What are true criteria to get into full-time FCPS?
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Anonymous
What were the VCI and FRI subscores? If neither of these were high, I doubt the WISC is good enough to stand on its own. If either of these are 99th percentile, I would focus on that area in the appeals letter. Just be clear and specific about why your kid cannot have his needs met in the regular classroom and how he would thrive in AAP. |
Anonymous
I believe that there is supposed to be a period of time in between WISCs, I want to say 3 years but I could be wrong. He would need a WISC in the 140’s. The old standard for in-pool consideration was a 132 on the NNAT and COGAT, it was commonly thought that WISC scores needed to be well above that to make a dent. A 129 is a great score but not in the 99th percentile. Kids are denied AAP with WISC scores in the 140s. |
Anonymous
We were in a different pyramid: Kent gardens/ Longfellow. When ours were in 2nd, the cutoff was 134. Both kids enjoyed AAP. One child is now at TJ; the other is headed to a very prestigious university in the Fall. |
Anonymous
Thanks! That's good to know. Sounds like they are looking for the 99% percent on WISC. I thought the 132 was for the Cogat test. |
Anonymous
That's not true, though. They're not looking for any particular test score, and there is no WISC score that will stand on its own for admissions. They're holistically looking at the child to determine placement. For the WISC, they are looking at the subscores. They're also looking at any achievement scores. And they're looking the work samples as well as the teacher's impressions and the parent questionnaire. Did you submit any achievement tests, like iready or MAP scores? Did you submit work samples? Plenty of 97th percentile kids and lower are admitted into AAP, but they have iready/MAP scores that corroborate the ability/IQ scores, they have strong work samples, and they have the support of their teachers. You're applying to a more affluent school, so realistically, there will be a decent number of 90th percentile and higher kids in the gen ed classroom. Your kid is likely indistinguishable from the bottom half of the kids in the AAP classroom and the top 20% of the kids in the gen ed classroom at your zoned school. The committee members are going to be irritated that you seem to think your kid is too good for gen ed when the kid is very borderline for their zoned school. |
Anonymous
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Also, there isn't and never has been a cutoff for AAP. There is a pool cutoff, but it has long been the case that a decent number of in-pool kids are rejected and a decent number of parent referrals of non-pool kids are accepted.
There is also no WISC golden ticket. Kids with 140+ WISC scores are often rejected if other elements of the file are weak. For the OP, I don't think the WISC is the problem, and the outcome would likely be the same if the kid had a 132 rather than 129. It's everything else in the file that's the issue. |
Anonymous
the WISC scores are not high enough, not sure about your child’s background, but for a none disadvantaged background, a WISC score of 145 is much more likely for a child to get in, but anything less than 140 will make it much harder. |
Anonymous
also a score of 150 pretty much guarantees a child to get in. But it’s a very rare score. |
Anonymous
Agree. And he's certainly not getting in with 120s on the IQ test. Scores that low are only good for underrepresented minorities, ESL, etc. |
Anonymous
It is true and not true at the same time. The vast majority of kids in AAP will have test scores in the 99th percentile. There are cases where kids have lower scores but those are a smaller percentage of kids and even those tend to be in the 95th percentile or higher. So yes, there are kids who score in the high 120’s but they are rare or they are kids who were in Young Scholars or at Title 1 schools. The 97th percentile kids are coming from lower SES schools. As for subscores, you are not likely to have a subscore that is in the 99th percentile and end up with a total score of 129, that would mean a different subscore is at or sub 129. There is a known bias against private school kids moving into AAP. FCPS schools are not good enough for you unless you are in the AAP program? That is not appreciated. The committee doesn’t trust what teachers at private schools are saying in their letters or reports for a variety of reasons. |
Anonymous
The overwhelming majority of kids in AAP have IQs in the 120s. Around 16-20% of the 3rd-6th grade FCPS kids are admitted into AAP. A 120 IQ is the 90th percentile. A 130 is the 97.5th percentile. Fairfax County is not that special and is not overflowing with gifted kids. The only reason that the CogAT and now NGAT scores are so high is that people prep for these tests, while the tests were normed using kids who didn't prep. The issue isn't that the WISC is "too low". Packets are viewed holistically. The issue is probably that there isn't anything else in the packet to suggest that the kid needs advanced academics. They're going to ignore the teacher's rating, since the kid is coming from private. OP didn't say that any achievement scores were included, so there's no way to know whether the kid is an advanced reader or advanced in math. We don't know if any work samples were included, and if so, whether they were any good. On top of that, they're going to view OP's kid negatively, since OP likely gave the impression that they viewed their kid as too good for regular FCPS classes. If a 129 WISC is the only thing of any substance in the packet, then yeah. A 129 is too low. But focusing on the WISC in appeals rather than on the rest of a weak packet is a bad idea. OP's kid probably could get admitted on appeals if OP can provide evidence that the kid is at least one year ahead in both math and language arts, and the kid is capable of producing high quality work. That plus a letter clearly articulating why the kid's needs cannot be met in a regular classroom could be persuasive. FWIW, I don't think even a 99.9th percentile WISC is "high enough" if the packet is otherwise weak. |
Anonymous
Citation for the bolded? You're completely, utterly wrong, and unlike you, I at least have the receipts. I'll use the data for white kids, since they aren't getting any bump for being URM, they're generally not low SES, and they're less likely to have scores inflated by prep. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/BPLQKV69B096/$file/FCPS%20final%20report%2005.05.20.pdf Page 66 has the charts for 2nd graders admitted to AAP in the studied year. The mean NNAT score for white kids *admitted* to AAP was 118 (national 88th-ish percentile). The mean score on CogAT verbal for white kids admitted to AAP was 122 (national 91st or 92nd percentile or thereabouts). The mean CogAT Q is a bit higher at 127, but that's still only around the 96th percentile. And the mean NV is 124. These aren't all 99th percentile kids or even close. |
Anonymous
| Do you have time to appeal or is that done ? |
Anonymous
| How about attend Louise archer for general ed? |
Anonymous
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The mean is not the most trust worthy of descriptive statistics, it is easily influenced by outliers. The mode or median would give us a far better idea of what scores looked like. We know 3/4 of the kids in-pool are accepted into AAP and all of those kids, in the report that you have, scored 132 or higher on the exams given.
The stats you are using are older, I think close to 10 years old now. The in-pool test score today from a good number of schools is in the high 130’s to the mid 140’s. The parent referal scores from those schools are going to be in the 130s. That is true for at least three pyramids, McLean, Langley, and Oakton. I would not be surprised if the scores from Madison and Chantilly are in the high 130s to low 140s. The 118 and 120s we hear about are outliers and outliers drive down the mean. I would guess the kids not in-pool today were more likely to be in the 125-135 range on their test scores, although we have pretty much zero data from the new exam to speculate about. That said, a kid coming from a private school is likely to get into AAP with a WISC in the 129 range. That is not a score that is going to get an FCPS student during the first round or on appeal. A 129 is a great score but it is not a score that gets you into AAP in FCPS without some explanation or extenuating circumstances. |