Current TJ Student answering questions

[Anonymous]

What have TJ kids been doing during quarantine. Is everyone studying?

With everything else getting canceled this summer, what is everyone doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What have TJ kids been doing during quarantine. Is everyone studying?

With everything else getting canceled this summer, what is everyone doing?

OP here:

A few weeks ago, a lot of people were studying for AP tests which were given virtually this year. The seniors graduated last weekend, but most kids are just taking this time to relax or learn things on their own terms, since the schoolwork (if you choose to do it/need a grade bump) is very light. Not everyone is studying, but there are a good amount of students taking advantage of the free time to begin studying for the PSAT/SAT or courses for next year. I'm a sophomore, so those are what my peers are doing--it might be different for kids in other grades. I've also heard that some online games are growing more popular among the TJ community like League of Legends. There's a really cute Facebook group started over quarantine called "Jefferson Chefs" where kids in the TJ community hold virtual cooking competitions and post pictures of the stuff they've made. Strangely, a lot of people at TJ are really good at cooking and baking, lol. There are a lot of posts giving anime, K-drama, or book recommendations in the class Facebook groups and people are definitely spending time to explore those. Class council and SGA also held "J Week" last week with virtual Zoom competitions like trivia or kahoot that students could participate in for prizes. Recently especially, many people have been starting initiatives for COVID-relief (making 3d-printed masks, sending food to those in need, supporting hospitals, etc) which are doing a solid amount of good for the community.

Over the summer, though a lot of internships or classes have been cancelled--I think people are still holding out hope that in August we'll be able to have sports practice. I'm not sure what other people's plans are, but I'll be taking a course with the FCPS online campus and volunteering at the local food bank. There's also some people doing free online courses on Coursera, or looking for jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it bother you that some kids who live near TJ now have to cross both 395 and 495 to get to Edison when TJ was originally built to serve the community?

This is an incredibly obnoxious question to ask a student who had absolutely no impact on the decision. Are you proud of yourself?

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.

I didn't say that the kid couldn't answer the question gracefully. I just made the point that you are an obnoxious cretin for asking it.

[Anonymous]

1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

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.

This is true. But just want to add that GPA isn’t typically the top factor in determining students’ ranking at TJ. ECs are actually more important if you aim for elite colleges. Because of that, top TJ students are usually those with close to top GPAs (but not always the very top), major Olympiad campers (or at least multiple times of USAMO qualifiers for math) and published researchers.

[Anonymous]

What would have been your base school and is there anything you think would have enjoyed more there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would have been your base school and is there anything you think would have enjoyed more there?

OP here:

My base school is Washington-Liberty in Arlington but I would have attended Bishop O'Connell if I had not gone to TJ. I don't know much about WL but largely, I'm very happy that I ended up at TJ rather than O'Connell--I definitely wanted a change. However, I might have enjoyed standing out more at O'Connell, the shorter school day, closer proximity to home, and going to the same school as the elementary/middle school friends I had had for years. I also would have been a more academically advanced student at that school (been able to do dual enrollment at Marymount, different AP offerings like enviro sci and euro) while I am likely just average at TJ. Separately, I likely would have been able to keep up my middle school faith-based extracurriculars (Girl Scouts, altar serving, choir) more if I had gone to a Catholic high school. O'Connell is also slightly smaller than TJ at about 1200 students, and there might be smaller class sizes (15-17) where you can receive more personalized instruction. I still speak to my friends at DJO occasionally, and have some idea of what their experience is like. Having a less rigorous workload would mean that I could have more free time to hang out with friends or get involved with the community in other ways (theater, service). I wouldn't have taken band at DJO because of the lack of elective space freshman year (replaced by religion class).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

Do most of the kids in TJ take 3 years of world language or 4 years? It seems some of the elite colleges require 4 years of WL. Since TJ kids aspire to get into top colleges, do they go for 4 years of WL? Also if you took Spanish 3 in summer, you will not be able to take 4th year of Spanish. Right? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

DD might want to do Fall sport to make friends and connections. Assuming fall sports happen. Do you have any thoughts on the social dynamic, competitiveness, time commitment etc of cross country and field hockey?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

Do most of the kids in TJ take 3 years of world language or 4 years? It seems some of the elite colleges require 4 years of WL. Since TJ kids aspire to get into top colleges, do they go for 4 years of WL? Also if you took Spanish 3 in summer, you will not be able to take 4th year of Spanish. Right? Thanks.

