Northern v. Southern VA...

Colleges & Universities University of Virginia
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<p>Yes, I go to TJ. It is not true that every kid is white. We have a TON of Asians. Yes, we are lacking in hispanics and African Americans but TJ is extremely diverse in ways other than color, including many first generation Americans. I know a lot of kids that came over when they were in middle school, learn the language, and score 800s in the verbal section of the SATs. We have a lot of biracial kids too. I’ve never seen so many wasians under one roof. It’s crazy. And they’re all ridiculously good looking. Anyways…</p>

<p>I think the city of Arlington has a 10 point grading scale. That’s the only one I know of.</p>

<p>I’m not saying make TJ a private school. No way would FCPS let it go. They are fighting to keep it from joining campuses w/ GMU to avoid losing it’s grasp on it. FCPS gets way too much publicity and attention for TJ for them to ever even consider letting it turn private.</p>

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<p>TJ is like the genius high school… They send a third of their graduating class to UVA.</p>

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<p>you have to understand that all the kids who go to TJ would still be getting into UVA from their home high schools if TJ didn’t exist.</p>

<p>“most of the big cities” are in southern va because “nova” is not a city. If you want to compare, take a look at this, it’s the map for telephone area codes. “Nova” has 2 area codes, and look at the size of it compared to the rest of the area codes. <a href=“http://www.whitepages.com/5050/maps/VA[/url]”>http://www.whitepages.com/5050/maps/VA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>… and my school in Northern VA had a 4 point grading scale, with +.5 being given to IB classes, and no bonus at all for honors (preIB) classes. Highest GPA was a 4.23 or something, just under a 4.25 in my graduating class of ~350, with 12 (or 13 maybe) kids with a 4.0+.</p>

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<p>My school’s IB program is somewhat diverse…very few blacks and hispanics, more asians, some first generation kids including myself, some biracials, some from other countries…</p>

<p>My school has 6 point grading scale, only .0244 given for As in IB/AP/Honors classes, no bonus for Pre-IB. Class 0f 487; no idea how many would have 4.0+.</p>

<p>Still, I think there are relatively good school systems outside of NoVa…as for deciding who is smart or what constitutes smartness that is another topic for discussion.</p>

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<p>Is it just the SoVa counties that are bad? Lynchburg doesn’t seem horrible; we have the standard 100-94, 93-86, etc. grading scale and what seems a healthy degree of competition. We probably don’t have as many APs and no IB, but I think excluding AP CompSci, AP MacroEcon, and the other non-core APs is more due to lack of interest.</p>

<p>That said, the counties are pretty bad, if the people at WalMart are any indication.</p>

<p>Shame the city wants to put us in uniforms though. Blasted idiots on the <em>appointed</em> school board…</p>

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<p>Why are the SoVa counties/cities bad? They may not be the best…but to call it bad?</p>

<p>What I listed above about my school was for Va Beach.</p>

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<p>I don’t think anyone can really say one school is better than another just based on how the grading scale is done. It’s more about the level of difficulty being taught in the schools. If things are taught on a lower level, it doesn’t really matter if a 90 is an A or a 94. Unless anyone on here has been to more than one school, they can’t really say their school is better than another. I guess the best way to see a comparison of each school would be to look at articles about different areas or SOL performance or something like that.</p>

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<p>Northern Virginia is not more populous, it is just more densely populated. Fairfax has a million people, and the entire Northern Virginia combined in 1.9million, that is about 1/4 of the state population. Not to mention that many people tend to excluse Stafford, Western Loudon and Prince William from Northern Virginia, so the actual number might be even lower. It is just a lof people in a smaller area…</p>

<p>Wiki has a good article… <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Virginia[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Virginia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and FCPS is based on a 4.0 scale, and they are the main feeder district, so yeah most schools can be said to be 4.0…
Also, most people from TJ who go to UVA are those who didn’t get in else where. VERY FEW people at TJ actually want UVA as their first choice. Almost everyone seems to be aspiring for ivies etc, and dread UVA as rest of Northern Virginia dread Nova (NVCC)</p>

<p>and, ANY school in Northern VA is diverse compared to rest of the state…even Langley (notoriously white)!!! And TJ definitely has A LOT of Asians (including South Asians…i.e. Indians, Pakistanis etc)…</p>

<p>Okay, so I just took the pain to get the official data…</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.fcps.edu/Reporting/historical/pdfs/ethnic_gender/EthnicRpt05.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fcps.edu/Reporting/historical/pdfs/ethnic_gender/EthnicRpt05.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>TJ: Whites: 57%, Asian 33%
Langley: Whites: 75% Asian: 17%</p>

<p>Langley is as white as you can get in Northern Virginia, and I am sure a school that had 17% Asians in the rest of state would be “extremely diverse.”</p>

<p>And someone mentioned Walmart to gauge the county, that is a huge cultural difference right there. There is no Walmart inside the Beltway, and very few outside the beltway too. I am sure there aren’t many Lacoste, Abercrombie, American Eagle, Hollister stores, Cheasecake Factory, Legal Seafoods or P.F. Chang’s restaurants, Prosches, Lexus, Mercedez or BMW dealers or even traffic-clogged highways in rest of the state. The main point is that the culture in Norther VA is completely different…it is more suburban Washington, DC than northern part of Virginia.</p>

