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[quote=Anonymous]Reading through a month+ of posts about TJ, I want only to comment on the decision to offer more AP courses. For context, I had three kids who went through TJ (admitted before the most recent admissions changes), the oldest of which started with Dr. G and finished with Dr. B. My third child graduated 2 years ago.

There was a long-standing tradition at TJ of early coursework -- like Statistics, and freshman bio -- that was covering a large portion of the AP curriculum but not calling the course AP. When Dr. B came in, she made a huge effort to reduce summer school offerings. In particular, summer statistics for incoming freshmen was disallowed (except when students had completed precalc before starting TJ). Then the college board introduced AP Pre-caluclus and TJ did not offer it. As a consequence, an incoming 9th grader who completed Algebra 2 in 8th grade and is also interested in the arts (say, orchestra) could decide:
- Go to base school and take AP Pre-calculus, getting GPA boost, and then plan to take Calculus BC sophomore year (also with GPA bump). Take orchestra the same year. 
- Go to TJ and either take both Statistics 1 (honors, not AP) and Math 4/5 (honors, not AP), giving up orchestra for freshman year, OR take Statistics 1 and 2 (I think Stats 2 was considered AP, but stats 1 was honors), and take Orchestra. In this case, student would take Math 4/5 sophomore year, and not get to take Calc BC until Junior year. In both cases, student does not receive the full GPA boost.

The problem is that each step of this process -- adding the statistics requirement, not giving the +1 boost to advanced coursework, requiring freshmen to take a design class (which generally was not very well integrated into IBET), not having summer school offering to address students who were half-way through the standard freshman math curriculum-- were all leading in the same direction: TJ was less appealing than some base schools. (Some) parents were feeling concerned that TJ students were at a disadvantage compared to how they would be in the base school, right from freshman year, even if the student could earn straight As at a significantly more challenging school. Then -- mapping out the trajectory -- TJ students didn't have AP offerings of English in 11th grade. The didn't have AP Physics 1 and 2. Even AP Physics C was one course instead of two at many schools. Add to it that students were finding it more and more difficult to get into selective colleges from TJ, often noticing that peers at base schools were getting admitted to selective colleges with GPAs that were as high as those at TJ, and easier to come by.

You can say that people shouldn't care about GPA, that parents shouldn't weigh things like whether their child can take Calc BC sophomore year, etc etc. But the reality on the ground is that parents of highly accomplished kids are often themselves people who DO care about these things. It stands as obvious to me that we want kids who are accepted to TJ to go to TJ. If you are comparing TJ to a school that doesn't have many advanced offerings and your child is advanced, then it's a no brainer to go to TJ. But if you are comparing TJ to a school that has many advanced offerings, you could reasonably notice that you may as well stay at your base school and get almost everything TJ has to offer, plus you're more likely to get into UVA or an even more selective college/university.

As far as those people who say that all TJ students look alike: that was ALREADY the case (academically) when there weren't AP courses. Every junior took Honors English 11, for example (and for the most part, that class WAS AP level, based on what I saw with one of my kids who didn't attend TJ). So now they can take HN English 11, or an AP course -- it seems that you will see more differences, not fewer. I HOPE that TJ teachers have just tacked on the AP label to reasonably get that +1 boost in GPA. It was an uphill struggle many years ago (before my kids got there) to get the +1 boost to post-AP courses. I suspect that TJ admin looked into getting that +1 for courses that aren't labeled AP, and they could not. So they turned to the best way to do it. I think it's the right decision for the school to keep attracting talent.

If they want to differentiate TJ from good local high schools, they need to keep the mutlidisciplinary programs like IBET (but drop the T or let it be satisfied by another art credit), continue the unusual advanced offerings even if enrollment dips, and introduce more experiences that are unique to TJ in the sophomore and junior years.  If they want to differentiate amongst TJ students, they should come up with some creative reports to colleges or opportunities for students to excel outside of the standard curriculum. I often felt that TJ worked the students so hard that kids had little time for exciting and non-traditional opportunities, like science fairs.[/quote]

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