Official TJ Admissions Decisions Results for the Class of 2025

[Anonymous]

For us it reverted back to wailist.

[Anonymous]

TJ admissions became a joke. How inefficient these guys are.

[Anonymous]

TJ sent an email confirming it was an error.

[Anonymous]

Is it true that ALL kids on the wait list got it or is it just a few of them?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think anyone from our middle school got off the waitlist so far. Apart from the glitch yesterday.

[Anonymous]

I am a student that got accepted into the TJHSST Class of 2025, and I'd like to clarify a few things as you parents seem to know absolutely nothing about this year's admissions system.

First off, you parents HAVE to stop obsessing over the change in race demographics at TJ. The admissions system this year was 100% RACE-BLIND, and everyone who got in deserved it.

If you believe your child "should have gotten in" but didn't, suck it up. Get over it. Absolutely everything in life is unfair, but to clarify, this is not specifically because of the change in admissions system.

The average GPA of everyone who applied to TJ was nearly 3.9. If you're angry that you're 4.0-Algebra 2 child did not get in, you should know that this year's admissions system was extremely competitive and HUNDREDS of kids had a 4.0 GPA and took Algebra 2. It is not merely based on grades.

How about, I don't know, be proud of your kid? Maybe think for a second that your kid isn't fit for TJ? Maybe that the competition was so high this year that the essays were stellar to the sentence and that the average GPA of every kid admitted was nearly a perfect 3.99 or 4.0?

For everyone saying "Oh, the kids should have gotten in! The kids worked so hard!" Suck it up and get over yourself. Did your kid work hard? Yes. But EVERYONE who applied worked hard. Every single kid who got in had worked their butt off and excelled higher than anyone else. So yes, it's sad that your hard-working kid didn't get in, but someone shouldn't get in JUST because they work hard.

Again, I'd like to clarify that checking off the box "multiracial" or "black" or "hispanic" is not a "golden ticket" to getting into TJ. It was race-blind. STOP blaming the demographics of TJ and maybe, start thinking about your child and what they feel when you go on and on about how TJ is horrible.

I'd also like to make it clear that the admissions system is extremely flawed. In no way am I saying that it is perfect, because it is not, but everything in life is that way. College admissions system, I believe, is more unfair than TJ's admissions system. But that does not mean you should trash talk TJ and trash talk colleges, because what's the point in that?

In addition, as someone who is accepted in to the TJ class of 2025, I almost feel GUILTY that I got accepted. Parents are saying that all the kids who got in got a "golden ticket" and "their kid" should have gotten in instead. Why do WE have to feel bad that we worked extremely hard, and got accepted into an incredible school?

For every parent who sees this, stop complaining about the admissions system and get over yourself. Care about your child and shift your focus to their wellbeing. Stop complaining about every little detail because your child, I can guarantee, is sick of it, and is sick of your complaining, because that negativity is not something that will encourage them to move forward and work harder. So please, PLEASE, try to be more positive and think more about your kid.



Sincerely, an accepted teenager who is tired of other parents talking bad about the admissions system.

[Anonymous]

It was problematic for FCPS that slightly over 70% of the admits to TJ had been Asian, but 82% of the players selected in the NBA draft were Black.

Clearly Adam Silver needs the FCPS School Board and TJ AAG to give him advice on how to ensure more diversity entering the ranks of professional basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a student that got accepted into the TJHSST Class of 2025, and I'd like to clarify a few things as you parents seem to know absolutely nothing about this year's admissions system.

First off, you parents HAVE to stop obsessing over the change in race demographics at TJ. The admissions system this year was 100% RACE-BLIND, and everyone who got in deserved it.

If you believe your child "should have gotten in" but didn't, suck it up. Get over it. Absolutely everything in life is unfair, but to clarify, this is not specifically because of the change in admissions system.

The average GPA of everyone who applied to TJ was nearly 3.9. If you're angry that you're 4.0-Algebra 2 child did not get in, you should know that this year's admissions system was extremely competitive and HUNDREDS of kids had a 4.0 GPA and took Algebra 2. It is not merely based on grades.

How about, I don't know, be proud of your kid? Maybe think for a second that your kid isn't fit for TJ? Maybe that the competition was so high this year that the essays were stellar to the sentence and that the average GPA of every kid admitted was nearly a perfect 3.99 or 4.0?

For everyone saying "Oh, the kids should have gotten in! The kids worked so hard!" Suck it up and get over yourself. Did your kid work hard? Yes. But EVERYONE who applied worked hard. Every single kid who got in had worked their butt off and excelled higher than anyone else. So yes, it's sad that your hard-working kid didn't get in, but someone shouldn't get in JUST because they work hard.

