Thomas Jefferson (VA)

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Location: Alexandria, VA
Coaches	John Laffey (Quizbowl) and Jay Wickliff (History Bowl)
State Championships	1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 Scholastic Bowl; 2002, 2005, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 NAQT
National Championships	2003 HSNCT, 2004 HSNCT, 2005 HSNCT, 2008 HSNCT 2005 NSC, 2018 NSC, 2019 NSC 2018 NHBB Varsity 1994 PAC
National Appearances	HSNCT: 2001-2019, 2021-2022 PACE NSC: 2002-2019, 2021-2022 NHBB: 2015-2018 TOC: 1996-2000
Program Status	Active
School Size	1903
NAQT Page	link

The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, often known simply as Thomas Jefferson or TJ, is a school located in Alexandria, VA. It is a state chartered magnet school and is known for being highly selective. TJ has been a notable force in Virginia and national quizbowl since the early 1990s, especially in the period from 2003 to 2005.

Thomas Jefferson hosts at least one high school tournament each year, usually drawing all the elite teams in the DC region as well as teams from farther afield.

State championship performance

Since the Virginia High School League established its Scholastic Bowl championship in 1998, Thomas Jefferson has won the group AAA title eleven times (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2013) and finished second in the other five years. After the 2014 VHSL Realignment, Thomas Jefferson won the the 5A title in 2016 and 2017, coming in second in 2014 and 2015. After the 2018 VHSL Realignment, Thomas Jefferson won the Class 5 title in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. After a realignment in 2021, Thomas Jefferson won the Class 6 title in 2022. Thomas Jefferson also won the title at the 2002, 2005, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 NAQT Virginia Championship. They finished second in 2001, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2018.

B teams

Thomas Jefferson is notable for fielding strong B teams, including three B teams which finished second at NAQT states and a 2005 B team which finished in the top 10 at NAQT nationals and in the final four at PACE nationals (with TJ A winning both of those tournaments). In 2004, TJ B was ranked second after the preliminary rounds in both NAQT nationals and PACE nationals, but choked in the playoff rounds and finished fifth at PACE and outside the top ten at NAQT. In 2011, their B team placed T-8th at HSNCT and 16th at PACE nationals. In 2016 and 2018, TJ's B team came second at NAQT states after losing the first match of a disadvantaged final against their A team. At the 2017 POMMSS Mirror at Gar-Field, TJ's B team upset their A team in the preliminary rounds, but lost the final to them.

Nationals performance

Thomas Jefferson won the Panasonic national championship in 1994 and contributed several players to the Virginia all-star teams which won in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Thomas Jefferson finished second at the PACE NSC in 2003 and 2004 and won the tournament in 2005. Besides those TJ teams, only State College at the 1998 to 2001 and 2010 to 2011 PACE NSCs, LASA at the 2013 and 2014 HSNCTs, and Hunter at the 2016 and 2017 HSNCTs have repeated as the champion of any major national championship tournament.

Thomas Jefferson won three straight NAQT national championships, from 2003 to 2005. This included a 40-game winning streak sandwiched between a round 10 prelim loss to Dunbar in 2003 and a round 3 loss to Charter B in 2006.

On May 25th, 2008, the Thomas Jefferson A team defeated Wilmington Charter A in the 2nd and deciding game of an advantaged final to claim their 4th NAQT National Championship.

Thomas Jefferson A placed second at the 2003 NSC, the 2004 NSC, the 2008 NSC, the 2016 National Junior Varsity History Bowl, the 2016 HSNCT, and the 2017 National Varsity History Bowl.

On April 29th, 2018, Thomas Jefferson's Varsity A team won a one-game final against Richard Montgomery to secure their first National History Bowl championship and on June 3rd, 2018, Thomas Jefferson's A team won the first game of an advantaged final against Dublin Scioto to end a ten-year drought of Quizbowl national titles.

TJ's 2019 season was equally as successful. TJ returned their top scorer Fred Zhang, who was now supported by the incredibly talented literature player James Kuang, excellent AFA player Kevin Wang, and hole-filler Benjamin Xu, creating an overall very well-rounded team. At HSNCT, TJ A went 9-1 in the prelims, only losing to Hunter. They streaked in the playoffs until they faced University Lab A were defeated by them. A protest from Stevenson A the next game resulted in TJ ending in 5th place. Their NSC performance, was better. The team was able to defeat almost every team, with a close shave against University Lab but ultimately defeating them until they lost to James E Taylor once, but beat them, resulting in a two-peat of Quizbowl national titles.

