TJHSST UVA Early Numbers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA:
93 admit
17 withdrew
70=61+9 defer
164 deny

ED:
10 admit
10 defer
29 deny

source: insider

Who would even know this unless they work in UVA admissions?

Or TJ guidance counselor.

Either way it’s kind of a shitty thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tjhsst is not what it used to be before pandemic. Now admissions are not merit based, but diversity focused. UVA admissions is responding accordingly

Oh so it's not merit enough to be one of the top students in your middle school just because it doesn't perform as well as the wealthier schools? Sounds like you think merit is really just giving spaces to those who are able to buy their way into TJ.

This is inaccurate. If the top 15 kids don’t apply to TJ, the top kids aren’t even considered. If a kid is 17th and applies but at another HS would be 60th, that kid kids in.

The new system captures kids in a way that is not meritorious.

NP

Why do you think kids deserve to be punished for going to a MS with less resources and opportunities? They don't have any control over boundaries. They're still indisputably at the top of their class - so I don't know why you're acting like they aren't smart enough to handle TJ because because someone at Rachel Carson had a higher score. The people who are upset about this are just angry they can't pay their way into TJ anymore.

What post were you responding to? You’re either doing acceptances based on merit only or on other metrics. You’re then making up a story about how even mentioning non-meritorious admissions means the person must want kids from lower socioeconomic areas to be punished. Never said, never implied.

I don't think any of this is confusing. The new system takes the top students that apply from middle schools across the county as a whole rather than a select few higher-performing schools. The people arguing against this new system think those schools deserve preference. It's a public school funded by everyone who pays taxes to Fairfax, not just the residents of Vienna and Mclean and Oak Hill. No less "merit-based" than how public universities in Virginia try to pull students from across the entire state. If you think this new system is just about DEI you clearly just think the students at lower tier middle schools don't deserve the same opportunities. They outshine everyone else in their school. What more could you possibly want from them? I certainly don't expect someone at Poe to ever be able to outperform the top student at Cooper.

Then this is not an acceptance system based on merit alone. If the kid at Cooper performs well above a kid at Poe but is not admitted because Poe gets to send its share of applicants, then the kid with the higher stats is kept out and a lower stats kid is admitted. I am not saying anything good or bad about the system, just saying what the system is.

Still sounds like merit within their own school. I think it's pretty unfair to ask a middle schooler to have to compete with every single other middle schooler in the county. Why is a smart kid at Poe less deserving because they have had worse teachers/extracurricular options/elective options? If that was how admissions worked, TJ and ACL would shut most of the other kids in Nova out of UVA and W&M. And Nova would shut out students most other places in the state.

It's a quota. Every school gets a quota.

Ok but again they're competing with the students at their own school just as they would with college admissions. Quotas aren't inherently "anti-merit". These students have done the best they possibly can in the context of their school.

+1

Just like UVA admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA:
93 admit
17 withdrew
70=61+9 defer
164 deny

ED:
10 admit
10 defer
29 deny

source: insider

Who would even know this unless they work in UVA admissions?

Or TJ guidance counselor.

Either way it’s kind of a shitty thing to do.

Sorry, which part do you think is shitty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger question for me is how deep into TJ did the acceptances go. If 100 accepted, were they the top 100 at TJ. Were there any accepted who were at low end of TJ. Were the acceptances the ones with national awards? This is the info the straight # don’t tell and that would be more interesting to me bc I always know if kid is top 10 at TJ they are getting into good schools. I’m more curious how far out of top 10 when start to not get in and are those GPAs 4.4999 v 4.5 and SAT of 1585 v 1590….

In the past a 4.5 seemed to get you in, even with an Sat in the 1450 range. 4.4 with a 1500 and 4.3 with a 1550. A couple of outliers that I assume were athletic recruits or exceptional in some other way.

Athletic recruits from TJ? I'm not sure that makes sense.

They obviously had interesting applications! It doesn't mean they got some secret pass.

A 4.23 GPA with a 1360 SAT is one outlier
A couple under 4.2 weighted GPA with SAT scores in the 1400s

[Anonymous]

Maybe it’s time to admit that TJ really isn’t all that special, it’s just another Fairfax County high school, and there’s no reason to expect it’s UVA admit rate to be very different from other Fairfax County high schools.

[Anonymous]

If you are intelligent enough to be a top student at TJ then you never needed any prep to pass the admissions test (old admissions) or the new one. It’s ridiculous that people prep for this.
It’s pretty clear who the smarter kids at TJ are. They are the ones who don’t need to cheat in all their classes. Way too much handholding and oh-it-was-your-first-mistake going on at TJ these days. But there are certainly still kids who can handle TJ rigor and they will do well in college & beyond. If you get into TJ — find that peer group; they exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are intelligent enough to be a top student at TJ then you never needed any prep to pass the admissions test (old admissions) or the new one. It’s ridiculous that people prep for this.
It’s pretty clear who the smarter kids at TJ are. They are the ones who don’t need to cheat in all their classes. Way too much handholding and oh-it-was-your-first-mistake going on at TJ these days. But there are certainly still kids who can handle TJ rigor and they will do well in college & beyond. If you get into TJ — find that peer group; they exist.