Again, I'd like to clarify that checking off the box "multiracial" or "black" or "hispanic" is not a "golden ticket" to getting into TJ. It was race-blind. STOP blaming the demographics of TJ and maybe, start thinking about your child and what they feel when you go on and on about how TJ is horrible.

I'd also like to make it clear that the admissions system is extremely flawed. In no way am I saying that it is perfect, because it is not, but everything in life is that way. College admissions system, I believe, is more unfair than TJ's admissions system. But that does not mean you should trash talk TJ and trash talk colleges, because what's the point in that?

In addition, as someone who is accepted in to the TJ class of 2025, I almost feel GUILTY that I got accepted. Parents are saying that all the kids who got in got a "golden ticket" and "their kid" should have gotten in instead. Why do WE have to feel bad that we worked extremely hard, and got accepted into an incredible school?

For every parent who sees this, stop complaining about the admissions system and get over yourself. Care about your child and shift your focus to their wellbeing. Stop complaining about every little detail because your child, I can guarantee, is sick of it, and is sick of your complaining, because that negativity is not something that will encourage them to move forward and work harder. So please, PLEASE, try to be more positive and think more about your kid.



Sincerely, an accepted teenager who is tired of other parents talking bad about the admissions system.

Nice. AKA, I got mine. You all shut up. You'll go far in politics....

[Anonymous]

Re previous post, with all due respect- do you understand the concept of middle school quotas, caps, quotas for URMS, FARMS, ELLS, and extra weightage for experience factors? Do you understand that GPAs and Essays are subjective? Did you know 7th graders in Loudon got a grade bump while FCPS didn't? You're comparing apples and oranges and this is in no way fair for many many deserving kids. If someone who haven't taken Geometry or advanced courses in middle school and plan to do it at TJ isn't it a lost opportunity for an advanced kid? Look at the bigger picture...fcps needs to fix the pipeline issue starting in elementary instead of changing TJ'S admissions and curriculum to accommodate everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a student that got accepted into the TJHSST Class of 2025, and I'd like to clarify a few things as you parents seem to know absolutely nothing about this year's admissions system.

First off, you parents HAVE to stop obsessing over the change in race demographics at TJ. The admissions system this year was 100% RACE-BLIND, and everyone who got in deserved it.

If you believe your child "should have gotten in" but didn't, suck it up. Get over it. Absolutely everything in life is unfair, but to clarify, this is not specifically because of the change in admissions system.

The average GPA of everyone who applied to TJ was nearly 3.9. If you're angry that you're 4.0-Algebra 2 child did not get in, you should know that this year's admissions system was extremely competitive and HUNDREDS of kids had a 4.0 GPA and took Algebra 2. It is not merely based on grades.

How about, I don't know, be proud of your kid? Maybe think for a second that your kid isn't fit for TJ? Maybe that the competition was so high this year that the essays were stellar to the sentence and that the average GPA of every kid admitted was nearly a perfect 3.99 or 4.0?

For everyone saying "Oh, the kids should have gotten in! The kids worked so hard!" Suck it up and get over yourself. Did your kid work hard? Yes. But EVERYONE who applied worked hard. Every single kid who got in had worked their butt off and excelled higher than anyone else. So yes, it's sad that your hard-working kid didn't get in, but someone shouldn't get in JUST because they work hard.

Again, I'd like to clarify that checking off the box "multiracial" or "black" or "hispanic" is not a "golden ticket" to getting into TJ. It was race-blind. STOP blaming the demographics of TJ and maybe, start thinking about your child and what they feel when you go on and on about how TJ is horrible.

I'd also like to make it clear that the admissions system is extremely flawed. In no way am I saying that it is perfect, because it is not, but everything in life is that way. College admissions system, I believe, is more unfair than TJ's admissions system. But that does not mean you should trash talk TJ and trash talk colleges, because what's the point in that?

In addition, as someone who is accepted in to the TJ class of 2025, I almost feel GUILTY that I got accepted. Parents are saying that all the kids who got in got a "golden ticket" and "their kid" should have gotten in instead. Why do WE have to feel bad that we worked extremely hard, and got accepted into an incredible school?

For every parent who sees this, stop complaining about the admissions system and get over yourself. Care about your child and shift your focus to their wellbeing. Stop complaining about every little detail because your child, I can guarantee, is sick of it, and is sick of your complaining, because that negativity is not something that will encourage them to move forward and work harder. So please, PLEASE, try to be more positive and think more about your kid.



Sincerely, an accepted teenager who is tired of other parents talking bad about the admissions system.

says the one who got in...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a few things I haven't been able to quite square away yet.

