<p>I am a denied TJ student with a 1570/1600 or 2300/2400 and a National Merit Finalist. Do you think UVA has recently developed a disliking for TJ students?</p>
<p>ridiculously weird considering you are IS and go to the best public high school in the country, which is basically a feeder school to the top colleges. doesnt everyone get into ivies? lol</p>
<p>I highly doubt it. What was your GPA?</p>
<p>3.9. Not super high I know, but not even waitlisted?</p>
<p>Are you crazy? UVA has, in the past, taken a good number of students from TJ.</p>
<p>It depends where that 3.9 puts you. If you are at the bottom of your class then …</p>
<p>um, no…there are SO many TJ students here.</p>
<p>^ That’s what I was gonna say…</p>
<p>Is that weighted or unweighted? Either way, I agree this is somewhat perplexing. I’ve heard students at TJ apply to UVA as a safety school.</p>
<p>I go to Centreville High School and a lot of stoned slackers got in.</p>
<p>I’ve had TJ friends who got rejected from UVA and friends from other Fairfax County HS that get in. It comes down to where you place in regards to your TJ classmates. Your SAT score says you’re an excellent test taker. But your GPA says you’re an OK student at TJ. My apologizes.</p>
<p>The love for TJ is undeniable on Grounds.</p>
<p>MMouse, you are not alone. </p>
<p>I know of several TJ kids with similar stats (NMF, SATs 2300/2400, GPA ~3.9-4.1, 7-9 APs) who were rejected - not even waitlisted - at UVA. One of them is a close friend of my S2. UVA was not a safety for him, it was his #1 choice, and he did not apply to Ivies or other selective schools.
That’s pretty harsh, Opheliarose. Right now my son’s friend is crushed and wondering why he went to TJ and worked his tail off instead of going to his community HS, where his chances of getting into UVA would have been much better. (Friends/teammates from other schools were accepted with lesser stats.)</p>
<p>Dean J, what do I say to a kid who was rejected from UVA and is devastated, but now has to go to UVA graduation in 6 weeks for an older sibling? Forget “senioritis” and finishing the year strong. He’s on the verge of being kicked out of NHS for not completing his service hours and now says, “Why bother? I couldn’t get into UVA or Ivies because I go to TJ and am held to a higher standard.”</p>
<p>We went to the engineering open house last year and the question of class standing came up. A TJ parent who was worried that some sort of quota existed for schools and his kid would be boxed out not being top 10% at TJ. Here is what he said verbatim We take a HUGE number of students from TJ. WE WOULD BE NUTS TO SIMPLY LOOK AT CLASS STANDING AT TJ AND MAKE THE CALL. They are some of the finest students in the Commonwealth and we WANT THEM HERE. On the flip side we dont make it an automatic that someone from TJ gets in. We look at everything that is given to us to make he call. I know UVA places a great emphasis on the essays (scary really but they do) and other intangibles. Although my child did not go to TJ we have some pretty good students with great SATs that also were waitlisted or denied. Dont take it personnel, they are not out to get anyone at TJ. Look at the gnashing of teeth that the OOS students are doing right now. Look at their stats and you will see why they call it a holistic approach and for what ever reason some great students dont get in. Tell them to go to another school kick butt and when they make a million or win the Noble Peace Prize bring up the fact that they did not get in to UVA (just like Warren Buffet does a.k. Harvard).</p>
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this made me laugh :D</p>
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To that, I call BS. There is a quota and class standing matters. TJ kids are at a disadvantage because they are being compared to their classmates instead of the general population.</p>
<p>We routinely have well over 100 TJ alumni offered a spot in the first year class. There is no quota. Surly, if there was one, we wouldn’t be allowed to make so many offers at one school.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, citing a GPA is meaningless if you don’t cite the scale. </p>
<p>We review students in light of what is offered at their school, not what a classmate happened to have taken. We read randomly.</p>
<p>I second the comment about shining somewhere else. I mean, UVA admissions clearly can’t predict everything perfectly, they deferred me and I just made Phi Beta Kappa, so don’t take it to heart, they just do what they think is best, which isn’t always actually best. My brother didn’t get into Duke because he was “too well rounded” so just know all colleges do this, it’s just how the game is played, but you can go somewhere else and be a superstar and show them what they missed out on.</p>
<p>You have to remember that the acceptance rate to even get into TJ is only about 16% of applicants who come from all over Northern VA, so it is kind of unfair to compare to your classmates. Almost everyone at TJ would be in the top 10% of their base school. So I made the 16% cut for TJ but not the 46% cut for in state. </p>
<p>Ironically Dean J, most of the TJ kids I know that got in with super-high GPA’s say they won’t be going there. They used it as a safety. For me, it was my first choice. And like I said, not even waitlisted?</p>
<p>I feel confident I will have some other good choices, but I do think TJ applicants need to be aware of this phenomenon.</p>
<p>As I’ve mentioned time and again, we don’t assess whether a student is going to say yes back to us. That is not our concern during application review.</p>
<p>Once again, we look at what program you were offered at your school and what you courses you opted to take in light of those options. We don’t wonder what might have happened if you had opted to go to a different school.</p>
<p>No school in the country has as many offers of admission as TJHSST. I’ve been visiting the school for a decade and assure you that we are big fans.</p>
<p>I also think that it would help other regular schools if fewer students went to TJ. With all of the best math and science kids at TJ, most regular high schools have little demand for advanced math and science core classes and especially electives.</p>