Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?

[Anonymous]

My DC has iq 150+. School is easy for DC, but we are soooooooo thankful for AAP. It was great to have others in the class that could keep up with the pace, teachers that understood, just great. In HS DC scored all 5s on AP exams. DC is still in HS with a gpa of 4.0+.

[Anonymous]

NP. I taught at Nysmith a long time ago and still have some friends who work there. It's a beautiful building with a great student-teacher ratio and everything is top of the line. However, the PP who said Nysmith takes a lot of kids who didn't qualify for AAP is correct. There's a reasonably large attrition rate before third grade, when a lot of the kids who are accepted to AAP leave. The students are definitely bright, and probably 95+% are from high earning families that have access to tutors, educational consultants, and whatever else is needed to help their kid(s) succeed academically and socially while at Nysmith and beyond eighth grade. As a parent of a child who did qualify for Level IV AAP in FCPS, I would not send my kid to Nysmith in lieu of AAP unless there was an issue where my kid couldn't adjust socially for whatever reason and really needed a smaller class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

We have a child like that, and were told by two different child psychologists in the area that none of the local schools, public or private, would truly meet his needs or give him a meaningful number of academic peers. We decided to stay with APS and while he’s often bored, overall he’s happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone got any suggestions as to where the gifted kids should go if they don’t get in to AAP?

Basis and Nysmith

I thought BASIS was having some significant issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

We have a child like that, and were told by two different child psychologists in the area that none of the local schools, public or private, would truly meet his needs or give him a meaningful number of academic peers. We decided to stay with APS and while he’s often bored, overall he’s happy.

Ouch. That’s pretty awful, if true. So the psychologists were not impressed with schools like Nysmith or Feynman?

Did they offer any other options other than, “Your kid is doomed?” Being a bit facetious here, but your post is discouraging.

How old is your child now and how long has he been bored?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbors daughter did not get in. IQ 136. CogAt 134. For those who don’t know, CoGAt is not an IQ Test.

It's a proxy for the WISC because the WISC is too expensive for FCPS to administer. It also seems to be a good proxy too--134 CogAT vs. 136 WISC. The issue with your neighbor's daughter wasn't about IQ test vs. an abilities test, it had to do with the fact that FCPS allows teacher input to override those scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP There is no IQ requirement for AAP. Doesn’t this tell you something?

Most gifted programs in the country rely on the CogAT/NNAT or some other abilities test. IQ tests are too expensive. Basically OP should question the validity of pretty much any GT program in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

I think the answer, based on the responses, is that no program will meet the needs of a child with an IQ over 150. I think AAP is, however, more likely to come closer to meeting those needs than other programs in the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

I think the answer, based on the responses, is that no program will meet the needs of a child with an IQ over 150. I think AAP is, however, more likely to come closer to meeting those needs than other programs in the area.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

We have a child like that, and were told by two different child psychologists in the area that none of the local schools, public or private, would truly meet his needs or give him a meaningful number of academic peers. We decided to stay with APS and while he’s often bored, overall he’s happy.

Ouch. That’s pretty awful, if true. So the psychologists were not impressed with schools like Nysmith or Feynman?

Did they offer any other options other than, “Your kid is doomed?” Being a bit facetious here, but your post is discouraging.

How old is your child now and how long has he been bored?

Our child is going into fifth, boredom has been an issue since kindergarten. He's not bored all day long because a lot of the work they do is kind of what you make of it - there's enough creative room for him to extend himself. But when the class is on day three of multi-digit multiplication and he taught himself that two years ago, yeah, he's going to get bored. Like I said, though, overall he's happy. He finds things that engage him, he has a lot of friends, so we're good with it. He also does a lot at home to engage himself.

We were told that if we wanted to truly find a peer group that would challenge him, we should look at boarding schools that truly were for gifted students. That's a non-starter for us, at least at this age.

[Anonymous]

Academics will not be a problem for your child (or mine). We chose the school that would best build his EQ, expose him to a wide range of people with different level of intelligence, abilities, incomes, races, religions. This rich world kept him engaged and on his toes. We also chose public so that we could enrich wen and where he desired. He got to do amazing STEM courses, learned two languages, tries every sport he wanted to and stuck with one, goes to great camps, built a computer and on-line community of friends, does theater, joins multiple after school clubs and competitions.

Don't over-focus on the part that comes easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Academics will not be a problem for your child (or mine). We chose the school that would best build his EQ, expose him to a wide range of people with different level of intelligence, abilities, incomes, races, religions. This rich world kept him engaged and on his toes. We also chose public so that we could enrich wen and where he desired. He got to do amazing STEM courses, learned two languages, tries every sport he wanted to and stuck with one, goes to great camps, built a computer and on-line community of friends, does theater, joins multiple after school clubs and competitions.

Don't over-focus on the part that comes easily.

Thanks for this food for thought. EQ is indeed important. I'd been so focused on keeping DS from being bored academically that I'd given less weight to his ability to learn outside of school. However, it is a tough thing to be bored for hours in school. I hope we can find a place where he can at least be engaged for part of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP has changed from what it once was. Primarily it was a gifted program with requirements to get in. Today it is not for the gifted, but rather the high achieving. No IQ test is required for entry. People who have gifted children understand the differing needs of a gifted child vs one who gets good grades at school because they try hard. FCPS has moved to a holistic approach to AAP admission. There are no set guidelines for entry. Your child’s teacher”s opinion weighs heavily on whether or not your child is found eligible. As a result, a large number of AAP students are not gifted, per se, according to an IQ rest. On the flip side, there are gifted children who are not getting in to AAP with the new FCPS system. Your child with an IQ of 150 has no guarantee of getting in. The system is not standardized . Nysmith is a good place for kids who are gifted who did not impress their teacher and therefore did not get in to AAP. Keep an open mind when deciding where to live as there is no rhyme or reason as to who gets in and who doesn’t . Don’t rely on it.

That’s troubling to hear. How have these changes affected kids who are gifted? If an AAP is full,of kids who aren’t gifted but try hard, it seems that it would become less able to offer differentiation that meets the needs of gifted kids.

The PP is incorrect, most years students need a 131-133 on the CogAt to be in the pool. Parents do fill out forms to have their child considered if they fall below that line, but unless the teacher has a very strong recommendation, they still need a score of 130or so on another test like the WISC. When Fairfax decided to do its own version of the CogAt because of remapnt cheating, there was a bubble group year where more were accepted because there was quite a bit of leeway.

My child was denied with a 135 WISC, FYI . . .

[Anonymous]

I have a child with a 150 IQ. He's too advanced for AAP but it's where he is. We supplement a lot at home with the help of DYS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child with a 150 IQ. He's too advanced for AAP but it's where he is. We supplement a lot at home with the help of DYS.

Is he in Fairfax County AAP? Do you find that he's bored most of the day? What's his attitude toward learning and school?

Thanks for sharing.