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<p>It is just more wealthy. I can’t believe that there are more people in NoVa than in Southern VA. That can’t be true.</p>

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<p>Michael- There are a ton of people in a very small area. The total # in NoVa is not more than the total everywhere else in the state - it is just MUCH more populated.</p>

<p>And Anonymous - It is definitely not true that the people that go to UVA from TJ go there because they didn’t get in anywhere else. A TON of kids apply there ED every year. A lot of people that get in to other fine elite private schools also decide to go there because of the price. Others that apply RD just go because it’s their top choice but their parents wouldn’t let them apply there ED. Over 1/4 of the senior class goes there by choice - not because it is their only option. About 2/3 of the senior class applies there and almost everyone gets in. The people that don’t go to UVA are the ones that did not prefer it. Yes, a lot of people have Ivy League aspirations. Yes, a lot of people apply to UVA as their “safety school”. The fact is though that HYP seem to have a cap of about 15 each for TJ so a lot don’t get in. Everyone at TJ competes against eachother for those spots. That doesn’t mean though that there aren’t a lot of people who do not have Ivy League dreams and who are not perfectly happy with UVA. Trust me - anyone at UVA wants to be there. The people who dread going to UVA don’t apply to UVA. 1/4 of the senior class doesn’t go there b/c they can’t get in anywhere else. The large majority of TJ kids have their choice of a lot of fabulous schools. The middle class kind of gets screwed with financial aid at a lot of private schools though so in state tuition is very appealing. Maybe the people you know feel that way but as a student at TJ, I can assure you that that is not the case at all.</p>

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<p>“A lot of TJ people wish it wasn’t a public school so it could escape county rules too : )”</p>

<p>Wait, so do you have to pay to attend TJ or are those people just rich that they wouldn’t care?</p>

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<p>No, you don’t have to pay to attend TJ. And everyone isn’t so rich that they wouldn’t care. I meant that more as sometimes people wish it wasn’t affiliated with FCPS because there are some county rules and regulations that don’t really apply to TJ but we have to follow them because we are a public school. I think everyone is very grateful to get a great education without having to pay for it, but at the same time, there are changes made to the school by the county that are very unpopular within the school’s walls.</p>

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<p>I said there is no way there are more people in Southern Virginia which implies south and west of Charlottesville. VA Beach and newport News aren’t Southern VA. I still can’t believe there are more people in Southern VA (ie Roanoke, Craig, Floyd, Franklin, Wise, Patrick, Henry, Appomatix, Montgomery, and all of those counties) than in NoVa, there is no way. I live in southern VA and there isn’t anything here except in Roanoke and Danville/Martinsville.</p>

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<p>and Lynchburg</p>

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<p>Southwest of Charlottesville is typically called Southwest Virginia, not Southern Virginia. Part of it is included in Southern, but when you start getting around the Roanoke area it’s hard to just define all that as Southern and exclude the other half.</p>

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<p>I usually think of Roanoke and other areas as being part of Southwest Va…still in the southern part, but just more in the west. Still, Va Beach IS in the southern part of the state. It may not be in the central southern part, but it is in the south in relation to NoVa. If you want to be technical…the southeastern part.</p>

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<p>i was glancing at some of these and it sounds like NoVa people (though in the nicest way) have a problematic superiority complex. So, in the nicest way, i just have to let you know you’re wrong. :slight_smile: There are so many factors to be taken into account that cause the differences in the number of people from “NoVa” or SoVa (haha) being accepted to UVa that it’s pretty hard to effectively compare them (thats pretty much true everywhere i guess). My guess is that one of the smaller factors would be quality of the school as a whole. Perhaps NoVa schools are so much more “competitive” because of all the smog and overcrowding and general state of blah. (now i am joking, sort of). generally that leads to a more up-tight atmosphere. cool. plus its closer to DC…that must be pretty stressful, I mean thats pretty much where those free speech zones start and end right? Like…200 miles from the prez?subtlties. :slight_smile:
Its also sort of funny that as one stated that NoVa’s more liberal (true) they also stated something along the line that the rest of the state uses up all their tax dollars. mmmmm <3 oxymorons.
sorry, i’m having fun with this. ok: northern virginia more people and if we must go into quality of the school: better.</p>

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<p>I was sensing some kind of complex as well…glad to see I am not making up stuff in my mind…</p>

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<p>Not to offend anyone, but it is true that NoVa gets back a ridiculously low percent of the tax dollars sent to Richmond. That’s a reason there was talk of NoVa seceeding from the rest of VA. The school system is supposedly better but there are a lot of buildings in really crappy shape and very overcrowded. Many, MANY roads are also in desperate need of attention. But VA schools like UVA are an incentive to stay a part of the state.</p>

<p>And NoVa has a LOWER acceptance rate than the rest of the state. There are more people accepted because there are more applicants. Check this out:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/education/specials/uva_chart.htm?nav=hptop_ts[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/education/specials/uva_chart.htm?nav=hptop_ts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>When the hell was their talk of NOVA seceeding? And look up Southern VA somewhere and I bet you VA Beach, Richmond, Newport, and Hampton aren’t included. Southwest is another name for southern VA pretty much. VA Beach to Richmond is Tidewater.</p>