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Anonymous wrote:Access to a wide variety of post-AP math and science courses

which are also available at most FCPS schools

Not true. TJ offers many courses like, Electrodynamics (post AP Physics C), Organic Chemistry (post AP Chem), Neurobiology (post AP Biology), Differential Equations (post Multivariable Calc), etc... that are not available at base schools.

TJ was established for providing such challenging courses. If students expect to take basic minimum graduation satisfying courses that are at the low end of TJ rigor scale, then staying back at base school might be a better option for workload management and accommodating extracurriculars.

DNA science too. There are a lot of courses at TJ that are not available in other schools including Langley.

TJ is very competitive in everything. Getting all As is not easy like other schools. Going to TJ you learn a lot, much deeper, work much harder and that level of education at a young age helps in their future.

Whether TJ is ranked 1st or 14th or whatever, people all over US and Ivys know the quality of kids coming from TJ

Thre comes a point where the quality of the students drops enough where the assumption of quality fades.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but TJ isn't anywhere close to that happening.

Not yet, no because the data hasn't really filtered through yet.
The TJ reputation will carry them for a while but at some point the TJ alumni will start to underperform previous generations of TJ alumni and this will change the the assumptions that colleges make about TJ students. I am sure Tj will continue to be the most competitive high school in Virginia but it won't have the national reputation it enjoys now.

The PSAT scores dropped 100 points. I expect SAT and ACT scores to follow suit.
There are kids failing SOLs, this is pretty new to TJ.
The number of advanced pass for classes like algebra 1 went from 70% to 29%; geometry went from 73%; and algebra 2 went from 63% to 53% in 2021 to 42% in 2022. Those numbers went up for most schools between 2021 and 2022 because we were back from covid.
TJ is still clearly has very good students but it is not as consistently as good as their current reputation would indicate.


I expect that if they haven't changed back to a merit based system in the next 4 years, we will see a shift in sentiment.

Oh my god, scores fluctuating over time?! Gah, sound the alarms! Let's all circle back and chat in 5 years when we have more data to pull from (that's a larger N for all you non-science kids) and can make (more confident) statements about correlations between admissions and outcomes. In the meantime, we could also stop perpetuating untruths. For example:

-Nobody at TJ failed a SOL this year. It was in the principal's last email.
-Algebra SOL scores wouldn't be reported at TJ since they had to have taken it prior to starting 9th grade.

Actually they don't fluctuate. Not this much. A 100 point drop in PSAT score is not a fluctuation.
We already have 3 years of data and the drop off in test scores is pretty dramatic.

I thought the principal's email said that 100% passed algebra.
I thought you could take algebra at TJ if your placement test said you should take algebra again.
Anyways here are the SOL results for every school in Virginia.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
Click on the 2022-2023 school test by test results and scroll down to Thomas Jefferson High for Science and Technology
See the 2021 pass and advance pass rates and then see the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 pass and advance pass rates.

TJ admission requires GPA> 3.5 for all core courses, i.e., all above A-.
For 2021 admission FCPS website: " At 3.9, the average GPA for applicants is higher this year than it has been in the past five years. The average GPA for students offered admission remains extremely high at more than 3.95."
https://www.fcps.edu/news/tjhsst-offers-admission-550-students-broadens-access-students-who-have-aptitude-stem
For 2022 admission," The average GPA for students offered admission to the Class of ‘26 is 3.9558"
https://www.fcps.edu/news/thomas-jefferson-high-school-continues-increase-access-all

I assume students admitted are good learners. But based on the data in the link PP provided, TJ students' performance is not as good as expected. This is hard to understand.