cutoff scores for Fairfax County GT centers for this year?

[Anonymous]

The tester we used for preparing a possible appeal was Dr. Diana Dahlgren in Fairfax, who was recommended on the FCAG site. She has a lot of experience with testing gifted children and teasing out scoring discrepancies. She was also recommended to us as having a lot of experience with appeals. Out of all of our good experiences with testers, I felt she provided the most helpful feedback, seemed to really "get" DD very quickly, and offered a lot of very helpful information about the GT selection process. Hope that helps someone else!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The averages are low but that makes sense because not every child is a high scorer in every area. It should bring comfort to those that have children with uneven scores.

I think the whole GT slelection is the wate time and public resources. It started only 8% of students are eligible, now > 14% and the cutoff is lowered every year. Why not make all the county students to be GT eligible?

I agree that the averages are lower than one might expect because not every child is a high scorer in every area. Some children who scored 150 (99th percentile) in quantitative may have only scored 115 in verbal abilities. This will affect the averages to somewhat lower numbers.

I think the county probably does a pretty good job with the resources it has in order to provide a quality education and offer special education to those children who need it. Naturally, the process isn't perfect and there will be exceptions. But children who are among the 14% who are offered Level IV GT services are very likely to have a gift in a particular area which puts them in the top 2% for that area. Just because those students are better at some subjects and not as good at others doesn't mean they aren't "gifted."

Level I services don't attempt to label each child as "gifted" rather it facilitates GT/AART contact with all children in order to help recognize those who may need additional services (some of whom may have otherwise fallen through the cracks). The ideas taught by the GT instructor can foster thinking skills in each child, some of whom may respond very well to instruction that differs from the traditional, reading, writing and math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The tester we used for preparing a possible appeal was Dr. Diana Dahlgren in Fairfax, who was recommended on the FCAG site. She has a lot of experience with testing gifted children and teasing out scoring discrepancies. She was also recommended to us as having a lot of experience with appeals. Out of all of our good experiences with testers, I felt she provided the most helpful feedback, seemed to really "get" DD very quickly, and offered a lot of very helpful information about the GT selection process. Hope that helps someone else!

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Which do you think is better -- a GT Center or Local Level IV services at the base school?

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a ok COGaT (119) and NNAT (121), but high GBRS score (12)--she was in the pullout math and language for 1st and 2nd grade. I was advised to take the WISC in March or April (which I didn't do) to save for the appeal. I never had to spend the $375 for the test and she was accepted. The only other thing we submitted was a few certificates and a drawing she did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be surprised because a 150 or 146 is significantly above the cutoff score. About 60-70% of the kids in the pool get in, so your chances are good just by being in the pool at all. Few kids will have a perfect score on anything. So your child is probably in the top 10% of the pool in terms of test scores, and again, 60-70% of the pool is getting in.

Also, I don't believe that lower scores in other subsections detract from the high scores. Keep in mind the purpose of the screening tests - to identify gifted children whose needs will not be met in the base school classroom. A child who scores a perfect score on the nonverbal or quantitative sections NEEDS to be in the Center - the base school does not meet that child's needs in that area, even if the child would be fine in the base school with regard to another area, such as verbal.

It's also important to remember that the scores are not weighted more heavily than anything else in the application process, so there are children with lower scores getting in if there is other evidence in the file that the child needs to be in the Center. Your child's somewhat lower scores on the other test or other subsections shouldn't be an obstacle, IMO, and even less so if there is other support in the file (i.e., the classroom teacher believes the child should be in the Center, etc.), which I assume there will be.

I'm basing this on my personal experience only. I have one child in the Center, one applying now, and I have talked to a lot of parents and several people in FCPS who are involved with the process. The bottom line is that I would be surprised if a child with a perfect score on one of the screening tests was found ineligible for placement in the Center.

