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Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

It depends quite a bit on what "better" means to you in this context. Better chance of admission to a top college? Better prepared for college? Better education? Better peer group? Less stressful? Better memories created? Something else?

Obviously which questions you're asking, and the answers to those questions, will vary quite a bit from student to student. For many of us TJ parents, though, there is no doubt that TJ was better (in our sense and our students' sense of "better") for our students, regardless of what happens in college and beyond.

Everything has good and bad with it. You can't tell if your child would have had better memories, better friends, less stress, etc. because you don't know what would have happened at the base school (different friends, different influences, different boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.)

Presumably, most families choosing TJ believe strongly in education and in the abilities of their kids and want the best education and educational opportunities for their kids. You can't extract that mindset and say I only meant for it 9th-12th grades. You either believe these things or you don't. That doesn't make TJ a bad or good choice, but to question this poster and ask what did you mean by "better" is ridiculous. The option was not TJ or crap because the base school would have its own opportunities. I think the above poster makes a lot of sense when they said they wish middle school families went into the consequences of the decision with more information. For example, at info sessions, the college counselor or counseling department could discuss what college outcomes look like (both at the top and the bottom). It doesn't necessarily mean different decisions would be made but whatever decision was made would be made with more information than was previously provided.

Agree. I’m a current TJ parent, and this year has been especially challenging. My kid is a sophomore taking Calc BC along with several other AP classes, and the workload is just simply overwhelming with the sport commitment. She never really needed to study before TJ, but this year she does and more than last year as freshman. Even with a great amount of effort, she doesn’t always earn an A. It is a lot of effort but I am not sure it isn't 100% yet, the process is teaching her how to study and how to push her limit. As a parent, it’s difficult to watch on a daily base, even though I know this is part of the growing process. We know many families who went to TJ and understood this going in, so it’s not a surprise, but that doesn’t make it easy.

For families considering TJ, please know that it is not an easy ride. There will be bad days and long period of frustration. You cannot expect little or mild struggle with TJ’s rigor, no matter how “smart” your child may be. It is a very humbling experience, for both students and parents. Some families may thrive in this environment, while others may not; there is no one-size-fits-all choice.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

It depends quite a bit on what "better" means to you in this context. Better chance of admission to a top college? Better prepared for college? Better education? Better peer group? Less stressful? Better memories created? Something else?

Obviously which questions you're asking, and the answers to those questions, will vary quite a bit from student to student. For many of us TJ parents, though, there is no doubt that TJ was better (in our sense and our students' sense of "better") for our students, regardless of what happens in college and beyond.

Everything has good and bad with it. You can't tell if your child would have had better memories, better friends, less stress, etc. because you don't know what would have happened at the base school (different friends, different influences, different boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.)

Presumably, most families choosing TJ believe strongly in education and in the abilities of their kids and want the best education and educational opportunities for their kids. You can't extract that mindset and say I only meant for it 9th-12th grades. You either believe these things or you don't. That doesn't make TJ a bad or good choice, but to question this poster and ask what did you mean by "better" is ridiculous. The option was not TJ or crap because the base school would have its own opportunities. I think the above poster makes a lot of sense when they said they wish middle school families went into the consequences of the decision with more information. For example, at info sessions, the college counselor or counseling department could discuss what college outcomes look like (both at the top and the bottom). It doesn't necessarily mean different decisions would be made but whatever decision was made would be made with more information than was previously provided.

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you’d want a “great” HS experience but a lower named/ranked school unless it was the kid’s choice (turned down an ivy for a full ride at uva).

Because a job might care about what college you attend, they won’t care about what HS you attend. Most people have no clue about TJ but they know Harvard or MIT.

Just talked to the managing partner at a peer firm about her time at TJ lol.

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the TJ admissions process happens to be, no matter how "rigorous", half of the students will be in the bottom half. Same is true for Stuy and always has been. It is just math.

And for all of these magnets, the top 20-30% always will have better college admissions than the bottom 50%.

And for virtually all if these magnets, many in the bottom 50% would have better college admissions from their base HS (even if they might get a better education at their magnet).

Life is about choices and tradeoffs. TJ is a big choice.

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Anonymous wrote:Regret that TJ was opted for in 9th based on senior year college rejections or acceptances?

