Reply to Jay Mathews: Did money keep student out of top school? [TJ]

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[quote=Anonymous]I am a lawyer and I wouldn't even imagine that one could file a FOIA request about SAT scores. And that doesn't even consider whether a parent should do this (among other things it could send the message to the child that it doesn't matter that he did great until we KNOW how great compared to others). And then publish that you did that in the Washington Post ...  All to put forth the hypothesis that TJ neglects kids who can't do after school activities? But there are many things the child could have done for free and not after school. How about writing op-eds for the Post or local paper? Taking the AMC tests? Online math contests? Model UN (in middle school, mostly requires writing papers and going to local conferences on weekends)? Science Olympiad (in middle school, mostly requires memorizing notebooks I information on topics and showing up at weekend competitions)? Community theater (rehearsal is always at night and weekends because the adult actors work -- but it does require a lot of time)? Steady volunteering for a nonprofit on weekends? Our DC did most of these and got into TJ - with comparable grades and test scores --- and not all the activities were STEM based. And once at TJ, it's not all about STEM - for example, their newspaper just won what might be considered a Pulitzer for high school papers. (Nothing wrong with teaching scientists how to write clearly, IMO).

To support the thesis that Jay Matthews focuses on in the comments section, which is that other schools are great too -- DC was a top student in middle school (a supposed feeder) but not the top kid. Several great candidates did not even apply to TJ. Some went to to private school. Others to the base schools. They will do great there, too. [/quote]

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