Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does admissions work if our kid goes to an Arlington middle school and more than 1.5% of kids have the highest possible GPA? Does it matter if most of those kids don't apply to TJ?

Some folks get confused about what the 1.5% allotment actually means.

It does not mean that spaces are automatically offered to the top 1.5% of students within your middle school class.

It DOES mean that each middle school is allotted a number of spaces equal to 1.5% of your school's 8th grade class. So if your school has, say, 400 8th graders, your school would be allotted 6 spaces.

If only 6 students apply from your middle school and all of them meet the minimum qualifications, they will all be admitted to TJ.

If 20 of them apply and meet the minimum requirements, then six of them will be granted admission through the allocated spaces at your school and the other 14 will compete for the remaining unallocated spaces with all of the other qualified students in the applicant pool who were not selected for allocated spaces.

PP here. Thanks that is helpful!! What is there are 20 kids who apply (for 6 spots) and all have the highest possible GPA and same classes? I'm asking because our school doesn't really have honors classes (other than accelerated math) and it's pretty easy to get straight As.

Do the schools decide the top 1.5 percent by reading the apps?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t imagine doing this to my kid - “moved to an apartment in less competitive area for a year for a better admission chance “ - Social pressure already hard for most of middle schooler. My son already has his circle of friends and tribe in his competitive MS (which is actually positive peer pressure environment) and I can’t think of how I should ripped it apart from him.., the damage could probably worse than the benefit getting into TJ.

Then obviously you're not ready to win. Have fun when your kids go to VCU and end up barista/call center for the rest of their life.

If you're wondering why TJ is a toxic environment, look no further than the above parent who a) believes that baristas and call center employees are to be looked down upon and b) can imagine no other future for a child who isn't selected to go to TJ.

Anonymous wrote:How does admissions work if our kid goes to an Arlington middle school and more than 1.5% of kids have the highest possible GPA? Does it matter if most of those kids don't apply to TJ?

Some folks get confused about what the 1.5% allotment actually means.

It does not mean that spaces are automatically offered to the top 1.5% of students within your middle school class.

It DOES mean that each middle school is allotted a number of spaces equal to 1.5% of your school's 8th grade class. So if your school has, say, 400 8th graders, your school would be allotted 6 spaces.

If only 6 students apply from your middle school and all of them meet the minimum qualifications, they will all be admitted to TJ.

If 20 of them apply and meet the minimum requirements, then six of them will be granted admission through the allocated spaces at your school and the other 14 will compete for the remaining unallocated spaces with all of the other qualified students in the applicant pool who were not selected for allocated spaces.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t imagine doing this to my kid - “moved to an apartment in less competitive area for a year for a better admission chance “ - Social pressure already hard for most of middle schooler. My son already has his circle of friends and tribe in his competitive MS (which is actually positive peer pressure environment) and I can’t think of how I should ripped it apart from him.., the damage could probably worse than the benefit getting into TJ.

Then obviously you're not ready to win. Have fun when your kids go to VCU and end up barista/call center for the rest of their life.

You're a moron. When my kids were in FCPS, I remember timing with a parent at a swim meet, who said they'd move to our neighborhood ( a top IB HS school) if their kid didn't get into TJ because the kid would shine there because it wasn't that competitive. Aside from the obvious rudeness, trying to game things like this was and continues to be absurd.

My oldest was in AAP and his dream was to go to TJ. Sadly, he was rejected. He went on to double major in computer science and a language at a good state college that this crowd would no doubt sniff at (though lots of TJ kids, including his freshman roommate, went there). He's currently a software engineer at Google.

Let your kids find their own way. They will. The ones I see struggling are the ones whose parents tried to pave the way for them. It's trite, but disappointment is character-building.

How does admissions work if our kid goes to an Arlington middle school and more than 1.5% of kids have the highest possible GPA? Does it matter if most of those kids don't apply to TJ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent an apartment in one of the school districts.

Another tiger tj parent.

I thought the schools with the highest admit rate were in McLean and Langley feeders.

Yes, but lowest percentage of happy parents who felt their kid "deserved" to get in.

This always had nothing to do with gifted education and everything to do with privilege.

