How hard is it to get into AAP?
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Anonymous
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Reading these boards stresses me out. DH and I both ivy league educated and our kids are 3 and 5. My oldest child will be starting kindergarten next month. He is a bright curious kid. We know a lot of smart kids so I don't think my kid is a genius or anything.
What exactly is required to gain acceptance into AAP? We are zoned in an average/below average elementary school and holding off on moving until we see if DS gets in AAP. The AAP center is excellent and only 1 mile away from us. If our kids get into AAP and can stay on this AAP/honors track, we plan to stay in our house. |
Anonymous
Right now, FCPS takes a "whole child" approach in screening a child for AAP, so it's hard to say what "exactly is required to gain acceptance into AAP". Some people agree with that approach, some people think it should be based on hard and fast numbers like test scores or IQ. Rather than relying on opinion and anecdotal evidence from anonymous strangers, you should look at the Parent Information Packet on the FCPS AAP web site - http://www.fcps.edu/is/aap/identification/currentfcps.shtml Then, if you have specific questions or if there's something you really don't understand, post the question here. You'll still get biased answers, but at least then you'll understand what the biases are. |
Anonymous
Thank you so much for this. This is extremely helpful. I didn't even know they started services in kindergarten. Our school is a young scholars school. I didn't want to ask too many questions on this at kindergarten orientation because I know many other parents would judge me. I don't want to place too much academic pressure on my children but education is most important to us. |
Anonymous
Whether or not your (very young) children qualify for AAP won't make any difference as the "honors track" is open to all students in middle and high school. |
Anonymous
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Not hard enough.
Probably harder for your kids to get in if they were geniuses. Bright, curious, likely white child of Ivy League-educated parents: sounds like pretty typical AAP student. |
Anonymous
| Also, parents wanting to get their kids into AAP to escape less than stellar school in neighborhood where they bought a house is also pretty common. |
Anonymous
they'll get in probably based on that only |
Anonymous
| It's the scores on 2 tests (NNAT in 1st and CoGat in 2d) plus a teachers eval (GBRS) plus some bureaucratic secret sauce that is unknown. All the gifted kids get in, none of the struggling ones do. The stress comes at the boarder. If your kid is shy and unassuming you may have difficulties with the GBRS if the teacher does not adjust for that (most do). If your kid is not a "test taker" then their scores on the tests might not reflect their ability. The bureaucratic secret sauce is the must frustrating since their is no objective measure and it's quite not transparent. Race matters, if you're black or Hispanic you'll get pushed over the edge, if you're white or Asian you might get held back, but really, it's a secret. My advice is not to worry, have your kid study hard and see what happens. If you're on the edge, take the WISC and appeal. And DCUM does not represent the real world.... |
Anonymous
^^ Most important statement for this forum. |
Anonymous
Not the prior poste...but ifyou are ivy league capable, there is a good chance that your kids will get in. That said, it's not like they will wilt and die if they don't. (One of mine got in, the other just missed the cutoff...wish we had referred, but she's fine in reg class too. She just doesn't get the extra oomph in the curriculum that other child will get. But we also don't see it as a make or break catastrophe that some postings suggest.) |
Anonymous
| I think it was a little more difficult this year and I believe that will be a trend we will see in the future. The county is moving back to a tougher acceptance policy. |
Anonymous
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We have a below-cut off kid is articulate, ambitious, a hard-charger, and has a healthy self-esteem. We didn't think it was easy at all to refer him for 4th grade. We had to provide a lot of outside information like other tests and performance in other academic activities. I think what was key was that we had other sources of input outside the school. We had a math tutor that saw great talent while the school only saw a very average kid with an attitude problem and lack of motivation to do class work. What was really important was that we got to know our kid and really examined our intent for putting him into AAP. It was never about bragging rights for us. We would have been completely happy in our base school but our kid plainly was not. All the data we submitted supports his ability to perform at an AAP level.
We have an older kid who did just find in gen ed. Now that I see the offerings for middle school, I do see that there are other opportunities for kids to excel so while it would not have been the end of the world if our rising 4th grader did not get in, our biggest worry was that the lack of challenge could really damage his morale. We did have a plan B already set up for him. We planned to do all sorts of supplements and looked into other advanced academic programs like Johns Hopkins and Stanford. DH and I have advanced degrees with successful careers but are not ivy-league people. Our 9-year old talks to us about Yale and Harvard. His goals make us a bit nervous since we are diligent but not tiger parents. The best we can do right now is to at least set up a good environment for him at every stage of his development. Just remember that it's about the kid, not you. |
Anonymous
Yes, the nadir of the AAP acceptance frenzy was a couple of years ago when they accepted more than 50% of our school's second graders, creating an incredibly skewed current rising 5th grade class. So out of whack, parents are still reeling. Looks like the county realized its mistake (too late for this class), and is tightening up admittance standards. |
Anonymous
Not tiger parents? 
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Anonymous
Yep we are not tiger parents. Save your Tiger parents are ones who will push their kids beyond limits so that they can live vicariously through their kids. It's about the parents, not the kid. Huge difference, right? We were completely fine with having a totally average child in gen ed. That's what we planned for. That's the first kid we got, but it wasn't the second kid that we have. Johns Hopkins and Stanford are one of the few schools that have advanced academic programs for kids. We were referred to them by our kid's math tutor because the tutor was very confident that our kid would accepted. We were hopeful but skeptical. Going through the Johns Hopkins testing was part of the data we needed to truly see if our kid was capable of an advanced program. Our then 3rd grader scored in the 99th percentile of 5th graders in Verbal on the SCAT and also scored high enough in Math to meet their cut off. How does that make us tiger parents? If our child wasn't capable and we pushed him and we hired a lawyer to get into AAP, then yes, that would make us tiger parents. If you define a Tiger Parent as one who diligently looks into the best interest of their kid based on substantial data, then yes, call me a tiger parent. Johns Hopkins was a plan B in case he didn't get into AAP. It would give us a way to supplement his learning. The classes are online and self-paced. For the Stanford program, they have classes online that are led by an instructor. We didn't apply to the Stanford program but they do use the same admissions test that Johns Hopkins uses. Bottom line is knowing that AAP isn't everything and there are many other opportunities to explore.
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