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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wonder how the folks cheering because their kids got in without “prepping” (aka working for it) are going to feel when they discover that their kids are signed up for 90 hour workweeks?  I suppose they will argue their kids should get a TJ degree based on their “innate talent”.  And then will move on to college admissions by “innate talent,” etc.

I wonder at what point they will expect their kids to work hard at something?[/quote]

Genuinely talented kids do not have 90 hour workweeks at TJ. They come home, probably do about 2 hours of homework each night, and take a chunk of one of the two weekend days (4-5 hours) to get stuff done/get ahead for the week.

These kids have the ability to succeed in diverse extracurricular pursuits (athletics/arts/creatives) above and beyond just STEM, and it's no accident that those are the kids who tend to get into elite colleges.

I am sorry if this bursts your bubble with respect to your own kid, but it's the truth. [/quote]

+1.  Junior year with 4 APs and a post-AP I maybe upped that average to 3-4 hours/night sometimes.  I played 2 school sports and trained for one outside of school, was in both school and church choir, had a weekend job (half days on Saturdays).  These parents who force "excellence" on their (perfectly great!) average kids and then are surprised when it almost breaks them...you're the real problem with TJ.[/quote]

Okay, so what was your weekly schedule?  Looks like 80-90:hours a week, all in, yes?[/quote]

Let's do the math:

- I left around 7:15 to get to school by 8.  Hung out with friends or did last-minute studying 8-8:30
- School day 8:30-4
- Sports practice 4:30-6
- Commute home/dinner 6-7
- Homework 7-10
- Sleep 10-6 (8 hours!)

So that's a roughly 15 hour day, including conservative estimates of 1.5 hours of commuting and 3 hours of homework, as well as at least an hour/day of unscheduled down time at school.  I didn't do homework on Friday nights but did have meets, so we'll call that a wash and say the week is 15 x 5 = 75 hours.  4-6 hours of homework + 4 hours of weekend job + 2 hours for church choir/service = 10-12 more hours of weekend commitments.  Total 85-87 hours...but absent the commuting (7.5-8 hours/week), I don't see how this schedule would have been much different than if I had been doing the full IB program at my base school...?[/quote]

This is a pretty common story for the kids who are maximizing their TJ experience.

I took issue with the person who talked about 90 hour workweeks because my assumption was that they were referring to 90 hours a week of pure academics. This is indeed the case for some, but it tracks neatly with the students who only were admitted because of prep - which is a SUBSET of all of the prepped kids. Many students who prepped didn't need it and wasted their money/time/resources because they would have gotten in anyway. The kids who got into TJ because of prep end up being the ones who pay for outside tutoring and spend inordinate amounts of time studying to try to get the same A that comes (relatively more) easily to the kids who actually belong at TJ.[/quote]

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