2005 team

Widely considered the greatest high school team of all time, the 2005 Thomas Jefferson A team had a regular lineup of Sam Lederer, Dan Wright, Will Sullivan, and Jacob Oppenheim. When playing in tossup/bonus formats with that full lineup, TJ A went undefeated for the entire year, believed to be the first team to do so while playing a significantly competitive schedule.

While six other teams have won both major national championships (NAQT HSNCT[1] and PACE NSC) in the same year, Thomas Jefferson's 2005 team remains the only one to go undefeated at both tournaments.

Current Roster

• Nishanth Anand
• Sathya Gnanakumar
• Walker Haynes
• Anuraag Kaashyap
• James Kuang
• Joshua Lian
• Prithvi Nathan
• Sohom Paul
• Kevin Wang
• William Wang
• Benjamin Xu
• Ryan Xu
• Kevin Zhang
• Fred Zhang
• Julia Zhou
• Pratyush Jaishankar
• Elliot Lee
• Justin Chen

Notable alumni

• Dennis Loo - Class of 1994
• Andrew Yaphe - Class of 1994
• Andy Goss - Class of 1998
• Leo Wolpert - Class of 2001
• S. R. Sidarth - Class of 2003
• Sam Lederer - Class of 2005
• Jacob Oppenheim - Class of 2005
• Will Sullivan - Class of 2005
• Dan Wright - Class of 2005
• Evan Silberman - Class of 2007
• Phil Graves - Class of 2008
• Naren Tallapragada - Class of 2009
• Harry White - Class of 2009
• Stephen Eltinge - Class of 2011
• Diana Gerr - Class of 2011
• Daniel Hothem - Class of 2011
• James Bradbury - Class of 2012
• Raynor Kuang - Class of 2013
• Ryan Golant - Class of 2016
• Michael Yue - Class of 2016
• Rohan Hegde - Class of 2018
• Alex Howe - Class of 2018
• Grant Li - Class of 2018

Tournament Results

2015-2016 Academic Year

Date	Tournament	Question Set	Team	Record	Rank	Stats
10/3	Johns Hopkins Novice	NAQT IS-149A	A	6-3	3/19	[2]
			B	5-4	7/19	[3]
			C	2-7	12/19	[4]
			D	7-2	5/19	[5]
10/31	Maryland Fall	Maryland Fall 2015	A	8-2	2/21	[6]
			B	7-3	7/21	[7]
			C	5-5	11/21	[8]
10/31	Georgetown Invitational	NAQT IS-148	A	9-3	2/14	[9]
			B	8-3	3/14	[10]
			C	7-3	7/14	[11]
11/7	ACF Fall	ACF Fall 2015	A	11-2	1/8	[12]
			B	3-10	7/8	[13]
11/8	Centennial Inviational (Varsity)	NAQT IS-151A	A	7-2	2/30	[14]
			B	5-4	6/30	[15]
	Centennial Inviational (Novice)		C	8-1	2/36	[16]
			D	3-5	12/36	[17]
			E	5-4	32/36	[18]
11/14	Washington, DC History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB C-Set	A	2-3	8/10	[19]
	Washington, DC History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		B	5-0	1/18
			C	4-1	3/18
12/5	VCU Winter VIII	NAQT IS-152	A	9-2	3/24	[20]
			B	9-2	7/24	[21]
12/19	Richard Montgomery Fall Novice	SCOP Novice 6	A	10-0	1/24	[22]
			B	5-5	4/24	[23]
			C	8-2	7/24	[24]
			D	6-4	9/24	[25]
1/9	VHSL Capitol Conference 13	VHSL Conferences 2016	A	7-0	1/8
1/30	VHSL Regional 5A North	VHSL Regionals 2016	A	4-0	1/8
2/20	Battle for Mid-Atlantic Dominance	NAQT SCT-16DII	A	12-3	1/12	[26]
			B	2-12	12/12	[27]
2/27	VHSL 5A State	VHSL States 2016	A	3-0	1/4	[28]
3/12	Virginia State History Bowl Championships (Varsity)	NHBB A-Set	A	4-1	2/8	[29]
	Virginia State History Bowl Championships (Junior Varsity)		B	6-0	1/4
3/19	NAQT Virginia State Championship	NAQT IS-156	A	9-2	1/20	[30]
			B	9-3	2/20	[31]
			C	6-4	7/20	[32]
4/9	Northern Virginia History Bowl (Junior Varsity)	NHBB B-Set	A	3-1	2/6	[33]
	STORM	HFT X	A	10-0	1/16	[34]
			B	8-2	5/16	[35]
4/16	Johns Hopkins Invitational	NAQT IS-154	A	10-2	2/24	[36]
			B	6-5	5/24	[37]
4/23-4/24	National History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB Nationals 2016	A	6-4	38/160	[38]
	National History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		A	14-2	2/102	[39]
			B	8-2	38/102	[40]
4/30	VCU Season Finale	CALI	A	7-3	3/21	[41]
5/28-5/29	2016 HSNCT	HSNCT-16	A	15-5	2/272	[42]
			B	8-5	34/272	[43]
			C	6-5	77/272	[44]
6/4-6/5	2016 NSC	2016 PACE NSC	A	15-4	3/96	[45]
			B	9-9	20/96	[46]

