Grades at TJ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got accepted - Trying to decide if he should choose TJ or base school. He has been a straight A student up until now, but the general feedback we have from friends is to not go ahead with TJ. How common / uncommon are straight As in TJ. What kind of grades are we looking at for a top 20% student at TJ?

NP here. We are in the same boat- don’t know if our kid is going to be happy there. Straight As at base school. Lots of ECs. Generally a great kid.

If you watched the livestream/zoom, the perspective I am getting is that your kid needs to love science or math or art. (The art thing was interesting!) It’s not about getting straight As or going to college at this stage: it’s about making sure the kids find their passions and opportunities. There were a lot of questions about whether or not TJ will help their kids get into college. And I’m sure a lot of that was a response to threads here on DCUM.

What that tells me is that regardless of what you read here, the most important part will be going to meet with teachers, talk to counselors, and talk with your child. That this forum is not reflective of what actually is going on in the school.

I was also pleasantly surprised to hear about Ibest and the 8th period more in detail. It makes sense and I think it will help my kids realize that they understand the struggles of incoming freshmen.

We fell for this Art pitch, and now DC as a junior is sitting on Cs in every math class starting with Math1 and science classes. only classes with A are the art classes.

We were at the open house this week and we saw the art exhibits and were pretty impressed. My wife is an artist, her whole family is into art and she thought the art on display was impressively good for high school students. I don't know how that translates into getting into schools like RISD but any of those kids on display have a good shot at it.

Our base school Colgan High in PW County is much better for Art than what we saw at TJ. Aspiring to attend TJ for art is like saying lets go to Six flags for viewing animals instead of the Zoo.

No one goes "for the art". But showcasing the arts the students there do is a good way to help illustrate the kids aren't getting an "All STEM all the time, no normal HS stuff" experience. Whether it's visual or performing arts, there's a lot of kids that engage in a form of creative outlet at the school - it's just not WHY they went.

Our kids went to a private for elementary and all the parents' days and open houses focused on art and musical performances. That was how they convinced parents that they were getting their money's worth, but it wasn't a true representation of a typical school day.

People aren't so interested in witnessing kids doing less flashy things like arithmetic/spelling (ES) or advanced calculus or coding or Spanish irregular verbs (TJ), even though these are core activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got accepted - Trying to decide if he should choose TJ or base school. He has been a straight A student up until now, but the general feedback we have from friends is to not go ahead with TJ. How common / uncommon are straight As in TJ. What kind of grades are we looking at for a top 20% student at TJ?

NP here. We are in the same boat- don’t know if our kid is going to be happy there. Straight As at base school. Lots of ECs. Generally a great kid.

If you watched the livestream/zoom, the perspective I am getting is that your kid needs to love science or math or art. (The art thing was interesting!) It’s not about getting straight As or going to college at this stage: it’s about making sure the kids find their passions and opportunities. There were a lot of questions about whether or not TJ will help their kids get into college. And I’m sure a lot of that was a response to threads here on DCUM.

What that tells me is that regardless of what you read here, the most important part will be going to meet with teachers, talk to counselors, and talk with your child. That this forum is not reflective of what actually is going on in the school.

I was also pleasantly surprised to hear about Ibest and the 8th period more in detail. It makes sense and I think it will help my kids realize that they understand the struggles of incoming freshmen.

We fell for this Art pitch, and now DC as a junior is sitting on Cs in every math class starting with Math1 and science classes. only classes with A are the art classes.

We were at the open house this week and we saw the art exhibits and were pretty impressed. My wife is an artist, her whole family is into art and she thought the art on display was impressively good for high school students. I don't know how that translates into getting into schools like RISD but any of those kids on display have a good shot at it.

I don't think a large percentage of TJ kids do these classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Interestingly, all the TJ news releases from the principal and supervisor rely on these advanced math and science student achievements, the same students that admissions limits in number under diversity quotas.

The Asian kids work, work, work all the time. Most are not fun to be around but they will go to MIT.

Maybe they do. However, TJ is the only school I'm aware of where kids are seen practicing for upcoming dance performance in the school hallways, with at least one celebration every month. My kid who never shook a leg before, has learnt bhangra from his TJ peers, did his first stage performance ever in freshman, and never misses a chance to perform now

Really? How many high schools are you at where you are visiting the hallways?! Sampling of one…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If ur kid is not going to be in the too half at TJ - do not send to TJ. And no - grades till middle school are not a predictor.

