Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a public high school in Alexandria, Virginia. Also known as TJHSST, it is one of the several Virginia Governor's Schools. One of the best high schools in America, it turns out high numbers of National Merit Scholars and Intel Talent Search award recipients each year. The student population of TJHSST is approximatley 1700. The school is largely caucasian and asian, being ony 2% hispanic and 1% black. Students apply to get in; decision criteria are middle school GPA, several application essays, and a special test. Up until 2004, class size was around 420, but now the local school board has decided to add 50 students to the accepted class size each year and are aiming to eventually reach 600. This is a major problem, since the school is way over capacity as is and doesn't receive enough funding. A large joke at the school is that we have specialized scientific equipment, but our water fountains don't work, and well, that's no shit. Anyways, speaking of specialized scientific equipment, TJ's claim to fame is that it has a tech lab program; seniors are required to do a year long project or do a mentorship, which is basically an internship at a local scientific company. Labs are in electronics, marine biology, computer systems (the syslab, home to millions of geeks), biotech, chemical analysis, prototyping, CAD, and robotics (I think I got them all.) TJ also boasts a formidible sports program. Competing as a Virginia AAA school, we are naturally strong in athletics/cross country, girls field hockey, boys and girls tennis, and swim and dive. Also, every year we are nationally competitive in crew.

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