2019 AAP Results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NNAT: 141
COGAT: (V / Q / NV / Composite) 132/133/115 Composite 130
GBRS: (#Consistent / #Frequent / #Occasional) not known yet
In-Pool: (Y/N) : N
Parent Referral: (Y/N): Yes with several work samples
WISC: NO
Zip Code: 22043
AAP Decision: (IN / NOT IN) - NOT IN

Absolutely crushed here. Our older son got in with lower test scores. Our son is not challenged now and he has been going to Mathnasiumn for enrichment.

I'm not usually one to yell "appeal!", but I would appeal this one. And I would definitely want to see the GBRS.

Additional information, this is his second year applying. Our AART teacher said that nothing in his packet was too different from others that did get in except his original CoGAT scores from applying in 2nd grade were a bit too low (118). Could have been a bad day, who knows! His NNAT-2 was 123 which was 92%. His GBRS was decent at 10 nothing stellar but nothing that should exclude him. He is a shy and a reserved kid at school. He had letters from music teachers and sports coaches. Submitted some self-driven science experiments he conducted. Nothing spectacular but definitely showed independent work and curiousity. We helped compile the projects in a format for submitting extra work samples but I wanted to be sure that it didn't look like the parents did the work...because we didn't! But I fear that work samples that other students submit may have been strongly guided by adults and we refused to do that.

So this time applying in 3rd grade for 4th grade AAP, we got him retested for both NNAT-3 and CoGAT and that is where his scores are now 141 (99%) and 130 (97%), respectively. I can't imagine his GBRS score being any worse than last year. He does very well in school with mostly 4 and very few 3s and he does level III enrichment. His teacher always says he is doing well and is a great student. But he is a first year teacher too so maybe he isn't familiar with this whole AAP process? My son has been going to Mathnasium and Reading and Writing Tutors for enrichment and to prepare him for AAP curriculum. He has worked his butt off this past year with barely any complaints of all the extra work he does compared to his peers. We haven't told him the outcome yet because we don't know how to tell him that all that hard work didn't get him into AAP.

I know in the grand scheme of things, this is going to be a minor blip and hopefully it drives him to work even harder to prove "them" wrong. He is a great kid with a huge heart and tries so very hard. Just a tough pill to swallow as an 8 yo. Life isn't fair all the time. I just didn't want him to learn this lesson so early...

Sorry, but the committee believes you prepped. The jump in NNAT scores screams it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NNAT: 141
COGAT: (V / Q / NV / Composite) 132/133/115 Composite 130
GBRS: (#Consistent / #Frequent / #Occasional) not known yet
In-Pool: (Y/N) : N
Parent Referral: (Y/N): Yes with several work samples
WISC: NO
Zip Code: 22043
AAP Decision: (IN / NOT IN) - NOT IN

Absolutely crushed here. Our older son got in with lower test scores. Our son is not challenged now and he has been going to Mathnasiumn for enrichment.

I'm not usually one to yell "appeal!", but I would appeal this one. And I would definitely want to see the GBRS.

Additional information, this is his second year applying. Our AART teacher said that nothing in his packet was too different from others that did get in except his original CoGAT scores from applying in 2nd grade were a bit too low (118). Could have been a bad day, who knows! His NNAT-2 was 123 which was 92%. His GBRS was decent at 10 nothing stellar but nothing that should exclude him. He is a shy and a reserved kid at school. He had letters from music teachers and sports coaches. Submitted some self-driven science experiments he conducted. Nothing spectacular but definitely showed independent work and curiousity. We helped compile the projects in a format for submitting extra work samples but I wanted to be sure that it didn't look like the parents did the work...because we didn't! But I fear that work samples that other students submit may have been strongly guided by adults and we refused to do that.

So this time applying in 3rd grade for 4th grade AAP, we got him retested for both NNAT-3 and CoGAT and that is where his scores are now 141 (99%) and 130 (97%), respectively. I can't imagine his GBRS score being any worse than last year. He does very well in school with mostly 4 and very few 3s and he does level III enrichment. His teacher always says he is doing well and is a great student. But he is a first year teacher too so maybe he isn't familiar with this whole AAP process? My son has been going to Mathnasium and Reading and Writing Tutors for enrichment and to prepare him for AAP curriculum. He has worked his butt off this past year with barely any complaints of all the extra work he does compared to his peers. We haven't told him the outcome yet because we don't know how to tell him that all that hard work didn't get him into AAP.

I know in the grand scheme of things, this is going to be a minor blip and hopefully it drives him to work even harder to prove "them" wrong. He is a great kid with a huge heart and tries so very hard. Just a tough pill to swallow as an 8 yo. Life isn't fair all the time. I just didn't want him to learn this lesson so early...

Sorry, but the committee believes you prepped. The jump in NNAT scores screams it.

