers me..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People can huff and puff, but at the end of the day both TJ and AAP are positives for FCPS and Fairfax County, in that they send signals that FCPS cares about advanced academics. It's an imperfect signal, but a meaningful one nonetheless. You only have to look at how FCPS outperforms MCPS and captures a much larger share of top students than APS to know they are net positives for the county. The possibility that some hypothetical TJ student turned down from U. Va. possibly might have been admitted had he or she applied from Woodson or South Lakes instead isn't going to change that.

I agree , and to add to that , at the end of the day TJ and non-TJ all get to meet in in-state colleges. Not sure what is so special about TJ though.. Only top 20-30 % go to IVYs if they can afford.. Once in local college ,everyone is same .. TJ / Non-TJ doesn't matter.

If your end game is WHERE they end up in college, then you miss the point of an experience of TJ. It is like going to college in high school. It's not for everyone and it is college level work load. But for many kids, this is where a spark is lit in a field of study and that is something worthwhile and they take into college and beyond. - Signed, a TJ mom with a kid in grad school studying Biomed Eng.

It is like college in the sense that there is virtually no instruction; kids have to learn on their own. I do not see that as a good thing. The work approach is similar to HS: In college, one is usually not graded on homework, but rather tests. At TJ, that is not the case. An earlier poster wrote about the vast amounts of work required. In college, the work is suggested but not required. I do not know how TJ grades, but if they require you to do HW, and grade it, and include that in your grade, it is not like college.

TJ has brilliant students....but so does Madison, Langley, Woodson, Oakton, Marshall, McLean etc. TH teachers do not have to work hard because the teachers will get it.

Advantages of TJ:
No bullying for being smart
Brilliant Peers
No time spent prepared for SOL's.

Disadvantages:
Workload
Stress
Poor quality teaching
Travel Time
Imbalanced school-life priorities
1/2 the kids will finish in the bottom half instead of in the top 5% at the base school.

The teaching quality at TJ is not perfect but it's definitely better than at other base schools.

I agree with above poster. I have 1 at TJ and 1 at base school. There are certainly bad teachers everywhere, but in general this has been our experience.

[Anonymous]

Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

[Anonymous]

Conclusion: TJ is the best high school in the country and fairfax residents should be grateful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Conclusion: TJ is the best high school in the country and fairfax residents should be grateful.

+ 100000000

TJ is best

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

This is like saying it's better to graduate from GMU rather than MIT because you may end up with higher gpa for grad school or jobs etc. Not true. MIT grads would be better off generally (and learned plenty more) even with slightly lower gpa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are simply making things up when you claim TJ was built to challenge bored under-performers. It wasn't. It was built for two reasons. First, the county politicians at the time - largely Republicans - wanted a "tech" school that would reinforce the message that Fairfax County was open for business for any company willing to relocate to office parks in Chantilly, Reston and Tysons. Second, FCPS had excess capacity in eastern Fairfax, so it was either going to close one of Annandale, Jefferson or Stuart, or open a magnet there. At the time, FCPS was still overwhelmingly white, so there was no expectation that Asians already familiar with cut-throat admissions to secondary schools would flock there and dominate the school. But they did, so depending on the day of the week FCPS is either proud of having the top high school in the country or embarrassed that its flagship school has demographics that look nothing like the county in which it is located.

I was there when it was approved; I spoke before the school board. I was questioned on the lack of challenges; how one one day, my Algebra II teacher called home to 1) report that I was underperforming in class because of missed homework assignments (got A's on the test), and at the same time I scored the highest in the school on a math assessment, and I was going to be invited to go to states....How the curriculum was crushing my enthusiasm for science.

When include HW on the grade, you punish the truly brilliant kids. For me, it was just busy work. I would do the work until I understood the process. But, when 25% of your grade is homework, then 100% on tests and 0 on homework gives a C. That is how I got a C in Algebra II-Trig.

I'm sure it's nice to think the decision to open TJHSST was all about kids like you, but it really wasn't. Your story is a side note. Most kids attending TJ would have done fine at their base schools, and kids like you probably would get turned away today. TJ students have plenty of homework and problem sets to complete.

