Oh screw the WPPSI and all other tests

[Anonymous]

what have I been complaining about from the beginning of this post? I wasn't complaining about his score. I was complaining about him having to be subjected to such a long test that is not a great predictor of his future success.

I'm complaining for no reason and now I'm a liar too? We applied to about six schools and two admiss directors commented on the score. Why are we stuck on this discussion of his score though and what admissions directors have to say about it? Can you get past that and move on to my point -- which is that young children ought not to be subjected to such tests. It's foolish.

[Anonymous]

It isn't a big deal for most kids -- some even find it fun. It's less than an hour and it's over. If it seems so traumatic, then just don't apply to schools that require it. The vast majority (public, charter, parochial, some private) don't.

But if you want to put your kid into an "elite" private school, testing comes with the territory. Would you prefer that admissions decisions were made without any attempt to assess intelligence (e.g. auctioned off to the highest bidder? based on status and networks of parents? They're sure as hell not going to use a lottery!) Frankly, it's much less stressful/burdensome to the kid at this age (PreK/K) than later when they're old enough to understand what's going on -- assuming the parents don't freak out/obsess.

Sounds like you had a really bad tester. The test itself doesn't require a kid to "sit still" for an hour. And the one hour version has something like 14 subtests, so it's hard to imagine any particular type of question being repeated for even 10 minutes. That's not an unreasonable demand on a typical 4 year old.