Picture some hypothetical situation where a teacher, as an experiment, introduces some brand new subject which nobody in her class has ever heard of before. On a preliminary test, everyone in the class gets similar grades, since they're all starting from the same place. Then, a handful of students start studying for it, and a few weeks later, they do another test, and for some reason, those kids are scoring a lot better than everyone else. The teacher gets panicked, and says, "the grades aren't evenly balanced anymore - I have to change something to take away the advantage from the small group of students who are doing disproportionately well." Or even worse, "Those students are only showing good test-taking skills, so that most likely means that they're actually mediocre compared to everyone else." How is that fundamentally different than what we're seeing here?

Ok - people would point out that there's the money that is involved. That might even approach fair. On the other hand, last I checked Fairfax County was one of the - if not the - wealthiest counties in the nation. The Curie students are mostly grouped by ethnicity, not by wealth. I don't have the numbers, but I'd intuit that the group in question is at best only moderately wealthy compared to the rest of the county. That would mean that for the vast majority of the county, prep would be seen as an option rather than a privilege. Those taking that route would probably see it as pursuing an opportunity that's available to many - a far cry from the haves vs have nots rhetoric that we're seeing dominating this board.

Does that mean that there aren't any students for whom there is a true wealth barrier? Sure there are - but I'd assume that it's a special case, not a representative one. Just like the "super-nerds" who need TJ and who seem to be left out of the revised system. The "anti-prepper" posters often pretend these kids don't even exist. I don't want to sound callous, but if is a forced choice between trampling the nerds and trampling the poor, I'm not sure why it's necessarily more right to side with the poor.

The money is the problem.

Parents are entitled to spend their money in any way they want to to enrich their children’s lives - more power to them.

But there simply shouldn’t be a market for parents to spend a couple of mortgage payments - or for poorer families, several month’s rent - explicitly for privileged access to TJ. And that’s what’s happening right now - regardless of how effective these companies’ products are, there is clearly a belief that they are, and that creates an elite market.

And even though they were the only ones to market as explicitly as they did, let’s not pretend that Curie is the only one out there. Kate Dalby, Optimal TJ Prep, Sunshine - there is a ton of money to be made off of parents desperate for a leg up in TJ Admissions. And an admissions process that incentivizes that behavior is a non-starter if there is further reform to be done.

Spend your money however you want, but don’t expect it to do your resource hoarding for you.

That's certainly one way to look at the situation. A different way would be to say: if we want to counteract a disparity in how much money different cultures are willing to invest in education, we should start by alleviating the concerns that people certain cultures have about the degree of seriousness of base-level American education.

That’s a fancy way of saying “fix the pipeline” - but it’s a false choice to suggest we should do one or the other, or one THEN the other. Creating additional opportunities for demonstrably excellent students (a 3.95+ average unweighted GPA is exceptional no matter how you slice it) who happen to be born into less wealthy families energizes the pipeline work.

It's another way to say that some families are frustrated at constantly hearing that education is too expensive to fund - and even when it isn't, that we have to make it ridiculously easy because of hypothetical volumes of kids that can't keep up. But if they want to spend THEIR OWN money to get into a place where education is still taken seriously - because they think that a decent education IS worth spending money on - oh no, now we have to change the system because those "rich" folks are trying to scam everyone else. Yet when they compare against what kids are doing in their respective countries of origin, the education is neither expensive nor compromised in its level of challenge.

They're frustrated, because when they complain about it here, they have to listen to cocksure white people with very American-sounding names - who act like they're speaking from a completely universal point of view - tell them that the real problem is that they're just too wealthy and privileged and should be sacrificing more. They're told they should be spending their money on private schools if it means that much to them - which is wholly unfair, because they're NOT rich and they're already paying taxes for the public schools. Fix the pipeline if you want, but don't pretend you already know all of your problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re previous post, with all due respect- do you understand the concept of middle school quotas, caps, quotas for URMS, FARMS, ELLS, and extra weightage for experience factors? Do you understand that GPAs and Essays are subjective? Did you know 7th graders in Loudon got a grade bump while FCPS didn't? You're comparing apples and oranges and this is in no way fair for many many deserving kids. If someone who haven't taken Geometry or advanced courses in middle school and plan to do it at TJ isn't it a lost opportunity for an advanced kid? Look at the bigger picture...fcps needs to fix the pipeline issue starting in elementary instead of changing TJ'S admissions and curriculum to accommodate everyone.

why not both? The old system punished kids attending the wrong middle school, this one balances it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ sent an email confirming it was an error.

How shameful. How much more stupidity are people supposed to tolerate from FCPS?

The School Board members responsible for the ridiculous new process, which has been riddled with inefficiencies, ought to be required to write personal letters of apology to the students whose hopes were falsely raised and then dashed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a few things I haven't been able to quite square away yet.

