What does it matter if a kid is "in pool"?

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that it doesn't really improve one's chances and children can be in pool and not get into AAP.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter. FCPS goes to great lengths to say that. They repeat that over and over on the page about the screening process.

https://www.fcps.edu/academics/advanced-academic-programs-aap/family-resources-advanced-academic-program-aap/screening

[Anonymous]

This is true. It only improves your chances in that it means your COGAT and NNAT scores are on the higher end. However, I know there are plenty of people in pool that have not been accepted, and plenty of people not in pool that have been accepted. It's highly dependent on the six people that happen to be reviewing the application. Very subjective process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that it doesn't really improve one's chances and children can be in pool and not get into AAP.

It doesn’t matter at all. My child was in pool in 2nd and didn’t get into AAP until 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Ok, so if it doesn't matter at all, what is the point in notifying us about it? We will already know our child's scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ok, so if it doesn't matter at all, what is the point in notifying us about it? We will already know our child's scores.

The pool is literally designed to catch the kids of the kinds of parents who don't pay attention to anything school related at all. Those parents may not think about AAP until they get that in-pool notification. I have more than one friend who are in many ways involved parents where AAP was not at all on their radar until their oldest child was in-pool.

[Anonymous]

They notify the parents in case they are not aware of the AAP process. This lets them know that their child is being referred to AAP by the school due to their child's COGAT/NNAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that it doesn't really improve one's chances and children can be in pool and not get into AAP.

It doesn’t matter at all. My child was in pool in 2nd and didn’t get into AAP until 4th grade.

It matters.

The percentage of AAP kids that were in pool is fairly high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ok, so if it doesn't matter at all, what is the point in notifying us about it? We will already know our child's scores.

The pool is literally designed to catch the kids of the kinds of parents who don't pay attention to anything school related at all. Those parents may not think about AAP until they get that in-pool notification. I have more than one friend who are in many ways involved parents where AAP was not at all on their radar until their oldest child was in-pool.

is this really the reason?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that it doesn't really improve one's chances and children can be in pool and not get into AAP.

It doesn’t matter at all. My child was in pool in 2nd and didn’t get into AAP until 4th grade.

It matters.

The percentage of AAP kids that were in pool is fairly high.

ok...but this doesn't mean they got in because they were in pool and therefore more seriously considered, does it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ok, so if it doesn't matter at all, what is the point in notifying us about it? We will already know our child's scores.

The pool is literally designed to catch the kids of the kinds of parents who don't pay attention to anything school related at all. Those parents may not think about AAP until they get that in-pool notification. I have more than one friend who are in many ways involved parents where AAP was not at all on their radar until their oldest child was in-pool.

is this really the reason?

Yes. This is part of it being an universal screener and the pool is one of the referral pathways for consideration. The other being parent or teach referral. Both pathways get students to the exact same place--having a packet submitted for consideration by the central committee.

[Anonymous]

In-Pool means that a child is guaranteed to be considered, regardless of a parent’s choosing to submit an application. It is meant to catch kids whose parents don’t know about AAP for whatever reason.

I believe the last audit of the program showed something like 2/3 of the kids in-pool were accepted into AAP. The kids are in-pool because they meet at least one of the basic criteria for admittance, in this case it is the test scores.

That said, a good number of kids are accepted into AAP who are parent referred but the likelihood of acceptance from that group of kids is less then the kids in-pool.

Does it matter? Yes, for the kids whose parents don’t know about AAP, it matters because they will be looked at and could be placed in a more challenging environment. The in-pool kids have a greater chance of being accepted because they have higher test scores. Is it the end all and be all? No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In-Pool means that a child is guaranteed to be considered, regardless of a parent’s choosing to submit an application. It is meant to catch kids whose parents don’t know about AAP for whatever reason.

I believe the last audit of the program showed something like 2/3 of the kids in-pool were accepted into AAP. The kids are in-pool because they meet at least one of the basic criteria for admittance, in this case it is the test scores.

That said, a good number of kids are accepted into AAP who are parent referred but the likelihood of acceptance from that group of kids is less then the kids in-pool.

Does it matter? Yes, for the kids whose parents don’t know about AAP, it matters because they will be looked at and could be placed in a more challenging environment. The in-pool kids have a greater chance of being accepted because they have higher test scores. Is it the end all and be all? No.

Not surprising because these testing instrument are suppose to assess who will do well in AAP. But then they say 70% of the screened kids come from teacher or parent referrals (see link upthread). They don't make it clear if there is overlap between the two groups, but there surely is. Since parents don't know if their kids are in-pool until it's too late to referral, a whole lot of unnecessary referrals are made. Sure, parents might provide additional information not known to the school, but I think a lot of it is superfluous, irrelevant, or just not given as much weight as the school's info, work samples, etc. If we knew the CogAT score, the HOPE "score," and the in-pool designation earlier, we might choose not to "parent refer" as the outcome should be predictable if you have "HOPE" and the test scores. Let the parents who need to rebut the HOPE do the parent referrals and save everyone a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that it doesn't really improve one's chances and children can be in pool and not get into AAP.

It doesn’t matter at all. My child was in pool in 2nd and didn’t get into AAP until 4th grade.

It matters.

The percentage of AAP kids that were in pool is fairly high.

ok...but this doesn't mean they got in because they were in pool and therefore more seriously considered, does it?

The success rate from pool is vastly higher than if you don't get into the pool.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think my child would have got into AAP if they weren’t in pool. Child had 160 on NNAT and 146 on the COGAT, but my child was struggling with reading. Many people including teachers equate reading with IQ. We did not add anything to the packet.

My child was tested in third grade and identified as 2E. Child continues to have 99% math on iready, top of class in math and doing well in AAP with support for dyslexia.