Hence transformation of TJ to achievement factory -- from place where math and science-oriented kids who love learning can truly explore --- is complete. This is sad. I'll take the kid whose smart enough to see when he's done enough busywork and goes off to research some tangent he's interested in over the kid who promptly completes all his homework, any day.

You mean learning/research/achievement factory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

are you insane? very few students at any high school around here "easily" get into top colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And here's where they went:

http://thebullelephant.com/college-destinations-for-tjhsst-class-of-2015/

Wow. 6 to Stanford, 8 to U. Chicago, 8 to MIT -- Wonder what other school in this region comes close to matching that?

None. TJ has the best overall college acceptances in the country since UVA and W&M are among the top schools in the country.

+100.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

are you insane? very few students at any high school around here "easily" get into top colleges.

That's fine.. Those few can get to top colleges from local high schools with less amount of stress.. In TJ you have to be top of the top ..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

are you insane? very few students at any high school around here "easily" get into top colleges.

That's fine.. Those few can get to top colleges from local high schools with less amount of stress.. In TJ you have to be top of the top ..

Isn't there a limit on how many they can take from TJ??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - what is your base school. If you are so concerned about getting into Ivys and the bloated reputation of TJ, then you must know your base school's general college acceptances. Does it even compare?

A rough back-of-the-envelope figurin...

Assume the approx. 12500 seniors in Fairfax County Schools are ranked by your favorite SPR (Smarty Pants Ranking)

Assume 1/6 of TJ students are not from Fairfax County, so approx. 375 seniors at TJ are from Fairfax County.

Assume all TJ kids from Fairfax County are from the top 10% of the ranked students, i.e. from the top 1250 ranked students.

That leaves 825 top 10% senior students for the other 21 Fairfax County high schools, or 39 per school.

So on average, each HS has around 1/10 the number of top 10% students as TJ, so if TJ has 10 MIT admits, each other FFX hs would have at most 1. But I would guess the TJ strips out almost all of the top STEM students with the ability and ambition to get into MIT, so an MIT admit from a base school would be rare.

Nice figurin', PP! Still don't understand what OP is saying about TJ being "just any other high school".

You have the same (or worse) teaching compared with any other school in the county. But, they have on average, the brightest kids. Those kids would be equally bright at there base schools. The peer group would not be as good there. Where it gets interesting is TJ has critical mass to have far more advanced opportunities than any other school in the region. Unfortunately, that is not why many people go to TJ; they go because it looks good to go to the best.

TJ is now dominated by students from families that would view failure to be at the top as an indicator of failure. They grew up in cultures where resources were extremely limited and their society could only afford to educate the top 1-5%. In the US, we educate every one. While in other societies, there are many exits from the path to success -- many gate ways where people are winnowed out, in the US, everyone has the opportunity (in theory). Anyone can go to a community college and do well, transfer to a top state school, and then the sky is the limit. This is why America is great.

TJ was initially built for the brilliant child that was underperforming in high school because they were bored. Like the STEM oriented kid who went on to be an internationally known physicist, but had a 2.3 GPA in HS because he was not challenged: why do the Homework when you know the answers?

The over-achievers co-opted TJ so the true genius -- the Albert Einsteins (who underachieved in HS) could not be admitted.

Yes, agree with above. But, also have to add that the curriculum at TJ is unparalled to any high school. When you have bright kids matched with opportunities & resources = sky is the limit.

Sky is the limit ???.. But where are the birds ..

The birds are flying too high for you on the ground to see...

Did you pad the bird with with electric wings ? It will run out of battery soon ..

I think I did hear about TJ kids conducting research into allowing brain cells to control wheelchairs to help disabled people in their Neuroscience lab! Is that what you mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

This is like saying it's better to graduate from GMU rather than MIT because you may end up with higher gpa for grad school or jobs etc. Not true. MIT grads would be better off generally (and learned plenty more) even with slightly lower gpa.