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

Entire bottom half of TJ class parents share this feeling, especially from non-stem oriented middle schools. FCPS is doing a real disservice to uninformed parents by not being clear about whether their students are truly ready for TJ-level rigor and by downplaying how many years ahead the top half of the class already is in core subjects from day one. It’s hard to understand the logic behind admitting students with such widely different stem knowledge levels into the same class, especially when the course plans for the top and bottom halves end up being so different never sharing same classrooms. Yet, when it comes to college admissions, those students are still compared against each other, which clearly puts the students of uninformed parents at a disadvantage, even with night after night of long study hours with no real GPA improvement.

The bottom third of TJ kids would probably have been better off staying at their base school.
Parents have no real way of telling without an objective measure like a test.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regret that TJ was opted for in 9th based on senior year college rejections or acceptances?

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

Entire bottom half of TJ class parents share this feeling, especially from non-stem oriented middle schools. FCPS is doing a real disservice to uninformed parents by not being clear about whether their students are truly ready for TJ-level rigor and by downplaying how many years ahead the top half of the class already is in core subjects from day one. It’s hard to understand the logic behind admitting students with such widely different stem knowledge levels into the same class, especially when the course plans for the top and bottom halves end up being so different never sharing same classrooms. Yet, when it comes to college admissions, those students are still compared against each other, which clearly puts the students of uninformed parents at a disadvantage, even with night after night of long study hours with no real GPA improvement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

It depends quite a bit on what "better" means to you in this context. Better chance of admission to a top college? Better prepared for college? Better education? Better peer group? Less stressful? Better memories created? Something else?

Obviously which questions you're asking, and the answers to those questions, will vary quite a bit from student to student. For many of us TJ parents, though, there is no doubt that TJ was better (in our sense and our students' sense of "better") for our students, regardless of what happens in college and beyond.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regret that TJ was opted for in 9th based on senior year college rejections or acceptances?

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

Anonymous wrote:

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regret that TJ was opted for in 9th based on senior year college rejections or acceptances?

Current TJ parent, we are extremely worried. Sometimes I feel my daughter would have been better with base school.

Anonymous wrote:Regret that TJ was opted for in 9th based on senior year college rejections or acceptances?

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you’d want a “great” HS experience but a lower named/ranked school unless it was the kid’s choice (turned down an ivy for a full ride at uva).

Because a job might care about what college you attend, they won’t care about what HS you attend. Most people have no clue about TJ but they know Harvard or MIT.

Buahaha, that's what you think. TJ got me every job I ever had. I know lawyers who got clerkships based on TJ (yes, layered on top of whatever law school). Yeah maybe TJ's reach is more geographically limited, but lots of people know TJ.

It's really amazing how many people think coming here to trash TJ or going to the private school forum to trash specific top tier privates will make other kids turn these schools down and give their kids a better chance. People - not enough applicants read your DCUM post, then think, "Huh, maybe I won't go there after all" for your kid to get in.

Did you put TJ on your resume? Or was it just connections, like any other high school?

DP

I went to stuyvesant so it's a bi6t of a different animal because it's been around longer so the older folks have heard of it. A lot of managing directors have never heard of TJ but I assume that TJ is better kbnown these days.
Early in my career, I put my high school on my resume. By early I mean until I was 30. It was down near the bottom near the "adept at excel and powerpoint" line but it was there and it almost always came up at some point in the interview process.
They didn't necessarily go to Stuy but they understood what it meant.

First quoted PP here, and yes I did. But then again, I haven't job hunted since I was just a few years out of college. Were I to hit the job market again now, it would be pretty weird to have TJ on the resume. At the time it was a topic of conversation in interviews, but there wasn't much else to talk about. My college was utterly no-name in my field.

This is exactly normal and what one would suspect to be true. Saying anything different makes me think the TJ grads continue to live in the past and without humility.

TJ -> let’s say Penn State - > 26 years old would be odd that TJ is discussed except maybe “oh what was THAT like?” Not wow, TJ????

The discussions were actually "How does one get into TJ" because all my interviewers were dads of middle schoolers in northern Virginia.

Were you a new grad at the time? If not, how did tJ even come up?

Within a few years out of college, and TJ was still on the resume because my college had a very tiny major in my field. I was well prepared for my career, but the TJ name meant more. And it worked.

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Anonymous wrote:The TJ name and network helps get college internships which helps you get your first full time job. It's very beneficial.

No question for first job things like that can be influential. That is not what is the topic of this discussion. It’s like going to a no name college or grad school absolutely can matter for a first job but after that, they are looking at your experience.

