“Do these kids who go to TJ and Stuy and so forth really do any better in college than their peers, though?” My daughter felt that her friends who went to schools like that had a noticeably better preparation than she did.
@warbrain, If academic competitions are used to measure whether TJ is a good school, they have had a fair amount of representation.
According to wikipedia:
TJHSST has fielded more National Merit Semifinalists than any other high school in America for most of the 1990s and 2000s. From 2000 to 2005, it fielded more USAMO qualifiers than any other high school in America and has a distinguished history of U.S. Physics Olympiad Team members and medal winners.
They also have a proud history of USAMO winners, International Math Olympiad (IMO) medalists, International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) medalists, International Physics Olympiad (IPHO) medalists, International Chemistry Olympiad (ICHO) medalists, etc… And Victoria Xia, considered to be one of the best female math students in the world, also went to TJ.
http://www.maa.org/news/usa-mathematical-olympiad-2010-usamo-winners
http://stats.ioinformatics.org/people/374
https://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2010/
http://www.msri.org/web/msri/about-msri/news/msri-in-the-media/273
Having said all this, I don’t believe that these accomplishments were a direct result of attending TJ, rather it was a lot of self study, grit and determination from the students themselves. I believe that many of the teachers/coaches would not be able to teach these kids at the level necessary to compete at national/international levels. Instead, they rely on each other to learn and motivate. For these exceptional kids, TJ was the best alternative when compared to their local base schools, but they sure could have benefitted from even higher level learning once at TJ. On the other hand, most TJ students are above average bright and motivated, so them blending in, once at college, is not surprising.
Also, it is not a fair comparison to say that TJ’s USAMO results do not compare to MIT’s/Harvard’s/CMU’s Putnam results, therefore TJ ain’t all that. Universities get to choose students from an international pool, whereas TJ is limited to Fairfax County (and a little from of surrounding counties) when reviewing applicants.
Anyway, not trying to put TJ and its students on a pedestal; rather, when credit is due, let’s give it.
@Hunt, I assume that the default high school your kids would have attended was still an excellent high school. I live in NYC. In some neighborhoods, the high schools are just plain awful. If your kid doesn’t get into an exam high school and you don’t have the $ for a private school, your options may be terrible. Kids who have good grades and attendance records still have great options like Townsend Harris, but if your kid missed a lot of school–even for legitimate reasons–(s)he’s not getting in.
The same is true in Boston. Boston Latin is an excellent school. If your kid doesn’t get in, the best option is probably the program that lets some kids from the inner city attend suburban schools. That has a lot of negatives though, including long commutes.
So, when poor families whose kids have attended mediocre public elementary schools in Boston or NYC pay for test prep I think that’s admirable.
One of my young neighbors went to one of the “regular” high schools in NYC. She’s a smart kid. She was at the top of her class with a GPA above 98. She was most definitely a star there. She ended up at Boston College. She survived, but the first year was incredibly difficult. She was woefully unprepared. She took advantage of free tutoring, study sessions, etc. and still struggled.
So, it’s easy to say that if you have the kind of options kids in affluent suburbia have, you’ll pass on the test prep. If you’re a poor kid in NYC–or even more in Boston, from what I’ve heard–the difference between the exam schools and regular schools is a heck of a lot greater.
Moreover, as an educated upper middle class parent, you can supplement your kids’ in-school education. If you’re poor and can’t read or write English, you can’t help as much and getting your kid into a good school is crucial.
@MaterS, #156, if you are referring to this list of Putnam Fellows, it is not in ranked order, rather an alphabetical listing of Fellows. As far as I know, the 5 (or 6 in 2014, due to a tie) Fellows are never ranked since individual scores are never revealed. They are all just merely lumped together as Putnam Fellows.
Individual Putnam Fellows, 2014
- Ravi Jagadeesan, Harvard University
- Zipei Nie, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Mark A. Sellke, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Bobby C. Shen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- David H. Yang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Lingfu Zhang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
And since this thread is about TJ, I just want to mention that a Putnam Fellow from 2012 and 2013 is a TJ graduate.
@comeonpeeps I was referring back to #155 where @warbrain said “And to be frank, I think sometimes people exaggerate what goes on in these magnet schools. TJ and Stuyvesant (along with Montgomery Blair and Exeter) do not dominate USAMO the same way MIT, Harvard, and CMU dominate the Putnam, for example.”
I just happened to recognize an Exeter name on the list. Magnet schools do fulfill their mission and I wish more students had the opportunity to experience high quality, individualized education.
I agree wholeheartedly with your post #161.
Xiggi,
Not always. I and many other classmates at Stuy made the choice to apply and attend because the alternative was to attend our respective violent crime-ridden hellhole zoned neighborhood high schools. And we’re not even getting into poor state of academics to the point that when my old neigbhorhood zoned high school was closed down for poor academic performance a few years ago with a cited graduation statistic of 34%, that was actually AN IMPROVEMENT compared to when I was in high school.
Having an older neighborhood kid who literally pleaded with us in tears to tell us 5th graders to do whatever we could to avoid attending our neighborhood HS after he received several stitches from being knifed within the first weeks of 9th grade was a strong motivator for me and other Stuy/SHS classmates from my area to apply and attend in order to avoid being consigned to attending our respective crappy neighborhood HSs.
I don’t know about now, but I do feel attending Stuy positively influenced my admission to several schools which were high reaches considering my abysmal HS GPA along with getting me sizable scholarships…including the one I attended.