You write like a true communist. 👋👋👋👋

More like a realist since wealth confers advantages. This is obvious to most people

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t imagine doing this to my kid - “moved to an apartment in less competitive area for a year for a better admission chance “ - Social pressure already hard for most of middle schooler. My son already has his circle of friends and tribe in his competitive MS (which is actually positive peer pressure environment) and I can’t think of how I should ripped it apart from him.., the damage could probably worse than the benefit getting into TJ.

Then obviously you're not ready to win. Have fun when your kids go to VCU and end up barista/call center for the rest of their life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent an apartment in one of the school districts.

Another tiger tj parent.

I thought the schools with the highest admit rate were in McLean and Langley feeders.

Yes, but students who were not admitted at those schools had higher scores than students who were admitted at the weaker schools.

Well, if that is true, and there's no real evidence of that, some schools are demonstrably better than others. Many people pay hundreds of thousands more to live in those school boundaries. It isn't right to penalize kids who are just as bright but lack the same advantages.

A school gets better because the families going there hold education in very high regard. This happens all over the place, in all kinds of neighborhoods.

If all those people whose education is important to them move outside of the school, the school will promptly suck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rent an apartment in one of the school districts.

Another tiger tj parent.

I thought the schools with the highest admit rate were in McLean and Langley feeders.

Yes, but lowest percentage of happy parents who felt their kid "deserved" to get in.

This always had nothing to do with gifted education and everything to do with privilege.

You write like a true communist. 👋👋👋👋

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t imagine doing this to my kid - “moved to an apartment in less competitive area for a year for a better admission chance “ - Social pressure already hard for most of middle schooler. My son already has his circle of friends and tribe in his competitive MS (which is actually positive peer pressure environment) and I can’t think of how I should ripped it apart from him.., the damage could probably worse than the benefit getting into TJ.

Not to mention their chances of admission are lower at those schools since they send fewer kids

If you get admitted while in Fairfax, then you can move anywhere else within Fairfax.

I couldn’t imagine doing this to my kid - “moved to an apartment in less competitive area for a year for a better admission chance “ - Social pressure already hard for most of middle schooler. My son already has his circle of friends and tribe in his competitive MS (which is actually positive peer pressure environment) and I can’t think of how I should ripped it apart from him.., the damage could probably worse than the benefit getting into TJ.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up the schools in FCPS, PWCPS and LCPS that sent very few students last year. Rent an apartment in one of the school districts.

Your child will then have a high likelihood of being admitted.

Do not assume that if your child is highly gifted he/she will be admitted. In our middle school (Cooper) there were several students who were admitted who were very VERY weak. As in struggled in AAP and should likely have been in GE. And many students with straight As and in Algebra II who were denied.

If TJ is important to your child, you should temporally move to give them a fighting chance.

Not exactly sure how this would work now, but when my kid was at TJ (class of 2020), we were repeatedly told that you had to inform the school if you moved, because this could affect your eligibility to be at the school. I think this was particularly aimed at kids from non-Fairfax County jurisdictions (like Arlington or Loudoun), but I don't know what would happen if now if you moved from your South County address used to admit your kid to a more TJ-traditional address in a different part of Fairfax.

The school's they're talking about have low admit rates for a reason. Sending your kid there will harm their chances. It sounds like you're saying schools don't matter and the same kid would do just as well anywhere. People pay big bucks to live in bounds for good schools because it matters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up the schools in FCPS, PWCPS and LCPS that sent very few students last year. Rent an apartment in one of the school districts.

Your child will then have a high likelihood of being admitted.

Do not assume that if your child is highly gifted he/she will be admitted. In our middle school (Cooper) there were several students who were admitted who were very VERY weak. As in struggled in AAP and should likely have been in GE. And many students with straight As and in Algebra II who were denied.

If TJ is important to your child, you should temporally move to give them a fighting chance.

Not exactly sure how this would work now, but when my kid was at TJ (class of 2020), we were repeatedly told that you had to inform the school if you moved, because this could affect your eligibility to be at the school. I think this was particularly aimed at kids from non-Fairfax County jurisdictions (like Arlington or Loudoun), but I don't know what would happen if now if you moved from your South County address used to admit your kid to a more TJ-traditional address in a different part of Fairfax.

For the most part this refers to moving from an eligible district - like Falls Church City - to an ineligible district like DC, Alexandria City, or Maryland.