OP here:

You're right -- I am not eligible to take AP Spanish at TJ. Most Spanish students do not continue to AP as it takes up an elective spot that could go to other classes. There are normally two blocks of AP Spanish Lang per year (about 40 kids from grades 10-12). In the other languages where there are only one or two blocks of Level 1, 2, 3 classes, more of the kids continue on to AP, but it generally comes down to the student's decision and course planning. Or, if they know that one of the colleges they may be looking at recommends 4 years and they decide that they like the language enough to take another year. It's true that some colleges do recommend 4 years of language, but I don't think a majority of TJ students (that don't speak one of these languages at home) do more than 3. I'm not sure if any college *requires* 4 years of a language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD might want to do Fall sport to make friends and connections. Assuming fall sports happen. Do you have any thoughts on the social dynamic, competitiveness, time commitment etc of cross country and field hockey?

OP here:

Fall sports are an amazing way for incoming freshmen to make friends before the year begins. Since practices are daily after school and there's long practice camp days in August, students tend to get really close with their teammates. Cross country is generally a very successful and large sport at TJ. I think that there are time cutoffs for tryouts, but I've heard they're not super difficult? The cross country kids also have really fun spirit days and camaraderie in the community.

The field hockey team is seen as a really welcoming group that accepts everyone willing, even those with no experience. I have many friends that play field hockey that began in high school and they all really love it. The social aspect of field hockey is also strong. There's a JV and V team.

I am not sure about the time commitments for either of these sports, but if you text my number -- 571-466-7181 (again, hopefully that's okay to post on this forum...) we can exchange details and I can link you up with upperclassmen that do these sports and are totally willing to answer any questions you or your daughter might have about entering fall sports in the fall. I'm sorry that I can't be more helpful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

Do most of the kids in TJ take 3 years of world language or 4 years? It seems some of the elite colleges require 4 years of WL. Since TJ kids aspire to get into top colleges, do they go for 4 years of WL? Also if you took Spanish 3 in summer, you will not be able to take 4th year of Spanish. Right? Thanks.

OP here:

You're right -- I am not eligible to take AP Spanish at TJ. Most Spanish students do not continue to AP as it takes up an elective spot that could go to other classes. There are normally two blocks of AP Spanish Lang per year (about 40 kids from grades 10-12). In the other languages where there are only one or two blocks of Level 1, 2, 3 classes, more of the kids continue on to AP, but it generally comes down to the student's decision and course planning. Or, if they know that one of the colleges they may be looking at recommends 4 years and they decide that they like the language enough to take another year. It's true that some colleges do recommend 4 years of language, but I don't think a majority of TJ students (that don't speak one of these languages at home) do more than 3. I'm not sure if any college *requires* 4 years of a language.

Thank you. I understand colleges don't "require" 4 years of WL but when they say "recommend", some people think they actually mean "required'. I wanted to see what TJ kids think about WL as far as colleges are concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Is Spanish as hard at TJ as others on this board have said?

2) How is the Russian program?

3) Looking at Freshman year, is there anything students should do to prepare for Research Stats or TJ Math 3? biology?

4) How is the college advising?

5) Can you speak to the cheating culture claims?

OP here:

1) For background, I took Spanish 2 freshman year and Spanish 3 Online last summer. All languages at TJ except Latin are taught in immersion, where the teacher speaks primarily in the language taught. Spanish, French, and Latin are the more difficult languages at TJ, while Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and German are not stereotypically as rigorous. This is not to diminish the quality of instruction, as all of the teachers are very qualified and great at what they do, but grade-wise less kids get As and the workload is higher for the former three. The level of difficulty of Spanish at TJ will depend on your freshman year teacher, but then going into Spanish 3 at TJ those students that had the "harder" Spanish 2 teacher will be highly more prepared. I had the harder teacher but she did want to help you learn and if she sees that you're putting in effort she'll be more forgiving. There are more Spanish students at TJ than in any other language. I believe that the reasons that people say Spanish is difficult at TJ are 1) because it is very demanding in comparison to middle school Spanish and freshman that enter Spanish 3 are normally underprepared and some end up taking Spanish 2 again (and tend to do very well) and 2) in simple comparison to the other languages where there is less homework and difficult assessments. Spanish at TJ is seen as a class that takes outside studying to do well in--not a "break" or "easy-A" class. Usually, people don't really want to put so much effort into Spanish at TJ because it's not really something they're interested in spending so much study time on, which also probably adds to why some say it's difficult rather than rewarding. At the beginning of Spanish 2 there is a "Spanish Boot-camp" which is basically a massive review of Spanish 1 content to aid those from less rigorous middle school backgrounds. The program is very good though and if you take advantage of the instruction you'll get very good at Spanish very fast. It's just seen as another academic class with assessments and homework like Biology or CS, except it's not STEM.

