Anonymous wrote:I think you've heard most of those stories from DCUM. And many come from people who don't even have kids at TJ. There's a lot of TJ hate on this board, largely because of the demographics of the school.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't necessarily think TJ prepares students for UVA and W&M better than say typical AP classes in a base school. I think students from both high schools can do equally well. Again, I'm not sure I see a clear advantage of having gone to TJ if both kids end up at the same college and do fine. Seems to me TJ just causes a lot of stress and extra work before the real work begins in college. Definitely not how I would have wanted to spend my high school years.

How would you know this since your kid is not in TJ It is interesting to note how some people like to argue going to TJ is not useful just because their kids are not getting admission. Sounds more like sour grapes. Having said that, TJ parents with the experience can always question this, sometimes as a TJ parent I wonder about this myself, but that is just different from someone without a horse in the race dissing the school out of spite.

No, it’s absolutely not sour grapes. I don’t have kids who are even in high school yet. I just worry about the stress levels of kids at TJ. So I ask...is it worth it? I felt very prepared for college and I didn’t go to TJ.

PP. Not all kids deal with stress the same way. May be some kids stress too much, and I can only speak for my DS. He had his share of struggles adjusting but he loves the school and is having the best time of his school life. The work is hard, they call it grind and shaft, but they also say it good. May be it is because he talks to many upperclassmen he know through sports. I just don't know, and it may work out well for college.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't necessarily think TJ prepares students for UVA and W&M better than say typical AP classes in a base school. I think students from both high schools can do equally well. Again, I'm not sure I see a clear advantage of having gone to TJ if both kids end up at the same college and do fine. Seems to me TJ just causes a lot of stress and extra work before the real work begins in college. Definitely not how I would have wanted to spend my high school years.

How would you know this since your kid is not in TJ It is interesting to note how some people like to argue going to TJ is not useful just because their kids are not getting admission. Sounds more like sour grapes. Having said that, TJ parents with the experience can always question this, sometimes as a TJ parent I wonder about this myself, but that is just different from someone without a horse in the race dissing the school out of spite.

No, it’s absolutely not sour grapes. I don’t have kids who are even in high school yet. I just worry about the stress levels of kids at TJ. So I ask...is it worth it? I felt very prepared for college and I didn’t go to TJ.

Anonymous wrote:I don't necessarily think TJ prepares students for UVA and W&M better than say typical AP classes in a base school. I think students from both high schools can do equally well. Again, I'm not sure I see a clear advantage of having gone to TJ if both kids end up at the same college and do fine. Seems to me TJ just causes a lot of stress and extra work before the real work begins in college. Definitely not how I would have wanted to spend my high school years.

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Anonymous wrote:This thread is interesting, but for a true perspective, are there similar college application/admission stats available for other area high schools, such as Oakton, James Madison, Chantilly, McLean and Marshall? Could we list links to sources or at least compile anecdotal data for these schools over the past 3 yrs or so?

Also, it is important to distinguish based on majors when identifying “top” schools. For example, in Engineering, a school such as W&M or UVa is not in the same league as MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Illinois, Michigan or Cornell.

I agree with your point about what's "top" vs not. It is subjective as well. In your list, VA Tech, Georgia Tech and Illinois are not in the same league as the rest (MIT, etc). I did not include VA tech in my list of "Top" schools. Again, subjective.

I was using the rankings for engineering, but a list for science may be similar. The schools listed above are all in the “top 15” in Engineering (See — https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate)

To be more precise one could look at the top 8 and the next 8 but, at the undergraduate level the quality is fairly indistinguishable in this cohort (at the graduate level, there could be a finer stratification). Clearly, UVa and W&M are further away and while they may be safety backups, ending up in W&M from a highly charged STEM magnet school seems totally anti-climactic.

I looked at the top 15. Total attending is 141. That's 33% for a class of 430 which is still good. Some of these schools have very low interest from TJ - Attendance numbers for some of the top 15 eng schools - Northwestern (0), UT Austin(1), Purdue (7), Wisconsin (3), A&M (2). Virginia Tech (ranked 14th in engineering) accepted 78% of the TJ applicants but only 42 (23% of those accepted) chose to attend. Other schools with brand names have a higher attendance rate (UVA 32%; CMU 42%, MIT 80%, etc). Your data point makes the case for strengthening my story in that, more schools (such as Virginia Tech) should be added to my list of "top" schools because they have their merits (i.e. top ranked Engineering school).

IMHO, overall brand name is more of a draw than department specific rankings. They are probably just another reason to pick a school but probably not the primary.

Thanks for the updated numbers. That's quite telling -- only about a third of the TJ grads end up in the truly top engineering schools. That's not very high considering that TJ has presumably chosen the best of the best in STEM interest and aptitude in their admissions process and honed their STEM interests/skills further in the 4 years. For a typical high school, I would think that the percentage going to the top 15 should be statistically about 15% (considering about 100 engineering schools) of the graduating population from that school, assuming even distribution from across the nation and assuming the collective capacity of the schools to take in that many students. However, for a school like TJ, I would expect that 2/3 or more of the graduates each year should end up in the top echelon of engineering schools. As it stands now, a majority (about two-thirds) of the STEM enthusiasts picked and trained by TJ each year do not end up in the STEM-rich schools. It will be interesting to know the reasons -- are they not competitive enough? do they not aim high enough? is it due to financial (in-state tuition vs out-of-state/private school tuition) considerations (even so, such large numbers in W&M?)? is it a function of the school counselors who don't adequately motivate and advise the students? is it just perpetuating the past legacy of schools applied to/attended by TJ graduates? Others?

Anonymous wrote:Across the board, TJ kids blow college out of the water, and say it is so much easier than high school was.

Bit the piece I find interesting is the PP who says that the fact *only* 1;3 of the class goes to T15 engineering schools is unimpressive. WTF? Engineering is only one of the letters in STEM. So you really think every kid at TJ is gunning for engineering? They aren’t.

Interesting fact: most years TJ has more students accepted to MIT than any other HS in the world.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't necessarily think TJ prepares students for UVA and W&M better than say typical AP classes in a base school. I think students from both high schools can do equally well. Again, I'm not sure I see a clear advantage of having gone to TJ if both kids end up at the same college and do fine. Seems to me TJ just causes a lot of stress and extra work before the real work begins in college. Definitely not how I would have wanted to spend my high school years.

How would you know this since your kid is not in TJ It is interesting to note how some people like to argue going to TJ is not useful just because their kids are not getting admission. Sounds more like sour grapes. Having said that, TJ parents with the experience can always question this, sometimes as a TJ parent I wonder about this myself, but that is just different from someone without a horse in the race dissing the school out of spite.

Anonymous wrote:I don't necessarily think TJ prepares students for UVA and W&M better than say typical AP classes in a base school. I think students from both high schools can do equally well. Again, I'm not sure I see a clear advantage of having gone to TJ if both kids end up at the same college and do fine. Seems to me TJ just causes a lot of stress and extra work before the real work begins in college. Definitely not how I would have wanted to spend my high school years.