Fun fact: getting a decent internship or first job because of TJ then helps with the next job.

For example my sibling got a clerkship with a judge based on the TJ name (not even in the DC area!), and that clerkship was a resume bullet point for the firm after law school, which in turn got the next job, and the next, and so on.

Fun Fact: That’s entirely different from the second job and third and fourth being bc the non TJ grad hiring individual is impressed with the fact that a kid went to TJ 5+ years ago.

Sure, TJ is no Harvard (nor is it Andover/Exeter). However people on here are acting like TJ has no impact on career and that's not demonstrably not true.

I don’t recall anyone saying this. I recall people saying going to TJ freshman thru senior year of HS is not helpful for your career as an adult after your first job unless it is someone related to TJ, in which case replace the TJ with any connection to the hiring person and it’s the same advantage.

This isn't true either because anyone that has gone to a top school has heard of Stuyvesant and presumably TJ as well.

So? Unless it is a connection, like any connection, it won’t matter. I’ve heard of those schools but what you’ve been up
to in the job or college is what I care about…unless I know of a direct connection you: same hometown, same HS, same elementary school, etc. but if w/out this connection, if you went to Stuyvesant and then went to x unimpressive college… and had so so jobs…or mediocre college grades or a bad lsat, who cares? It’s like advertising that I was seemingly impressive in the past.

Once again I went to stuyvesant, so a little different from TJ, but here are some ways I have seen a Stuy degree help.

A fairly prominent black stuy grad relates story of how people at her ivy league college assumed she was an affirmative action admit.
She was black and poor.
Then she started walking around campus with her stuy T-shirt, her high school t shirt, at an ivy league campus.
Instant credibility.

In my experience it confirms other signals that you are smart and makes you easier to hire. It frequently buys you some plot armor in much the same way that an ivy degree buys you career plot armor.

That's a single example and it relates to a young adult starting out. That is not what this thread is about. Let's look at it another way:

I know several ivy league grads and their career path is entirely ho-hum and they are not doing well financially. I also know plenty of ivy league grads whose career paths have taken off and their accomplishments are impressive. Do you think I'm looking at these combined ivy league grads as a single group and feel impressed? Would you be impressed by them all? Would you hire someone who went to Stuy/TJ/an ivy if, in the 10 years since they graduated, they kinda floundered?

It's two examples.

I think you are looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope.

Having TJ on your resume doesn't salvage an otherwise unimpressive resume but having TJ on your resume verifies all the other good things you have on your resume.

If someone went to TJ and then Berkeley and I was concerned about Berkeley's selection process and grade inflation, TJ on the resume would allay some of my concerns.

I'm going to stop fighting you. if you want to believe that TJ has no value after applying to college, be my guest but if you are considering going to TJ and want to know if the value of TJ essentially disappears after college, the answer is no, it is one of the few high school degrees that carry career value into your late 20s and social value your whole life.

I am not trying to fight you. The original question related to whether people regret going to TJ since college acceptance results from TJ students are believed to be generally worse than had the kid gone to the base school. Your example (of a TJ grad going to Berkeley) matches one of the groups I mentioned above (the group of ivy grads whose career paths took off and their accomplishments are impressive). Berkeley is impressive (highly selective, highly ranked).

People were chiming in saying a TJ grad will be able to say TJ grad here for the rest of his life and it will continue to help with jobs and that I did disagree with. I definitely think it is useful if the interviewer went to or knows TJ well OR for a young adult where there is very little work history but other than that, I don't see how graduating from TJ at 18 is helping you get a job 12 years later. Just like going to a lower ranked college is far less important to interviewers once you're a few years out of college (which is when they then care about experience more).

How many times a year is another adult asking you were you went to college UNrelated to discussions about your kids and colleges? No one really cares about that years later even though I know the JOBS that most of the adults in my circle have or recently had. But when I was 18-22, I knew where all my friends went or were in school b/c that is what was relevant then.

I know where all the lawyers I work with went to law school. Any time we are hiring a lawyer, I know where they went to law school.

Stuyvesant came up in my interview for my first legal job at the age of 26.

First job, yes bc you lacked experience.

Hiring someone, sure.

Likely lawyers have their degrees hanging in their office. Many drs and lawyers do. Do you know where your coworkers went to undergrad or HS? How about non coworkers?