2016-2017 Academic Year

Date	Tournament	Question Set	Team	Record	Rank	Stats
10/15	VCU Fall VIII	NAQT IS-158	A	12-0	1/12	[47]
			B	9-2	3/12	[48]
10/29	Johns Hopkins Novice	NAQT IS-159A	A	4-6	16/30	[49]
			B	9-1	3/30	[50]
11/6	Centennial Inviational (Varsity)	NAQT IS-161A	A	11-0	1/24	[51]
			B	7-4	4/24	[52]
	Centennial Inviational (Junior Varsity)		C	11-0	1/42	[53]
			D	4-6	37/42	[54]
11/12	Cavalier Classic	NAQT IS-160	A	11-0	1/36	[55]
			B	9-2	3/36	[56]
			C	7-4	5/36	[57]
12/3	Washington, DC History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB C-Set	A	8-0	1/14	[58]
	Washington, DC History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		B	7-1	2/12
			C	4-2	5/12
			D	5-2	3/12
12/10	GSAC XXIV	GSAC XXIV	A	9-3	3/28	[59]
			B	7-4	7/28	[60]
1/14	VHSL Capitol Conference 13	VHSL Conferences 2017	A	5-0	1/6
2/4	VHSL Regional 5A North	VHSL Regionals 2017	A	4-0	1/8
	Northern Virginia History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB B-Set	A	6-1	3/10	[61]
			B	3-3	5/10
	Northern Virginia History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		C	6-2	2/10
			D	4-2	5/10
			E	0-5	9/10
2/25	VHSL 5A State	VHSL States 2017	A	3-0	1/4
3/4	Capital Region Championships History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB A-Set	A	5-2	2/8	[62]
			B	2-3	6/8
	Capital Region Championships History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		C	7-0	1/8
			D	2-3	6/8
3/11	POMMSS	POMMSS	A	9-1	1/10	[63]
			B	9-1	2/10	[64]
			C	8-2	3/10	[65]
4/1	NAQT Virginia State Championship	NAQT IS-166	A	11-0	1/34	[66]
			B	8-1	3/34	[67]
			C	5-4	7/34	[68]
			D	4-6	21/34	[69]
			E	5-6	32/34	[70]
			F	3-8	33/34	[71]
4/22-4/23	National History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB Nationals 2017	A	15-2	2/144	[72]
			B	8-2	50/144	[73]
	National History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		A	14-2	6/108	[74]
			B	4-6	60/108	[75]
			C	3-7	84/108	[76]
4/29	Georgetown Spring	HFT XI	A	11-1	1/10	[77]
			B	8-3	3/10	[78]
			C	6-5	5/10	[79]
			D	2-10	9/10	[80]
5/27-5/28	2017 HSNCT	HSNCT-17	A	13-5	4/304	[81]
			B	8-3	25/304	[82]
			C	6-5	65/304	[83]
6/10-6/11	2017 NSC	2017 PACE NSC	A	15-4	4/96	[84]
			B	10-5	29/36	[85]
			C	9-6	74/96	[86]

