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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-attend-the-Thomas-Jefferson-High-School-for-Science-and-Technology

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I met my wife at TJ. Went to homecoming with her freshman year. This random girl I met during the first week of high school turned out to be better than any girl I met while in college at Yale... the statistical chances of meeting that type of high quality person at any other high school are low... and TJ is flooded with these people.

It was really great and the first time of being in an environment where academic accomplishments were encouraged.

I had a great experience at Thomas Jefferson, and to me the benefits were well worth the sacrifices. Of any single decision in my life, the decision to go to TJ has made the biggest impact.

In a single word: awesome. I had some of my fondest memories, made some of my best friends, and learned some of my most important life lessons at TJ. My experience in Silicon Valley is the only thing that remotely compares to that which I had at TJ.

Another interesting phenomenon is the prestige that a diploma from TJ carries. Well, I can't speak for employers, but a lot of the people I met during college would look at me in awe (and maybe a tinge of envy) after I mentioned where I went to high school. I mean, we both ended up at the same college, but here they were treating me like some sort of demi-god! It's pretty funny, actually -- especially in light of all the above stuff I shared. This occurred with strangers as well. People were way more impressed with where I went to high school than my alma mater (go Tribe!). I am surprised I got into TJ. But despite everything I said, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to attend if I had to relive it all.
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Thank you for this information.[/quote]

Guys don't you see that this poster never went to TJ and is trolling all of us???[/quote]

Sander Daniels, Thumbtack - Co-Founder

Attending Thomas Jefferson was probably the single most formative experience of my entire life.

Thomas Jefferson is packed, completely packed, with extremely talented, bright, hard-working, and kind people. The single best thing about this is that you become friends with these people. You become friends with these people not because you think the person you're sitting next to might become a Nobel Prize winner or the CEO of a huge company or a Senator or somehow else might make something of themselves one day - as such friendships between talented people often form later in life - but rather because you genuinely enjoy one another and go through formative experiences (sports, clubs, trips, dances, romances, family gatherings) during formative years with one another.

This means you have a deep, pure connection to these amazing people for the rest of your life.

Here's how this has played out for me:
[b]I met my wife at TJ. Went to homecoming with her freshman year. This random girl I met during the first week of high school turned out to be better than any girl I met while in college at Yale... the statistical chances of meeting that type of high quality person at any other high school are low... and TJ is flooded with these people.[/b]
The best man in my wedding was my best friend from high school. Today he sits next to me at work - 17 years after we met during freshman year. He got a perfect score on his LSAT and is super down-to-earth and nice and he and I went through his mother dying together when we were 15 and we have a relationship that is now virtually inviolable. Again, the chances of finding such an incredible best bud from such an early age are slim at other high schools.
I started a company in Silicon Valley five years ago. In the early days, four of the eight employees were TJ people. TJ is flooded with people who are super-smart and down-to-earth. Have I mentioned that TJ people are smart and down-to-earth?
80% of my best friends in life are from TJ. Again, they are smart and we went through so much together and we all knew each other before any of us were anything.
I've seen this same thing replicated in virtually all people I went to high school with. People married each other at abnormally high rates. People chose to be college roommates together at abnormally high rates. People who went to TJ together and now happen to live in the same city hang out with each other at abnormally high rates. This group of people is just too amazing and our relationships go back so far that we choose to spend more time with each than with all other people we've met in life.

TJ was a profound blessing for me and I feel so lucky that I got to attend.[/quote]

Barf.  I’m more interested in the kids who had to sacrifice in overcrowded schools and schools that weren’t as close to their homes as they could have been so some Tiger spawn could attend TJ and then bloviate about it.[/quote]

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