As for college performance, my experience was a weird transition from being the class dunce in HS to being one of the students college classmates would turn to for paid academic tutoring help. That along with some computer teching and summer work helped defray whatever my near-full ride didn’t cover and enabled to to graduate with a respectable undergrad GPA debt free while maxing out my credit load until senior year.
In comparing academic pacing, college was much more manageable to easy whereas HS was like being overwhelmed from drinking from a high pressured hose. Then again, it did prepare me to excel in college and beyond whereas a few classmates who attended private prep schools which provided much more academic handholding regarding things like deadlines ended up in serious troubles in college and in a few cases, into the working world.
Fair enough, Cobrat, that makes a lot of sense. However, please note that I did not use the word always. My point was all about the perception of schools such as Stuy and TJ (among others) as a “must attend” among certain communities, and especially the ones that compose the largest part of the student body in 2015.
Would you not agree that this has increased since the days you attended Stuy?
“My point was all about the perception of schools such as Stuy and TJ (among others) as a “must attend” among certain communities, and especially the ones that compose the largest part of the student body in 2015.”
Why are you being so coy? Are you referring to the Asian community? And so what if Asians view these schools as a “must attend”? Is it a problem that needs to be fixed?
It is quite evident that Asians place a high value on education. Are they wrong to assume that these schools will provide a stellar education? What is wrong with a student/parent pursuing admissions to certain schools if they believe that they can get an exceptional education there?
STEM education is very much valued in the Asian community. Since there is only one school in Fairfax County, VA that offers that then those who are interested in attending are going to do whatever it takes to be a promising candidate for admission. They are going to prepare for it the same way students prepare for college admissions. Don’t students study for the SAT/ACT and join activities to strengthen their application? They are simply going through the same level of prep to get into a magnet school. Anyone applying to a private high school would do similar preparation. Aren’t there advisors for those wanted to attend private high school? Aren’t there centers for SSAT prep? They may over prepare when it may not be needed but then they don’t want to leave anything to chance.
Of course there are those who simply apply without any preparation. Neither one is wrong in their approach. These are different mindsets. One view is I should prepare the best that I can and not leave things to chance. Another person may say I am not doing extensive prep or paying for tutoring. I am just going to apply and see what happens,
In Fairfax County I would say students still get a pretty challenging curriculum at their base school so even if they don’t attend TJ they will still be successful.
It’s not just the STEM schools that are Asian-heavy. In NYC, the other top high schools like Hunter and Townsend Harris are also heavily Asian. Asians value education and are upperly mobile, just as NYC Jews were a couple of generations ago. I’m neither Asian nor Jewish, but I have tremendous respect for the value both cultures put on education.
I guess I should say…many Asian cultures put on education. There are some Asian cultures which don’'t emphasize education as much.
This mindset comes from background cultures. In this country there is still opportunities for students who aren’t straight A’s and close to perfect SAT scores type profiles. Students have to opportunity to attend some college even if it isn’t their top choice.
In some Asian countries where the population is so large it is survival of the fittest. There simply isn’t enough colleges to meet the needs of the population. Only those who have money can afford to send their kids abroad for studies. For everyone else the students have to have the best marks to get admission to college. Those who have been brought up in this type of environment have been through the process of studying years for a single exam to gain admission to college. They are used to going to tutors after school most of their academic life. They are simply using the same methods here in the U.S. to help their kids be successful in school.
The U.S. system of education is quite forgiving. You can not do well in a few classes and still be admitted to college. In some Asian countries there are kids who aren’t getting admission with 95% marks. In the local newspapers you will read stories of kids ending their life for not getting admission into college.
In the U.S. kids are more well rounded. They study and also take time out for hobbies. Many families are happy sending their kids to their base school if they live in a decent area.
The admission of a student to a magnet school is of great value for some families who can’t afford the option of private high school.
This just makes me as a Korean feel humiliated.
This prestige madness in Korea must stop. Ugh.
The girl lived in the USA since 4th grade and should know that prestige shouldn’t matter in the USA as much as it does in Korea.
True, but kids here are growing up in two environments. One is what they see when they are surrounded with friends at school. The other environment is family, family friends, and the cultural society they associate with.
It is even more difficult for students who are the first generation to study here.
Each culture has its own pressures and what it values as important.
Another story about Sara Kim and Asians-Americans in general.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/opinions/yang-genius-girl/index.html
Not sure how accurate the story is, but the author claims that this student was not accepted to either S tanford orHarvard.
@2018dad she was not accepted to either school. That was established a while ago by both universities and TJ administration established that the emails sent to TJ students were also fake. I don’t know where she got in though; I have no idea where she’s attending.
^^
I probably missed it, but the original article that I cited didn’t specifically say if she wasn’t accepted to Harvard and/or Stanford. What the article mentioned is that both schools denied that there’s a dual enrollment offered to the student:
An Asian parent here. I have taken a very hands-off approach. D pushes herself very hard, and during high school, I had to constantly urge her not to stay up too late to cram or whatever she was doing. S is quite a slacker, very much into his EC in a choir. Both ended up in great colleges though.
Didn’t we have similar story a few years back about a Korean girl faked her acceptance to Stanford and she even physically attended there for the first year.
Why others care how much pressure some family puts on their kids? It is none of their business, or it is anymore with the requirement of everybody eating the same food in school cafeteria. I guess so…I would say, let the parents be parents in a way they want to be, isn’t their right or they involved in the criminal activity? I would say, maybe we should pay more attention and criticize those who actually promote a criminal activity by neglecting to put any pressure on their kids and kids end up “challenging” themselves in whatever way they deem the most entertaining…
Yes.