2017-2018 Academic Year

Date	Tournament	Question Set	Team	Record	Rank	Stats
9/30	2017 Maryland Fall @ UMD	2017 Maryland Fall	A	11-0	1/24	[87]
			B	8-3	8/24	[88]
			C	6-5	10/24	[89]
			D	4-7	20/24	[90]
			E	6-5	14/24	[91]
			F	5-6	19/24	[92]
10/14	2017 EFT @ UVa	2017 EFT	A	5-6	7/24	[93]
11/5	Centennial Inviational (Varsity)	NAQT IS-171A	A	5-5	11/30	[94]
			B	6-4	14/30	[95]
			C	8-2	7/30	[96]
			D	7-3	8/30	[97]
			E	7-3	8/30	[98]
			F	5-5	4/30	[99]
	Centennial Inviational (Novice)		G	6-4	14/35	[100]
			H	0-5	35/35	[101]
11/11	Cavalier Classic	NAQT IS-170	A	13-0	1/38	[102]
			B	11-1	2/38	[103]
			C	8-4	5/38	[104]
			D	8-3	9/38	[105]
12/2	Washington, DC History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB C-Set	A	2-4	5/13	[106]
			B	4-2	3/13
			C	7-0	1/13
	Washington, DC History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		D	4-2	5/12
			E	3-3	5/13
			F	6-1	2/12
2/3	VHSL Regional 5C	NAQT 17VHSL-R, 17VHSL-SR	A	9-0	1/13	[107]
2/10	Northern Virginia History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB B-Set	A	7-0	1/12	[108]
			B	7-1	2/12
			C	2-3	5/13
	Northern Virginia History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		D	6-1	3/14
			E	1-4	11/14
			F	2-3	10/14
			G	1-4	12/14
2/17	JACK	HFT XII	A	11-0	1/11	[109]
			B	7-3	3/11	[110]
			C	5-5	5/11	[111]
			D	3-7	9/11	[112]
			E	0-10	11/11	[113]
2/24	VHSL Class 5 State	NAQT 17VHSL-ST	A	3-0	1/4	[114]
3/10	SMT @ JHU	SMT	A	10-2	2/16	[115]
3/11	Capital Region History Bowl Championships (Varsity)	NHBB A-Set	A	6-1	1/7	[116]
	Capital Region History Bowl Championships (Junior Varsity)		B	7-1	2/13
3/31	NAQT Virginia State Qualifier	NAQT SCT-18	A	11-0	1/25	[117]
			B	10-1	2/25	[118]
			C	7-4	5/25	[119]
			D	5-6	7/25	[120]
			E	4-6	13/25	[121]
			F	3-8	19/25	[122]
4/21	East Brunswick Pre-Nationals	NAQT ICT-18	A	9-2	1/18	[123]
			B	4-6	6/18	[124]
4/28-4/29	National History Bowl (Varsity)	NHBB Nationals	A	15-1	1/144	[125]
			B	6-5	28/144
			C	5-5	64/144	[126]
	National History Bowl (Junior Varsity)		A	11-4	6/108	[127]
			B	6-4	32/108	[128]
			C	5-5	51/108	[129]
5/26-5/27	2018 HSNCT	NAQT HSNCT-18	A	13-5	4/352	[130]
			B	9-5	20/352	[131]
			C	9-5	32/352	[132]
			D	5-5	146/352	[133]
6/2-6/3	2018 NSC	2018 PACE NSC	A	17-2	1/96	[134]
			B	12-7	13/96	[135]
			C	7-8	55/96	[136]
			D	5-10	69/96	[137]
			E	8-7	77/96	[138]

Succession of titles

NAQT High School National Championship Tournament Champions 1999-2008 1999: Detroit Catholic Central  · 2000: State College A  · 2001: Detroit Catholic Central  · 2002: St. John's  · 2003: Thomas Jefferson  · 2004: Thomas Jefferson  · 2005: Thomas Jefferson  · 2006: Richard Montgomery  · 2007: Maggie Walker  · 2008: Thomas Jefferson 2009-2019 2009: Wilmington Charter  · 2010: Maggie Walker  · 2011: State College A  · 2012: Bellarmine A  · 2013: LASA A  · 2014: LASA A · 2015: Arcadia A  · 2016: Hunter A  · 2017: Hunter A  · 2018: Plano West A  · 2019: Beavercreek 2021- 2021: Barrington  · 2022: Detroit Catholic Central A  · 2023: Barrington A  · 2024: Barrington Other HSNCT Record Book · 1998 HSNCT

PACE National Scholastic Championship Champions 1998-2007 1998: State College  · 1999: State College  · 2000: State College  · 2001: State College  · 2002: Richard Montgomery  · 2003: Dorman  · 2004: Maggie Walker  · 2005: TJHSST A  · 2006: Raleigh Charter  · 2007: Maggie Walker 2008-2017 2008: Walt Whitman  · 2009: Wilmington Charter  · 2010: State College  · 2011: State College  · 2012: Hunter A  · 2013: Ladue  · 2014: LASA A · 2015: DCC A  · 2016: LASA A  · 2017: DCC A 2018-2027 2018: TJHSST A  · 2019: TJHSST A  · 2021: TJHSST A  · 2022: Lambert  · 2023: Barrington A  · 2024: Barrington

National History Bowl Varsity Champions 2011-2020 2011: Maggie Walker  · 2012: Hunter  · 2013: Bellarmine  · 2014: LASA  · 2015: Saratoga  · 2016: LASA  · 2017: Westview  · 2018: TJHSST A  · 2019: Beavercreek  · 2020: Stevenson 2021-2030 2021: Hunter  · 2022: Hunter

Succession of minor titles

Panasonic Academic Challenge Champion
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
Torrey Pines	1994	Florida All-Stars