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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP - what is your base school. If you are so concerned about getting into Ivys and the bloated reputation of TJ, then you must know your base school's general college acceptances. Does it even compare?[/quote]

A rough back-of-the-envelope figurin...

Assume the approx. 12500 seniors in Fairfax County Schools are ranked by your favorite SPR (Smarty Pants Ranking)

Assume 1/6 of TJ students are not from Fairfax County, so approx. 375 seniors at TJ are from Fairfax County.

Assume all TJ kids from Fairfax County are from the top 10% of the ranked students, i.e. from the top 1250 ranked students.

That leaves 825  top 10% senior students for the other 21 Fairfax County high schools, or 39 per school.

So on average, each HS has around 1/10 the number of top 10% students as TJ, so if TJ has 10 MIT admits, each other FFX hs would have at most 1.   But I would guess the TJ strips out almost all of the top STEM students with the ability and ambition to get into MIT, so an MIT admit from a base school would be rare.[/quote]

Nice figurin', PP! Still don't understand what OP is saying about TJ being "just any other high school". [/quote]

You have the same (or worse) teaching compared with any other school in the county.  But, they have on average, the brightest kids.  Those kids would be equally bright at there base schools.  The peer group would not be as good there.  Where it gets interesting is TJ has critical mass to have far more advanced opportunities than any other school in the region.  Unfortunately, that is not why many people go to TJ; they go because it looks good to go to the best.

TJ is now dominated by students from families that would view failure to be at the top as an indicator of failure.  They grew up in cultures where resources were extremely limited and their society could only afford to educate the top 1-5%.  In the US, we educate every one.  While in other societies, there are many exits from the path to success -- many gate ways where people are winnowed out, in the US, everyone has the opportunity (in theory).  Anyone can go to a community college and do well, transfer to a top state school, and then the sky is the limit.  This is why America is great.

TJ was initially built for the brilliant child that was underperforming in high school because they were bored.  Like the STEM oriented kid who went on to be an internationally known physicist, but had a 2.3 GPA in HS because he was not challenged:  why do the Homework when you know the answers?

The over-achievers co-opted TJ so the true genius -- the Albert Einsteins (who underachieved in HS) could not be admitted.[/quote]

Yes, agree with above. But, also have to add that the curriculum at TJ is unparalled to any high school. When you have bright kids matched with opportunities & resources = sky is the limit.[/quote]

:? Sky is the limit ???.. But where are the birds ..[/quote]

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