Picture some hypothetical situation where a teacher, as an experiment, introduces some brand new subject which nobody in her class has ever heard of before. On a preliminary test, everyone in the class gets similar grades, since they're all starting from the same place. Then, a handful of students start studying for it, and a few weeks later, they do another test, and for some reason, those kids are scoring a lot better than everyone else. The teacher gets panicked, and says, "the grades aren't evenly balanced anymore - I have to change something to take away the advantage from the small group of students who are doing disproportionately well." Or even worse, "Those students are only showing good test-taking skills, so that most likely means that they're actually mediocre compared to everyone else." How is that fundamentally different than what we're seeing here?

Ok - people would point out that there's the money that is involved. That might even approach fair. On the other hand, last I checked Fairfax County was one of the - if not the - wealthiest counties in the nation. The Curie students are mostly grouped by ethnicity, not by wealth. I don't have the numbers, but I'd intuit that the group in question is at best only moderately wealthy compared to the rest of the county. That would mean that for the vast majority of the county, prep would be seen as an option rather than a privilege. Those taking that route would probably see it as pursuing an opportunity that's available to many - a far cry from the haves vs have nots rhetoric that we're seeing dominating this board.

Does that mean that there aren't any students for whom there is a true wealth barrier? Sure there are - but I'd assume that it's a special case, not a representative one. Just like the "super-nerds" who need TJ and who seem to be left out of the revised system. The "anti-prepper" posters often pretend these kids don't even exist. I don't want to sound callous, but if is a forced choice between trampling the nerds and trampling the poor, I'm not sure why it's necessarily more right to side with the poor.

The money is the problem.

Parents are entitled to spend their money in any way they want to to enrich their children’s lives - more power to them.

But there simply shouldn’t be a market for parents to spend a couple of mortgage payments - or for poorer families, several month’s rent - explicitly for privileged access to TJ. And that’s what’s happening right now - regardless of how effective these companies’ products are, there is clearly a belief that they are, and that creates an elite market.

And even though they were the only ones to market as explicitly as they did, let’s not pretend that Curie is the only one out there. Kate Dalby, Optimal TJ Prep, Sunshine - there is a ton of money to be made off of parents desperate for a leg up in TJ Admissions. And an admissions process that incentivizes that behavior is a non-starter if there is further reform to be done.

Spend your money however you want, but don’t expect it to do your resource hoarding for you.

That's certainly one way to look at the situation. A different way would be to say: if we want to counteract a disparity in how much money different cultures are willing to invest in education, we should start by alleviating the concerns that people certain cultures have about the degree of seriousness of base-level American education.

That’s a fancy way of saying “fix the pipeline” - but it’s a false choice to suggest we should do one or the other, or one THEN the other. Creating additional opportunities for demonstrably excellent students (a 3.95+ average unweighted GPA is exceptional no matter how you slice it) who happen to be born into less wealthy families energizes the pipeline work.

It's another way to say that some families are frustrated at constantly hearing that education is too expensive to fund - and even when it isn't, that we have to make it ridiculously easy because of hypothetical volumes of kids that can't keep up. But if they want to spend THEIR OWN money to get into a place where education is still taken seriously - because they think that a decent education IS worth spending money on - oh no, now we have to change the system because those "rich" folks are trying to scam everyone else. Yet when they compare against what kids are doing in their respective countries of origin, the education is neither expensive nor compromised in its level of challenge.

They're frustrated, because when they complain about it here, they have to listen to cocksure white people with very American-sounding names - who act like they're speaking from a completely universal point of view - tell them that the real problem is that they're just too wealthy and privileged and should be sacrificing more. They're told they should be spending their money on private schools if it means that much to them - which is wholly unfair, because they're NOT rich and they're already paying taxes for the public schools. Fix the pipeline if you want, but don't pretend you already know all of your problems.

it's called private school and no one is talking about eliminating it or changing the system. Sorry public school doesn't care about how much you spend to get your kid ahead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re previous post, with all due respect- do you understand the concept of middle school quotas, caps, quotas for URMS, FARMS, ELLS, and extra weightage for experience factors? Do you understand that GPAs and Essays are subjective? Did you know 7th graders in Loudon got a grade bump while FCPS didn't? You're comparing apples and oranges and this is in no way fair for many many deserving kids. If someone who haven't taken Geometry or advanced courses in middle school and plan to do it at TJ isn't it a lost opportunity for an advanced kid? Look at the bigger picture...fcps needs to fix the pipeline issue starting in elementary instead of changing TJ'S admissions and curriculum to accommodate everyone.

why not both? The old system punished kids attending the wrong middle school, this one balances it

Nonsense. The old system rewarded merit and hard work, and the new system creates hard quotas by middle school and soft ones that serve as a proxy for race/SES.