And only 10 out of 480 are accepted in MIT.. Think about how brilliant that kid needs to be to get accepted from TJ.. Those kids do not really need TJ though.. They can do well from any high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - what is your base school. If you are so concerned about getting into Ivys and the bloated reputation of TJ, then you must know your base school's general college acceptances. Does it even compare?

A rough back-of-the-envelope figurin...

Assume the approx. 12500 seniors in Fairfax County Schools are ranked by your favorite SPR (Smarty Pants Ranking)

Assume 1/6 of TJ students are not from Fairfax County, so approx. 375 seniors at TJ are from Fairfax County.

Assume all TJ kids from Fairfax County are from the top 10% of the ranked students, i.e. from the top 1250 ranked students.

That leaves 825 top 10% senior students for the other 21 Fairfax County high schools, or 39 per school.

So on average, each HS has around 1/10 the number of top 10% students as TJ, so if TJ has 10 MIT admits, each other FFX hs would have at most 1. But I would guess the TJ strips out almost all of the top STEM students with the ability and ambition to get into MIT, so an MIT admit from a base school would be rare.

Nice figurin', PP! Still don't understand what OP is saying about TJ being "just any other high school".

You have the same (or worse) teaching compared with any other school in the county. But, they have on average, the brightest kids. Those kids would be equally bright at there base schools. The peer group would not be as good there. Where it gets interesting is TJ has critical mass to have far more advanced opportunities than any other school in the region. Unfortunately, that is not why many people go to TJ; they go because it looks good to go to the best.

TJ is now dominated by students from families that would view failure to be at the top as an indicator of failure. They grew up in cultures where resources were extremely limited and their society could only afford to educate the top 1-5%. In the US, we educate every one. While in other societies, there are many exits from the path to success -- many gate ways where people are winnowed out, in the US, everyone has the opportunity (in theory). Anyone can go to a community college and do well, transfer to a top state school, and then the sky is the limit. This is why America is great.

TJ was initially built for the brilliant child that was underperforming in high school because they were bored. Like the STEM oriented kid who went on to be an internationally known physicist, but had a 2.3 GPA in HS because he was not challenged: why do the Homework when you know the answers?

The over-achievers co-opted TJ so the true genius -- the Albert Einsteins (who underachieved in HS) could not be admitted.

Yes, agree with above. But, also have to add that the curriculum at TJ is unparalled to any high school. When you have bright kids matched with opportunities & resources = sky is the limit.

Sky is the limit ???.. But where are the birds ..

The birds are flying too high for you on the ground to see...

Did you pad the bird with with electric wings ? It will run out of battery soon ..

I think I did hear about TJ kids conducting research into allowing brain cells to control wheelchairs to help disabled people in their Neuroscience lab! Is that what you mean?

Yeah.. Is that your kid ?

Similar stories happen at all schools across other USA..There will be one or two gems everywhere..

What TJ does is, they put most of the top high school students in FCPS at one place.. That's it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

are you insane? very few students at any high school around here "easily" get into top colleges.

That's fine.. Those few can get to top colleges from local high schools with less amount of stress.. In TJ you have to be top of the top ..

Isn't there a limit on how many they can take from TJ??

Apparently not (based on the past 5 years) since each year UVA takes about 190, William & Mary takes about 170, Cornell takes about 27, Michigan takes about 50, MIT about 15, Princeton about 14, Berkeley about 17, Stanford about 11, Duke about 19, Columbia about 12 etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should other schools in FCPS have the same acceptance rate in colleges as TJ. TJ gets all the top students, who would have done better any way at local high school..

They would have gone to top colleges even if they were in local high schools..

But, this is blessing in disguise for students who go to local
High schools,as they can easily get into top colleges, based on their performances minus TJ feeding frenzy..

are you insane? very few students at any high school around here "easily" get into top colleges.

That's fine.. Those few can get to top colleges from local high schools with less amount of stress.. In TJ you have to be top of the top ..

You are assuming that the top students at other high schools do not feel stress or pressure. I grew up in in FCPS schools. I have to disagree. I'd love my top student from our high-performing base high school to go to any of these schools: https://fcps.tjhsst.edu/coursemgmt/media/300/resource/TJ%20Profile%202015-16%20online%20hq.pdf