Yes you are right, we did prep him a few days before to go over some questions that I came across online so that he wouldn't be totally caught off guard. As we did the same the first time he took the test.

I think an extra year of maturity may have helped improve his scores. But please don't get me wrong, we did not drill him with test questions for weeks before the test.

[Anonymous]

Are you Asian?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Thank you for your judgement and calling me insane. That really helps foster a helpful discussion. I have not attacked you yet have now felt the need double down. I am sorry if I offended you.

I am just trying to do my best as a parent. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. And I will not judge how you parent. Is my child happy? I really hope so. I know that he was absolutely crushed when he didn't get into AAP while his older brother did. He wanted to put the work in to get in the following year. We agreed on a plan and asked him to let us know when he wanted to stop. We will reassess how we want to move forward because what we did as a family clearly didn't work. But he will know that we are trying our absolute best to provide him with as much support as we can. I hope that you can understand that not impose your judgement on me and how we raise our children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

Why does he even know you applied for AAP?

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Thank you for your judgement and calling me insane. That really helps foster a helpful discussion. I have not attacked you yet have now felt the need double down. I am sorry if I offended you.

I am just trying to do my best as a parent. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. And I will not judge how you parent. Is my child happy? I really hope so. I know that he was absolutely crushed when he didn't get into AAP while his older brother did. He wanted to put the work in to get in the following year. We agreed on a plan and asked him to let us know when he wanted to stop. We will reassess how we want to move forward because what we did as a family clearly didn't work. But he will know that we are trying our absolute best to provide him with as much support as we can. I hope that you can understand that not impose your judgement on me and how we raise our children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

Why does he even know you applied for AAP?

Why does he even know you applied for AAP?

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Thank you for your judgement and calling me insane. That really helps foster a helpful discussion. I have not attacked you yet have now felt the need double down. I am sorry if I offended you.

I am just trying to do my best as a parent. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. And I will not judge how you parent. Is my child happy? I really hope so. I know that he was absolutely crushed when he didn't get into AAP while his older brother did. He wanted to put the work in to get in the following year. We agreed on a plan and asked him to let us know when he wanted to stop. We will reassess how we want to move forward because what we did as a family clearly didn't work. But he will know that we are trying our absolute best to provide him with as much support as we can. I hope that you can understand that not impose your judgement on me and how we raise our children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Not insane at all. My kids were never "behind" according to their teachers, but I saw gaps and a need for more time on concepts and fluency as there is just not enough time in the school day IMHO. Some parents do it themselves or use Khan Academy or other resources. Personally, I didn't have time to focus on it with them myself, so I outsourced to Mathnasium at different points in their ES years.

Some people have different priorities than you do, PP and it does not make them insane nor make their children anxious or suicidal, what a ridiculous thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Not insane at all. My kids were never "behind" according to their teachers, but I saw gaps and a need for more time on concepts and fluency as there is just not enough time in the school day IMHO. Some parents do it themselves or use Khan Academy or other resources. Personally, I didn't have time to focus on it with them myself, so I outsourced to Mathnasium at different points in their ES years.

Some people have different priorities than you do, PP and it does not make them insane nor make their children anxious or suicidal, what a ridiculous thing to say.

Thank you for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you Asian?

wow are you prejudiced?

[Anonymous]

The OP’s child has na older sibling that is in AAP so the younger sibling knows about AAP. It is very possible that the two kids were at different schools, if the older child went to a center while the younger child was at the base school. It could be that both kids were at the same school, either way, the younger knew abouot AAP.

Speaking as an above average intelligence sibling to two gifter older siblings, there was a lot of pressure to live up to the standard that they set. I don’t know their IQs but I do know that they both had near perfect SAT scores without taking any prep classes for the SAT. I was consistently compared to them. It was actually pretty hard. No matter what I did acedemically, my brothers had already done it. And if I didn’t do as well as they did then it was understandable because not everyone can be so bright. And yes, I heard that from the teachers.

So the younger sibling maybe feels like they have to live up to the academic reputation that the older sibling has forged.

And the OP’s posts imply that academic success is something the family values hence the willingness to hire a tutor for math and writing even though the child is doing well in school.

Younger son sees the brothers success and the parents value on education and probably feels like he failed.

Pure speculation on my part, just eading the posts and between the lines.

OP, you will probably need a WISC to get your child into AAP. The committee has sent a strong signal that what you are doing right now isn’t working to get your child into AAP. Or you could re-evaluate and think about how you can support your child where he is now. It sounds like he is a great kid who is doing well in school and has some extra curriculars that he enjoys. Focus on his successes there. If he loves science, continue to encourage him in that arena. Praise him for what he is doing well, and that sound like a lot.

He will be able to take honors classes in Middle School and AP or IB in high school. There is no reason for him to feel like he has failed.

