Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Interesting question. Also, are the quality of students at the so-called second tiers (not my phrase or belief) rising? Professor friends at Midwest flag ships see the quality of student rising. And state schools (let's VaTech over UVA) I viewed as safeties for my own kids are possibly no longer safeties. The cal state schools (vs the traditionally more difficult to get into U Cal schools) are also becoming much harder to get into. I'm guessing more high priced lacs with small endowments will be taking a hit.

Even with a steady population of HS age Americans, could it be a higher % are actually graduating from HS and a higher % of those are going on to college resulting in a bump in college matriculations combined with the increasing # of foreign students also attending US colleges and universities. And thus former safety schools (like UVA for TJ grads or VaTech for other good VA HS students) are no longer safeties. In the process, the quality of students to many colleges espe 2nd tier schools is increasing as kids who used to be able to get into HYPS get pushed down the chain and so on.

UVA is not a safety school for TJ. A school that rejected 124 TJ students this year is not a safety school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Interesting question. Also, are the quality of students at the so-called second tiers (not my phrase or belief) rising? Professor friends at Midwest flag ships see the quality of student rising. And state schools (let's VaTech over UVA) I viewed as safeties for my own kids are possibly no longer safeties. The cal state schools (vs the traditionally more difficult to get into U Cal schools) are also becoming much harder to get into. I'm guessing more high priced lacs with small endowments will be taking a hit.

Even with a steady population of HS age Americans, could it be a higher % are actually graduating from HS and a higher % of those are going on to college resulting in a bump in college matriculations combined with the increasing # of foreign students also attending US colleges and universities. And thus former safety schools (like UVA for TJ grads or VaTech for other good VA HS students) are no longer safeties. In the process, the quality of students to many colleges espe 2nd tier schools is increasing as kids who used to be able to get into HYPS get pushed down the chain and so on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Interesting question. Also, are the quality of students at the so-called second tiers (not my phrase or belief) rising? Professor friends at Midwest flag ships see the quality of student rising. And state schools (let's VaTech over UVA) I viewed as safeties for my own kids are possibly no longer safeties. The cal state schools (vs the traditionally more difficult to get into U Cal schools) are also becoming much harder to get into. I'm guessing more high priced lacs with small endowments will be taking a hit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bye, PP., my DC is white. And thankful to be at TJ.

My DC is white and thankful to be at TJ too. But I do think the point somewhat holds. Western part of the county. And among the families I known from ES and MS, nearly all of the Asian families have accepted without question that that having their kid attend TJ was the top priority. Whereas, the White kids and their parents evaluated TJ on a much more individual, each kid is unique basis.

I do think it is a little ironic in an area where so many white families accept without questioning that there is no college choice but UVA (or WM) and then do crazy things to get their kid in. But never ask themselves or their kids if a different college would be better.

Huh?

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bye, PP., my DC is white. And thankful to be at TJ.

My DC is white and thankful to be at TJ too. But I do think the point somewhat holds. Western part of the county. And among the families I known from ES and MS, nearly all of the Asian families have accepted without question that that having their kid attend TJ was the top priority. Whereas, the White kids and their parents evaluated TJ on a much more individual, each kid is unique basis.

I do think it is a little ironic in an area where so many white families accept without questioning that there is no college choice but UVA (or WM) and then do crazy things to get their kid in. But never ask themselves or their kids if a different college would be better.

Asian-American parent here. I know there are AA families who think the way this poster believes but it is a generalization bordering on stereotype as I know Asian families whose kids decided against accepting TJ's offer including mine. My eldest S loves TJ but it wouldn't have been the right fit for my younger S as he made clear he wasn't committed to STEM and wanted a normal HS experience. He chose to stay in his base school w/his friends and that was the right decision for him. Now, I agree that something has to be done to broaden the demographics at TJ and encourage more white, hispanic and black children to apply but not sure what that would entail. Race is not currently used as a factor in TJ admissions unlike college admissions. Anyway, straying off topic here.

Getting back to OP post, this was widely considered by TJ's student body to be an off-year at TJ. The preceding class of 2016 was thought of as an extremely strong class and the current rising senior class of 2018 somewhere in between. Also, this was a tougher year for top college admissions with application numbers up strongly for most top colleges. UVA's applications went from 32,000 last year to over 36,000 this year and almost all Ivy's reported record numbers applying. SLAC liberal arts schools like Williams and Amherst had record applications. Williams had applications soar from less than 7000 last year to 8600 this year! It is clearly is significantly tougher to get into the top 25 colleges and universities than even just 3-4 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bye, PP., my DC is white. And thankful to be at TJ.

My DC is white and thankful to be at TJ too. But I do think the point somewhat holds. Western part of the county. And among the families I known from ES and MS, nearly all of the Asian families have accepted without question that that having their kid attend TJ was the top priority. Whereas, the White kids and their parents evaluated TJ on a much more individual, each kid is unique basis.

I do think it is a little ironic in an area where so many white families accept without questioning that there is no college choice but UVA (or WM) and then do crazy things to get their kid in. But never ask themselves or their kids if a different college would be better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bye, PP., my DC is white. And thankful to be at TJ.

My DC is white and thankful to be at TJ too. But I do think the point somewhat holds. Western part of the county. And among the families I known from ES and MS, nearly all of the Asian families have accepted without question that that having their kid attend TJ was the top priority. Whereas, the White kids and their parents evaluated TJ on a much more individual, each kid is unique basis.

I do think it is a little ironic in an area where so many white families accept without questioning that there is no college choice but UVA (or WM) and then do crazy things to get their kid in. But never ask themselves or their kids if a different college would be better.

Anonymous wrote:Also, the notion of accomplished professionals deciding they would rather teach high school isn't just a TJ phenomenon. Sidwell has had teachers who were accomplished attorneys (major law partners) and decided they would rather be contributing to society a different way. One passed away recently and the responses to the obituary were overwhelming -- no question he touched at least as many lives as a law partner (spoken from the perspective of a law partner).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting, I graduated from TJ almost two decades ago and I think more than 100 people in my class went to U.Va. I wonder if it's harder to get in now or if more TJ students are turning U.Va down.

UVA and W&M would prefer not to admit applicants from NoVa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting, I graduated from TJ almost two decades ago and I think more than 100 people in my class went to U.Va. I wonder if it's harder to get in now or if more TJ students are turning U.Va down.

UVA and W&M would prefer not to admit applicants from NoVa.