Anonymous
Post 04/27/2026 10:26     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Hello,

I wanted to ask if you have any experience with the Virtual Virginia Summer PE class.

We are not able to do FCPS Summer PE because my son will be out of state during the last week of class, and FCPS requires an in-person final test. Because of that, we are considering Virtual Virginia instead.
Do you know if the final test for Virtual Virginia Summer PE can be completed while the student is out of state, and whether it can be taken at any available time? Or are the final test dates strict?
Also, my son is currently taking Spanish 1 in middle school. Do you think he should take Spanish 2 over the summer next year?
Thank you again for your help.
Anonymous
Post 04/27/2026 10:01     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:Any feedback on Latin?


My child is a sophomore at TJ and all the feedback is exceptionally positive as to Latin. The students seem to love both the class and the separate club, and you are certain to see some of them enthusiastically dressed in Togas at preview night.

We also ran across a few TJ students at the challenging residential Governors Language Academy for Latin at Randolph-Macon last summer (we there there for a different language academy, but learned of at least 2 TJ students in Latin).

As to Spanish, we received the same cautions directly from other TJ parents, although some students seem to manage Spanish well. Please be aware:

- TJ is uniformly accelerated. Specifically: TJ teaches full-year topics in 1/2 the time as top FCPS schools. Thus: a full year of Spanish at TJ is the equivalent of 2 years at other schools.

Please make it a priority to attend preview night and please ask lots of questions.
Anonymous
Post 04/27/2026 08:55     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Happy to add on. My kid’s a senior at TJ.

- I second all of the above. A few elaborations…

- Summer School: If your kid wants to maybe do music or art each year then you especially want to start with summer PE this summer as it frees up a slot. PE9 before TJ, PE10 after 9th and the extra history course after 10th was how DC handled it.

- Languages: Anyone I’ve ever heard of that is doing Spanish at TJ is floored at how ridiculously hard it is. German sadly has gone downhill a lot this year. They lost a wonderful German teacher last year and the current one is nowhere near the same level. It’s likely an easy A but just not a very good course. If you’re already 2 years into it some kids have done the 3rd year as a summer course to be done with it (UVA is reported to prefer 4 years though of language).

- Fall: Joining a time intensive call activity is a great way to make friends off the bat. A sport (many are easy to make the team), marching band, or some of the various time-intensive clubs would all help with that.


Is Spanish 3 hard as a 9th grader or hard even in 10th? DS is coming in after 1 year of Spanish at Kilmer.


Honestly, think about whether your kid really wants spanish or if german works just as well.


DS likes Spanish well enough and has invested a year into it. So he eould be wasting his year if he switched to another language in 9th. I thought it was 3 years of one language or 2 years or 2 languages.


It depends on what college your kid wants to attend and what they want to study. Some Colleges, like UVA, want 4 in the same language in HS. They will accept stopping after AP Language because most HS don’t anything beyond that class. Some colleges want 3-4 with STEM kids needing 3 and humanities kids needing 4. DS has two years of Japanese under his belt but it looks like he is going to be restarting at TJ.

Spanish 1 and on seems to be a good path but starting with Spanish 3 is the rough course? How is Mandarin?


For TJ, you need three years of the same language. They don’t allow 2+2.
Anonymous
Post 04/27/2026 06:12     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Happy to add on. My kid’s a senior at TJ.

- I second all of the above. A few elaborations…

- Summer School: If your kid wants to maybe do music or art each year then you especially want to start with summer PE this summer as it frees up a slot. PE9 before TJ, PE10 after 9th and the extra history course after 10th was how DC handled it.

- Languages: Anyone I’ve ever heard of that is doing Spanish at TJ is floored at how ridiculously hard it is. German sadly has gone downhill a lot this year. They lost a wonderful German teacher last year and the current one is nowhere near the same level. It’s likely an easy A but just not a very good course. If you’re already 2 years into it some kids have done the 3rd year as a summer course to be done with it (UVA is reported to prefer 4 years though of language).

- Fall: Joining a time intensive call activity is a great way to make friends off the bat. A sport (many are easy to make the team), marching band, or some of the various time-intensive clubs would all help with that.


Is Spanish 3 hard as a 9th grader or hard even in 10th? DS is coming in after 1 year of Spanish at Kilmer.


Honestly, think about whether your kid really wants spanish or if german works just as well.


DS likes Spanish well enough and has invested a year into it. So he eould be wasting his year if he switched to another language in 9th. I thought it was 3 years of one language or 2 years or 2 languages.


It depends on what college your kid wants to attend and what they want to study. Some Colleges, like UVA, want 4 in the same language in HS. They will accept stopping after AP Language because most HS don’t anything beyond that class. Some colleges want 3-4 with STEM kids needing 3 and humanities kids needing 4. DS has two years of Japanese under his belt but it looks like he is going to be restarting at TJ.