We just read a book on Neil Armstrong and the book emphasized the number of times he failed, got back up, and tried again. It pointed out how learning to keep trying saved some of his test flights and the moon landing. Failure leads to important, if hard, life lessons.

But it is hard for me to see not getting into AAP in 2nd and 3rd grade as a failure. Your son is thriving in school. He has areas that he loves to learn about. Does it matter if he is in program X or program Y or that he is learning and growing. Maybe it is time to redirect the conversation and focusing on the things he has done well and is doing well and how he can succeed in gen ed.

I am sorry he is disappointed, he worked really hard. Now the trick is to turn this into a positive and help him be happy with where he is and what he can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it common for people to be sending their kids to Mathnasium and having a reading/writing tutor in third grade? That seems kind of insane to me.

Does everyone do it? Obviously not.

Is it insane? Maybe for you, but not for us and many other families. So please keep your judgement to yourself if it isn't helping the discussion.

Mathnasium is fun for him and he has a few friends that go with him.

Writing tutoring is something that we observed as something that he could improve upon and he does better with instruction from people other than his parents.

It is TOTALLY insane for you to have your elementary school child who is clearly not behind in this kind of tutoring. No wonder anxiety and suicide rates are so high in American youth.

Not insane at all. My kids were never "behind" according to their teachers, but I saw gaps and a need for more time on concepts and fluency as there is just not enough time in the school day IMHO. Some parents do it themselves or use Khan Academy or other resources. Personally, I didn't have time to focus on it with them myself, so I outsourced to Mathnasium at different points in their ES years.

Some people have different priorities than you do, PP and it does not make them insane nor make their children anxious or suicidal, what a ridiculous thing to say.

+1. My kid isn’t behind either, but I am frustrated by the lack of good writing instruction in the schools. One teacher cannot possibly work with all the kids to make them better writers. Heck, she’s so busy trying to get some of the kids to just read on grade level. We outsource as well and it has been wonderful for DC!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you Asian?

wow are you prejudiced?

No, just trying to suss out why the committee denied this kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OP’s child has na older sibling that is in AAP so the younger sibling knows about AAP. It is very possible that the two kids were at different schools, if the older child went to a center while the younger child was at the base school. It could be that both kids were at the same school, either way, the younger knew abouot AAP.

Speaking as an above average intelligence sibling to two gifter older siblings, there was a lot of pressure to live up to the standard that they set. I don’t know their IQs but I do know that they both had near perfect SAT scores without taking any prep classes for the SAT. I was consistently compared to them. It was actually pretty hard. No matter what I did acedemically, my brothers had already done it. And if I didn’t do as well as they did then it was understandable because not everyone can be so bright. And yes, I heard that from the teachers.

So the younger sibling maybe feels like they have to live up to the academic reputation that the older sibling has forged.

And the OP’s posts imply that academic success is something the family values hence the willingness to hire a tutor for math and writing even though the child is doing well in school.

Younger son sees the brothers success and the parents value on education and probably feels like he failed.

Pure speculation on my part, just eading the posts and between the lines.

OP, you will probably need a WISC to get your child into AAP. The committee has sent a strong signal that what you are doing right now isn’t working to get your child into AAP. Or you could re-evaluate and think about how you can support your child where he is now. It sounds like he is a great kid who is doing well in school and has some extra curriculars that he enjoys. Focus on his successes there. If he loves science, continue to encourage him in that arena. Praise him for what he is doing well, and that sound like a lot.

He will be able to take honors classes in Middle School and AP or IB in high school. There is no reason for him to feel like he has failed.

We just read a book on Neil Armstrong and the book emphasized the number of times he failed, got back up, and tried again. It pointed out how learning to keep trying saved some of his test flights and the moon landing. Failure leads to important, if hard, life lessons.

But it is hard for me to see not getting into AAP in 2nd and 3rd grade as a failure. Your son is thriving in school. He has areas that he loves to learn about. Does it matter if he is in program X or program Y or that he is learning and growing. Maybe it is time to redirect the conversation and focusing on the things he has done well and is doing well and how he can succeed in gen ed.

I am sorry he is disappointed, he worked really hard. Now the trick is to turn this into a positive and help him be happy with where he is and what he can do.

Thank you. This is wonderful advice and this is a very similar discussion that I had with my spouse earlier today. We read a similar article about the astronaut Scott Kelly. We are just dissappointed that the system doesn't recognize his abilities using their seemingly arbitrary measure. However, we will continue to encourage him and support his academic growth outside of the county school system since he won't be receiving it there. We will love him unconditionally and tell him how proud we are of him everyday...except when he and his brother bicker about who has to go take the trash out! LOL!

Although this site may have its trolls who like to make others feel bad, there are other like yourself who are truly trying to help. I posted originally to share our experience in case others felt comfort knowing that they aren't alone. I just didn't expect to be attacked. Thank you for your encouraging words.