2) Russian is seen as an easy A class at TJ. I have many friends in Russian and the program is very chill with a really nice teacher. There's also a Russian Honor Society that does a dance for Inite every year. Sometimes the teacher picks students who can skip Russian 2 and go from Russian 1 to Russian 3, then AP the next year. My friends enjoy the class a lot, there's only 25-ish of them in 2022 so they're pretty good friend. Since middle schools don't really offer Russian, most freshman take Russian 1 then continue three/four years at TJ.

3) I don't know how necessary it is to prep intensely for freshman year unless the student isn't really doing anything else. The year before TJ abolished summer assignments was before my freshman year, and we had a Stats summer packet to complete for an easy first-week-test once we entered school, but since there's no summer assignments anymore--TJ isn't expecting freshman to come in with much prior knowledge. The same goes for Biology--TJ uses an AP Biology textbook for freshman biology, but they don't completely expect or build off of prior knowledge since everyone had different middle school backgrounds. You could probably look on Khan Academy or maybe Bozeman biology videos (we love this guy) on YouTube for some biology content to start looking at. TJ Math 3 uses the textbook Prentice Hall Algebra 2. There's an algebra diagnostic all freshman take twice during the first semester, the second time for a grade, so I'd maybe make sure I was really solid on Algebra 1 Honors fundamentals? I don't remember what textbooks Stats uses, but it's the first half of the AP stats curriculum. Here's a good study guide from one of my upperclassmen friends that I used to review last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3osPmUe6VNMnnjFyFJxN8qbFDYni_jTkpny_93WKz0/edit?usp=sharing

4) I'm only a sophomore so I don't have much experience with the college advising at TJ, but there is a really great College and Career Center at TJ that is super welcoming and routinely offers one-on-one meetings with kids and information about scholarships, jobs, internships, and the like. There's also many, many college visits open to the student body in the fall and winter, and some other career options like when the FBI recruiters came to give a talk. The student-and-teacher led Writing Center holds workshops about how to write college essays and seniors are always able to ask teachers for guidance on their essays. Around this time of junior year all of the juniors fill out a "Junior packet" about their strengths, extracurriculars, and goals that helps their counselors write a good recommendation for them. There is a lot of emphasis placed on college at TJ and a lot of support for students at that time.

5) I believe that the majority of the student body fairly receives the grades they deserve. However, allegations of cheating and breaking the honor code at TJ are taken very seriously by administration and students get very very mad at their peers if it is discovered that someone unfairly received something better than they deserved--especially concerning college acceptances and national level STEM tests (accusations/reveals which become prevalent around this time of year). I think a few years ago there was a large cheating ring in one of the sophomore classes? That hasn't happened since on such a large scope. There are some really insane individual instances of cheating at TJ which are quickly discovered and punished--just this last year, a junior was caught using a camera pen to sell the physics midterm to other juniors. This caused the physics curve to be removed for many juniors, negatively affecting the class and many uninvolved people on a wide scope. I don't know how often this happens but it's very annoying that some cheaters give the entire school a bad rep. Again, cheating is taken very seriously at TJ and it's definitely not normalized. TJ kids are really willing to help each other out (study guides, tutoring, etc) but not to the point of getting in administrative trouble. And if someone is rewarded unfairly and people are aware of it, they will be called out.

Do most of the kids in TJ take 3 years of world language or 4 years? It seems some of the elite colleges require 4 years of WL. Since TJ kids aspire to get into top colleges, do they go for 4 years of WL? Also if you took Spanish 3 in summer, you will not be able to take 4th year of Spanish. Right? Thanks.

OP here:

You're right -- I am not eligible to take AP Spanish at TJ. Most Spanish students do not continue to AP as it takes up an elective spot that could go to other classes. There are normally two blocks of AP Spanish Lang per year (about 40 kids from grades 10-12). In the other languages where there are only one or two blocks of Level 1, 2, 3 classes, more of the kids continue on to AP, but it generally comes down to the student's decision and course planning. Or, if they know that one of the colleges they may be looking at recommends 4 years and they decide that they like the language enough to take another year. It's true that some colleges do recommend 4 years of language, but I don't think a majority of TJ students (that don't speak one of these languages at home) do more than 3. I'm not sure if any college *requires* 4 years of a language.

Thank you. I understand colleges don't "require" 4 years of WL but when they say "recommend", some people think they actually mean "required'. I wanted to see what TJ kids think about WL as far as colleges are concerned.

Not OP here, but my just-graduated TJ senior took AP Spanish Language as a junior and wanted to take AP Spanish Lit as a senior, but the class ended up not being offered because only two kids wanted to take it. He ended up taking Artificial Intelligence instead, which he really liked, so maybe it worked out OK.