Cheating is rampant there, by all ranges of intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger question for me is how deep into TJ did the acceptances go. If 100 accepted, were they the top 100 at TJ. Were there any accepted who were at low end of TJ. Were the acceptances the ones with national awards? This is the info the straight # don’t tell and that would be more interesting to me bc I always know if kid is top 10 at TJ they are getting into good schools. I’m more curious how far out of top 10 when start to not get in and are those GPAs 4.4999 v 4.5 and SAT of 1585 v 1590….

In the past a 4.5 seemed to get you in, even with an Sat in the 1450 range. 4.4 with a 1500 and 4.3 with a 1550. A couple of outliers that I assume were athletic recruits or exceptional in some other way.

Athletic recruits from TJ? I'm not sure that makes sense.

They obviously had interesting applications! It doesn't mean they got some secret pass.

A 4.23 GPA with a 1360 SAT is one outlier
A couple under 4.2 weighted GPA with SAT scores in the 1400s

This year?
Were they a recruited athlete? Any hooks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Steps that got our kid into UVA:

1. Lots of reading ages 1-5
2. Speaking home country language at home
3. Decent pre-school. Nothing fancy.
4. Sports, lots of sports (team and individual).
5. Catholic school k-8. They learned great study habits, strong language arts, discipline.
6. Low ranked public high school (fcps) where they easily stood out from the crowd. Plus had time for many extra curriculars.

Skip TJ, if UVA is your goal.

Congratulations!
What were their stats? And is the acceptance this year? Ed/EA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Steps that got our kid into UVA:

1. Lots of reading ages 1-5
2. Speaking home country language at home
3. Decent pre-school. Nothing fancy.
4. Sports, lots of sports (team and individual).
5. Catholic school k-8. They learned great study habits, strong language arts, discipline.
6. Low ranked public high school (fcps) where they easily stood out from the crowd. Plus had time for many extra curriculars.

Skip TJ, if UVA is your goal.

Congratulations!
What were their stats? And is the acceptance this year? Ed/EA?

Acceptance was a few years ago. 1470 SAT. 4.4 gpa ED admit (College of Arts and Sciences). 9 AP courses (including all five major subject areas) math up to BC calc. Summer job. Over 100 hours of volunteering with leadership. Two honor societies (which seem like sort of a joke). Three varsity sports (including district second team honor). No research, no non-profit, no national/state awards, no business. Supplemental essay was a little cheeky, and unique, in my view. Main essay showed vulnerability, leadership, overcoming a challenge (not some huge issue, like illness, poverty or death). I would say my kid is a smart, regular kid. They had a lot of time to hang out friends, try new sports, travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Steps that got our kid into UVA:

1. Lots of reading ages 1-5
2. Speaking home country language at home
3. Decent pre-school. Nothing fancy.
4. Sports, lots of sports (team and individual).
5. Catholic school k-8. They learned great study habits, strong language arts, discipline.
6. Low ranked public high school (fcps) where they easily stood out from the crowd. Plus had time for many extra curriculars.

Skip TJ, if UVA is your goal.

Congratulations!
What were their stats? And is the acceptance this year? Ed/EA?

Acceptance was a few years ago. 1470 SAT. 4.4 gpa ED admit (College of Arts and Sciences). 9 AP courses (including all five major subject areas) math up to BC calc. Summer job. Over 100 hours of volunteering with leadership. Two honor societies (which seem like sort of a joke). Three varsity sports (including district second team honor). No research, no non-profit, no national/state awards, no business. Supplemental essay was a little cheeky, and unique, in my view. Main essay showed vulnerability, leadership, overcoming a challenge (not some huge issue, like illness, poverty or death). I would say my kid is a smart, regular kid. They had a lot of time to hang out friends, try new sports, travel.

Awesome! …. the application numbers just keep going up every year

[Anonymous]

Back in January, the Mclean HS Admits IG page noted about 15 or 17 admits/commits to UVA. Presumably, these were all ED kids given the timing of the IG post. It's definitely surprising that there were only 10 TJ admits during ED.

[Anonymous]

UVA probably not the first choice for many TJ students. They are most likely shooting for higher ranked /STEMy colleges. I would assume most apply EA to UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it’s time to admit that TJ really isn’t all that special, it’s just another Fairfax County high school, and there’s no reason to expect it’s UVA admit rate to be very different from other Fairfax County high schools.

+1000

TJ is just like Mount Vernon, Lewis, Falls Church or any other FCPS high school. They all have 90+ acceptances to UVA and 50+ acceptances to T20. No different, nothing to look here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it’s time to admit that TJ really isn’t all that special, it’s just another Fairfax County high school, and there’s no reason to expect it’s UVA admit rate to be very different from other Fairfax County high schools.

+1000

TJ is just like Mount Vernon, Lewis, Falls Church or any other FCPS high school. They all have 90+ acceptances to UVA and 50+ acceptances to T20. No different, nothing to look here.

You sound like Elon Musk.