You realize this is ridiculous, right? Are you that bad at math? 225 kids are going to be in the bottom half. SMH

You mean 275, right? SMH.

But seriously as long as your kid isn't in the bottom 20%, you are probably better off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a freshman at TJ. He is doing well there and enjoys the school and the unique opportunities it provides. When deciding, we told him not to consider college outcomes. Who really knows if your kid would be better or worse off going to TJ. The reason to go is for the challenge, the peer group, and the notion that, by the time you get to college, you will be well prepared.

We felt that too while enrolling our kid. However the reality of the approaching college admissions makes us think otherwise now. We question our decision many times now - if we hampered our kid's chances of getting into a good college

There is no TJ penalty AFAICT. TJ sends more kids to HYPSM than all the base high schools combined. I expect this number to drop significantly for the cohort admitted under the new admission process for the class of 2025.
If there seems to be a statistically lower chance for kids to get in from TJ vs a base school, a lot (if not all) of this can be attributed to the bias against asian students because of affirmative action. TJ is much more asian than most base schools. But if you're asian, you're still going to be asian at your base school so there is really no point in worrying about it. If the number of admits to selective colleges increases for 2024, that is the the effect of the elimination of affirmative action.

tldr: expect admissions to improve for the graduating class of 2024 (due to the elimination of affirmative action), expect admissions to deteriorate for the class of 2025 (due to the lower quality of students accepted under the new admissions process). But in the end, there is likely not a penalty for attending TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a freshman at TJ. He is doing well there and enjoys the school and the unique opportunities it provides. When deciding, we told him not to consider college outcomes. Who really knows if your kid would be better or worse off going to TJ. The reason to go is for the challenge, the peer group, and the notion that, by the time you get to college, you will be well prepared.

We felt that too while enrolling our kid. However the reality of the approaching college admissions makes us think otherwise now. We question our decision many times now - if we hampered our kid's chances of getting into a good college

There is no TJ penalty AFAICT. TJ sends more kids to HYPSM than all the base high schools combined. I expect this number to drop significantly for the cohort admitted under the new admission process for the class of 2025.
If there seems to be a statistically lower chance for kids to get in from TJ vs a base school, a lot (if not all) of this can be attributed to the bias against asian students because of affirmative action. TJ is much more asian than most base schools. But if you're asian, you're still going to be asian at your base school so there is really no point in worrying about it. If the number of admits to selective colleges increases for 2024, that is the the effect of the elimination of affirmative action.

tldr: expect admissions to improve for the graduating class of 2024 (due to the elimination of affirmative action), expect admissions to deteriorate for the class of 2025 (due to the lower quality of students accepted under the new admissions process). But in the end, there is likely not a penalty for attending TJ.

Colleges boosted Asian admissions to try to win the lawsuit, going from below 20% to over 30%. I think these admissions will drop despite losing the court case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

Not only Mathcounts but AMC and other STEM competitions, why do they leave out these kids in the new admissions? They are obviously in the top 1.5 percent at their middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

They did this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

They did this year.

Some

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

Not only Mathcounts but AMC and other STEM competitions, why do they leave out these kids in the new admissions? They are obviously in the top 1.5 percent at their middle schools.

Top 1.5 percent calculation doesn't consider participation or performance in Mathcounts, AMC and other STEM competitions. If it did then it would drive up Asian student offers, which goes against the intended purpose of 1.5 percent concept

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are in the top 25 percent of their middle school. So it's not like they wouldn't be in the top 25 percent likely at their base high school. Others can surpass them but it's not like they somehow just dropped down to the 50th percentile of their base high school very often just because of grades.

Are you serious? Do you know how many kids in FCPS don’t apply or do apply to TJ and are rejected who were in the top 25% of their 8th grade class? You cannot base how a kid will do at 17/18 on how they did at 13/14.

I don't know. The kids I saw smashing it at Mathcounts in 7th and 8th grade continued to be the top kids at TJ then at Harvard/MIT.

Lately these kids have not been getting accepted to TJ.

Not only Mathcounts but AMC and other STEM competitions, why do they leave out these kids in the new admissions? They are obviously in the top 1.5 percent at their middle schools.

Top 1.5 percent calculation doesn't consider participation or performance in Mathcounts, AMC and other STEM competitions. If it did then it would drive up Asian student offers, which goes against the intended purpose of 1.5 percent concept

I doubt they even care of anything higher than Geo