Spanish 1 and on seems to be a good path but starting with Spanish 3 is the rough course? How is Mandarin?
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 23:23     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Happy to add on. My kid’s a senior at TJ.

- I second all of the above. A few elaborations…

- Summer School: If your kid wants to maybe do music or art each year then you especially want to start with summer PE this summer as it frees up a slot. PE9 before TJ, PE10 after 9th and the extra history course after 10th was how DC handled it.

- Languages: Anyone I’ve ever heard of that is doing Spanish at TJ is floored at how ridiculously hard it is. German sadly has gone downhill a lot this year. They lost a wonderful German teacher last year and the current one is nowhere near the same level. It’s likely an easy A but just not a very good course. If you’re already 2 years into it some kids have done the 3rd year as a summer course to be done with it (UVA is reported to prefer 4 years though of language).

- Fall: Joining a time intensive call activity is a great way to make friends off the bat. A sport (many are easy to make the team), marching band, or some of the various time-intensive clubs would all help with that.


Is Spanish 3 hard as a 9th grader or hard even in 10th? DS is coming in after 1 year of Spanish at Kilmer.


Honestly, think about whether your kid really wants spanish or if german works just as well.


DS likes Spanish well enough and has invested a year into it. So he eould be wasting his year if he switched to another language in 9th. I thought it was 3 years of one language or 2 years or 2 languages.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 23:14     Subject: Re:Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My kid has two camps scheduled for the summer during summer school time, he is thinking about the Personal Economy this summer because it can be completed more easily. Summer PE next summer, we know not to plan a summer vacation or camps during that time. He is planning AP Human Geography as his elective.


I have been told many times that APs for the sake of racking up APs is not very productive. AP Human Geography is not going to help a stem applicant very much.


AP Human Geography looks amazingly interesting and is a perfectly good Social Science option. For a id who likes math and patterns, Human Geography is a far better fit then the traditional World History.


You have to take 4 years of a history/social studies and AP HUG is an easier AP. No brainer.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 21:59     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:FWIW, my kid hasn’t found Spanish to be too difficult. I’m not disputing that other kids have found it to be challenging, but as with everything know your own kid.


Did your kid stay with Spanish 1 at TJ? The only people I k ow of that said it is manageable were those that started it from scratch at TJ. More typical is kids coming in with 1 or 2 years of it at the MS.


My kid took two years of Spanish in middle school, took Spanish 2 their freshman year at TJ (per the standard recommendation at the time), took Spanish 3 sophomore year, and is now in AP Spanish as a junior.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 20:45     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Any feedback on Latin?
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 19:57     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
^ start with Spanish
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 19:57     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:FWIW, my kid hasn’t found Spanish to be too difficult. I’m not disputing that other kids have found it to be challenging, but as with everything know your own kid.


Did your kid stay with Spanish 1 at TJ? The only people I k ow of that said it is manageable were those that started it from scratch at TJ. More typical is kids coming in with 1 or 2 years of it at the MS.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 19:10     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
FWIW, my kid hasn’t found Spanish to be too difficult. I’m not disputing that other kids have found it to be challenging, but as with everything know your own kid.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 19:09     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:is the new principal not doing anything about how hard spanish is at TJ? My kid ended up deciding not to go to TJ and hearing how hard Spanish was really turned him off.


Good question. One wonders if the Spanish teacher has an inferiority complex at a STEM school and uses artificially difficult grading to assuage their emotional needs.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 18:54     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
is the new principal not doing anything about how hard spanish is at TJ? My kid ended up deciding not to go to TJ and hearing how hard Spanish was really turned him off.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 18:33     Subject: Re:Advice for new TJ Parents
Our experience is that Chinese is great at TJ.
Anonymous
Post 04/26/2026 18:26     Subject: Advice for new TJ Parents
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Happy to add on. My kid’s a senior at TJ.

- I second all of the above. A few elaborations…

- Summer School: If your kid wants to maybe do music or art each year then you especially want to start with summer PE this summer as it frees up a slot. PE9 before TJ, PE10 after 9th and the extra history course after 10th was how DC handled it.

- Languages: Anyone I’ve ever heard of that is doing Spanish at TJ is floored at how ridiculously hard it is. German sadly has gone downhill a lot this year. They lost a wonderful German teacher last year and the current one is nowhere near the same level. It’s likely an easy A but just not a very good course. If you’re already 2 years into it some kids have done the 3rd year as a summer course to be done with it (UVA is reported to prefer 4 years though of language).

- Fall: Joining a time intensive call activity is a great way to make friends off the bat. A sport (many are easy to make the team), marching band, or some of the various time-intensive clubs would all help with that.


Is Spanish 3 hard as a 9th grader or hard even in 10th? DS is coming in after 1 year of Spanish at Kilmer.


Honestly, think about whether your kid really wants spanish or if german works just as well.

Is Mandarin particularly difficult? Student has 2 years coming from APS