Established in 1985, TJHSST offers a comprehensive college preparatory program emphasizing the science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The admissions process for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) utilizes a holistic review. Current 8th grade students from participating jurisdictions will apply for admissions to 9th grade.
A holistic review will be done of students whose applications demonstrate enhanced merit; 550 seats will then be offered to the highest-evaluated students. Students will be evaluated on their grade point average (GPA); a student portrait sheet where they will be asked to demonstrate Portrait of a Graduate attributes and 21st century skills; a problem-solving essay; and experience factors, including students who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, or special education students.
My 9th Grade Experience Essay
Prompt 1 (optional): Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere. (150 words)
Prompt 3 (optional): You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics:
(4) An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper, poetry, or research topic in engineering, mathematics, science or other modes of inquiry) that has meant the most to you
Before we jump in, note that this essay is optional. However, we highly recommend that you complete the essay, as it can only help your application by revealing another side to yourself. So far, the main source that Harvard can use to perceive your personality is your Common Application essay; this supplemental essay, however, gives you another opportunity to do so.
The most common mistake when writing this essay is choosing a topic that is unique in your immediate circumstances but not unique among the tens of thousands of Harvard applicants. You may want to avoid common topics, such as writing about a learning challenge such as ADHD; while there are ways to effectively write about such a topic, here is not the appropriate circumstance for that.
Another example could be discussing any health issues you may have encountered in your life, especially those that are not very common. For instance, if you have a vision disorder that, if left untreated, progressively causes you to go blind, you could discuss your thoughts around this experience. Perhaps you sought treatment and were able to completely regain sight and want to discuss the ability of being able to see for the first time in years. This, unlike a more common challenge such as ADHD (although also justifiably challenging), is definitely more rare and unusual and would allow you to stand out among applicants.
Similar to the previous example, perhaps this experience heightened your passion for history and created a newfound love for linguistics, as you began to notice both the subtle and drastic differences between languages. Perhaps the overlap between history and linguistics is now a discipline you wish to pursue in the future.
This is a great prompt to discuss your intellectual passion and apply this to your vision of the world. A mistake that students commonly make is discussing their future dreams without connecting it back to their present experiences and passions. Make sure to draw the connection between the two and fuse the present with the future to avoid making this error.
While students often have large visions for tackling major problems such as global warming or curing cancer, these are often overdone since admissions committees see too many of these essays. Rather than focusing your essay on such a broad topic, try to narrow it down into something more specific that is equally impactful but may often be overlooked.
Students often approach this prompt too similarly to a resume, making their essays sound dry and a little boastful. Rather than attempting to show off every aspect of your life, dive deep into your academic or extracurricular passions, or add an element of personality to your list.
One way to successfully execute this essay is to order the titles in such a way that shows your progression through a topic. For example, you could begin with Freakonomics, then an AP Economics textbook, followed by the Wealth of Nations, the General Theory of Employment, Interest in Money, and ending with a book on market monetarism.
Due to this, it is acceptable to tell a story of a time where you acted dishonestly but suffered consequences from your action, causing you to mature from your mistakes. The strongest essays are those involving situations where the lines between moral and immoral are blurred, making it all the more challenging to reach an appropriate conclusion.
This essay is similar to the prompt asking how you hope to use your college education, but eliminates the need to discuss pure academic interests. The same guidelines follow for this prompt, but with more focus on the leadership aspect.
Another option for those business-minded applicants could be taking time off to pursue your own startup or gaining work experience at a company. Perhaps you feel that this experience would supplement your education and allow you to apply your skill set to real world applications.
This is a challenging essay to write because it is difficult to be unique among tens of thousands of applicants. While some students from immigrant backgrounds might focus on stories about their heritage, this has become less unique over the years, since many students have similar stories.
Another suggestion would be to consider different definitions of diversity as opposed to the obvious definition of diversity. This could be something like a physical attribute such as weight. Perhaps you are a strong advocate for body positivity and want to comment on the ways in which your body type has impacted you. Or perhaps you have been mistreated based on your physical experience and want to discuss the ways in which you overcame this.
If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!
All these different elements of your demographic information are elements that are probably already indicated somewhere in your college applications. This essay is a great way for you to draw on an experience that has made you the person you are today but is not quite visible on your application.
This prompt enables students to discuss the diverse perspectives and experiences that they would bring to Duke. The university wants to accept students from unique backgrounds because it believes that this makes its community strong. You have 250 words to tell Duke how you will bring a different perspective to the school, so focus on the aspects of your life that make you stand out from other applicants.
In a broader sense, Duke wants to discover who you are through these essays. It wants to know your unique perspectives and how you think about ideas and the world around you. Learning these aspects of your personality helps the admissions officers understand how you will function in the classroom and the community, so it is important that you are true to yourself in all senses.
The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
For example, the author of the sample essay overcame his fear of public speaking to pay tribute to a beloved coach. This triumph would have been much less meaningful had he not outlined his fear earlier in the essay. You need to give the admissions committee enough detail to understand how you evolved.
This detailed description allows the reader to empathize with the author; we have all experienced nervousness and know how difficult it can be to overcome, and the author allows the reader to mentally enter an anxious state. Putting the reader into your emotional experience (here, being anxious) makes whatever reaction you have (here, speaking well in front of a group of people) seem more impressive. Instead of simply telling us that he spoke in front of the board, the author brings us into the room with him to highlight his accomplishments!
Finally, the author pays respect to the man who first inspired him. Importantly, this essay allows the author to explore all that he learned by being an athlete without writing a cliche essay on the topic.
Prompt 3: Have you participated in or been assisted in your college preparation and search by programs outside of the classroom, such as Educational Talent Search, Take Stock in Children, Upward Bound, Boys and Girls Club, etc.? Please provide the name of the program, details/benefits of your involvement, and how long your experiences continued. (250 words, optional)
This essay works for a few reasons. Sophia highlights a past experience that reveals the roots of her motivation to learn Spanish and a simultaneous passion for her career path paired with a desire to succeed. She exemplifies why the UF study-abroad program appeals to her since it offers a unique opportunity to live with a host family. 2ff7e9595c
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