My parents really wanted me to go to TJ; I lived in the county next door, took the test, and was awarded one of the first four berths to go to TJ from my county

My parents really wanted me to go to TJ; I lived in the county next door, took the test, and was awarded one of the first four berths to go to TJ from my county (I think it was the first out-of-county program for TJ). I chose to stay where I was and continue going to the magnet school I was going to, which was a creative arts/freedom oriented school, but plenty of the students like myself went on to get degrees in the hard sciences. For reference, my school also switched to a lottery system the year after I was there (so I guess it was 20 years "ahead" of TJ; incidentally it was also one of the first public "charter" schools in the strict sense of the word, a school with an educational charter). It's easy to say that things are only getting worse, I feel that way about my college, and so have alumni of that school for at least a hundred years. In the case of my high school, I think other more secular things have changed the character of the school far more than switching over to the lottery system (for example mass paranoia over child abductions, and school shootings).