I'm not the PP, but I hope you're right. My child has a perfect NNAT and CogAT scores are in the 99th percentile. Nevertheless, I have heard from other parents of multiple instances where a child obtained a perfect score on either the NNAT or a CogAT subsection and still was denied entry to the GT center. The GBRS scores seem to carry a lot of weight. Also, some base school principals are reluctant to send their "best" students away to a GT center, so you may have to look out for that. The selection process is imperfect, of course.

You should have no problem. I would submit anything and confuse the committee.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the coments--too much can distract the selection committee. Forget the WISC (save for appeal)--keep it simple stupid (KISS)
!

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a ok COGaT (119) and NNAT (121), but high GBRS score (12)--she was in the pullout math and language for 1st and 2nd grade. I was advised to take the WISC in March or April (which I didn't do) to save for the appeal. I never had to spend the $375 for the test and she was accepted. The only other thing we submitted was a few certificates and a drawing she did.

Congrats! Your DC is lucky I should say.

Unfortunately my DC had no such luck. She got 125 CogAt and we are new to this county so the teachers did not give more than 10 GBRS, we did submit work samples and a drawing. Now she has taken the wisc.( yes we had to spend $380)
I am really confused by the whole process.
Thank you for sharing your success.

[Anonymous]

[

quote=Anonymous]My daughter had a ok COGaT (119) and NNAT (121), but high GBRS score (12)--she was in the pullout math and language for 1st and 2nd grade. I was advised to take the WISC in March or April (which I didn't do) to save for the appeal. I never had to spend the $375 for the test and she was accepted. The only other thing we submitted was a few certificates and a drawing she did.

Congrats! Your DC is lucky I should say.

Unfortunately my DC had no such luck. She got 125 CogAt and we are new to this county so the teachers did not give more than 10 GBRS, we did submit work samples and a drawing. Now she has taken the wisc.( yes we had to spend $380)
I am really confused by the whole process.
Thank you for sharing your success.

[Anonymous]

oops, missed to quote @12.52

[Anonymous]

My child got a 133 in wisc total score. She didn't do so well in the nnat and cogat (highest was 127 on a subscore). Should I just submit the wisc score and leave out the group test scores? Is 133 wisc high enough? How does it correlate to the county cutoff score of 130.. are they the same numbers basically?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child got a 133 in wisc total score. She didn't do so well in the nnat and cogat (highest was 127 on a subscore). Should I just submit the wisc score and leave out the group test scores? Is 133 wisc high enough? How does it correlate to the county cutoff score of 130.. are they the same numbers basically?

Did your child already take the NNAT and CoGAT through the county and you had her retested? Or was this testing the first group testing?

I would definitely submit the WISC-IV scores -- but if your daughter took the NNAT and CoGAT tests a second time (within a year) I would not submit the scores as I didn't think children were supposed to be retested (with the same test) within a 12 month period.

[Anonymous]

Hi,
My kid has 123 on the Cogat and 119 on the NNAT. She has outstanding academic credentials - her teachers are willing to go the extra mile to recommend her. We are not trying to push her into something she is not upto yet at the same time know she deserves more.

A few questions
1. Does she stand a chance? What steps to taken to try for that.
2. Also the NNAt score does not show number of questions attempted. The cogat one does shows questions attempted. She was saying she may have skipped a page.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

I didn't see if anyone mention that they had kids not attending FCPS, taking WISC and getting into the AAP program with a score? My son doesn't attend FCPS so we had him take the WISC-IV. He had a "Full Scale Score of 128 (range 122-132) which has him at the 97th percentile. How can we find out what the typical cut off or profile would look like if the kid isn't in FCPS and taking the other two tests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't see if anyone mention that they had kids not attending FCPS, taking WISC and getting into the AAP program with a score? My son doesn't attend FCPS so we had him take the WISC-IV. He had a "Full Scale Score of 128 (range 122-132) which has him at the 97th percentile. How can we find out what the typical cut off or profile would look like if the kid isn't in FCPS and taking the other two tests?

I think the subtest scores would reveal more. Did he do especially well in one or more subtests? I would think that would bode well.