Rethinking AAP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why would it be bizarre to talk with other parents about children? I talk to friends, acquaintances, coworkers, about schooling. We share tips all the time.

The bigger question is how do you get stats on who has prepped? You have no aggregate data on that at all. Or if you do (other than prep books at Asian stores), please share

It's considered somewhat tactless to talk about AAP with people whose kids might not qualify. Also, many people don't want to be viewed as tiger moms, so they keep their prepping to themselves.

No one can ever get stats on who has prepped. Saying that you think people are or aren't prepping is meaningless. For my part, I suspect that a lot of people are prepping based on the prevalence of prep books or centers, the over-representation we have in the top 2% on those tests, the sheer number of kids in tutoring programs, and the fact that people admit to prepping for everything else, like IAAT, TJ entrance, etc, making it unlikely that they would be blasé about getting their kids into AAP. Additionally, I know and work with a lot of AAP kids, and while they all seem bright, very few of them seem gifted.

It is known that prepping for gifted entrances tests is rampant in NYC, which also has statistically too many kids in the top few percent. I doubt people here are less driven to get their kids into gifted programs than the people in NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also dont think the test prep is as prevalent as people on DCUM seem to suggest. I hadn't even heard of test prep or taking additional tests for the application until DCUM.

In my community it is quite common.

By community do you mean your neighborhood, circle of friends, ...?

DP, but the TJ mania map probably correlates well with prepping for AAP admission. http://i.imgur.com/BHRPslv.jpg

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Why would it be bizarre to talk with other parents about children? I talk to friends, acquaintances, coworkers, about schooling. We share tips all the time.

The bigger question is how do you get stats on who has prepped? You have no aggregate data on that at all. Or if you do (other than prep books at Asian stores), please share

It's considered somewhat tactless to talk about AAP with people whose kids might not qualify. Also, many people don't want to be viewed as tiger moms, so they keep their prepping to themselves.

No one can ever get stats on who has prepped. Saying that you think people are or aren't prepping is meaningless. For my part, I suspect that a lot of people are prepping based on the prevalence of prep books or centers, the over-representation we have in the top 2% on those tests, the sheer number of kids in tutoring programs, and the fact that people admit to prepping for everything else, like IAAT, TJ entrance, etc, making it unlikely that they would be blasé about getting their kids into AAP. Additionally, I know and work with a lot of AAP kids, and while they all seem bright, very few of them seem gifted.

It is known that prepping for gifted entrances tests is rampant in NYC, which also has statistically too many kids in the top few percent. I doubt people here are less driven to get their kids into gifted programs than the people in NYC.

So what you're saying is that you dont have actual data to support your assertion that prepping is widespread. Okay, thanks.

[Anonymous]

I googled NNAT Prep and my town name. At least 5 prep centers hit, all were with in 10 miles of my house. Several had pictures and names of the kids who successfully gained entrance to AAP or to TJ. And yes, they fit the stereo type. Mostly South Asian and Chinese kids were pictured. More importantly, there would not be prep centers operating in the area if they were not doing good enough business to stay a float.

That said, we are a Caucasian family who bought a CogAT workbook for our son. He was above the threshold for the NNAT but we wanted him to be comfortable with the way questions were asked on the CogAT.

So anecdotal data but enough that makes me comfortable with the notion that there are a good number of kids who are prepped. Probably less then 25%, just a guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That said, we are a Caucasian family who bought a CogAT workbook for our son. He was above the threshold for the NNAT but we wanted him to be comfortable with the way questions were asked on the CogAT.

So anecdotal data but enough that makes me comfortable with the notion that there are a good number of kids who are prepped. Probably less then 25%, just a guess.

So you prepped. Why would you assume that most people aren't prepping when you, yourself, did?

[Anonymous]

25% is not "most" kids/families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:25% is not "most" kids/families.

I didn’t say most, I said a good number. As for why I don’t think others in our area are prepping, that would be because a very small number of people go from our school to AAP. The current family that I know with a child at the center was surprised when their child was invited to AAP. They did not parent refer and did not know that their child was in pool.

My assumption is that families are not choosing to prep their kids, get them into AAP, and then not sending them to the Center. If someone is prepping their child, they are highly likely to send the child to AAP. I could be wrong but it seems like more effort to prep and then choose not to send your kid to AAP.
format in advance.

[Anonymous]

1. When did "rampant" = "most"? A prepping rate of even 33%, meaning 1/3 kids in AAP don't deserve to be there is rampant to me.

2. There is a difference between hardcore prepping and casual prepping. I would guess that not so many people do hardcore prepping, like prep classes, but a lot do casual prepping, like ordering a book from Amazon or looking for problems online. Even on this forum, a lot of people claim that they "didn't prep." They just showed their kid some practice problems or did a workbook. Since we're throwing numbers out all willy nilly, I would guess that maybe 5-10% do hardcore prepping, but another 25%-50% do casual prepping, especially if doing google searches for NNAT or CogAT problems and then going over them with your kid is considered prepping.

3. It seems reasonably well accepted that prepping won't turn a 100 into a 130, but may turn a 120 into a 130. So, prepping, while it would help admission, is hardly a guarantee of admission. Parents aren't prepping and then not sending kids to AAP. They might be prepping and having kids who still don't qualify.

4. It is highly regional. Some areas have only a few kids get in. Others have half of the class.

[Anonymous]

I wonder why anyone bothers with the prep classes after going through the workbook. The workbook explains each section well enough and there are good practice questions. I wonder what the heck they do over multiple hours in the classes. Maybe they teach multiplication and division? Easy to bump a quant score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So what you're saying is that you dont have actual data to support your assertion that prepping is widespread. Okay, thanks.

You have no actual data to support your assertion that few people are prepping. I suspect that people who think prepping is rare have a Lake Wobegon view of Fairfax, and the people who think prepping is widespread think that we're no more special than any other affluent urban area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So what you're saying is that you dont have actual data to support your assertion that prepping is widespread. Okay, thanks.

You have no actual data to support your assertion that few people are prepping. I suspect that people who think prepping is rare have a Lake Wobegon view of Fairfax, and the people who think prepping is widespread think that we're no more special than any other affluent urban area.

The default is that prepping is not widespread. Just because you found some books at a supermarket doesn't make it a widespread phenomenon. You have no data to support it's happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The default is that prepping is not widespread. Just because you found some books at a supermarket doesn't make it a widespread phenomenon. You have no data to support it's happening.

How convenient that you decide the default is your position and thus don't need to support it with any evidence. I think the default is that we're just like everywhere else. Widespread prepping is an acknowledged problem for NYC gifted programs. Why would you imagine that we're so different from the people in NYC? I can't find the article right now, but even the authors of the CogAT have noted that the test is being heavily prepped, and that will inflate the scores.

Your viewpoint seems to be that all of the type A, overly obsessed, tiger parents who put their kids in Kumon and prep their kids for TJ are somehow totally chill about whether their kids get into AAP. Also, people in Fairfax are so special that even though prepping is widespread everywhere else that has dedicated gifted programs, with proportionally way too many kids in the top 2%, we don't prep and just legitimately have much more gifted kids than everywhere else. If you want to believe that, it's your prerogative, but the viewpoint is completely illogical.

Are you only defining prepping as attending one of the prep camps? What about the numerous people on this forum who claim that they "aren't prepping," but rather they just got the Amazon workbook or did demo problems on testing mom, just so their kids were "familiar with the test format." Are those people prepping or aren't they? Perhaps our difference in opinion is that I would view all of that as prepping, too. The test was normed assuming that the kids are going in completely blind, other than the handful of official demo problems shown to everyone by the teacher. Any teaching or discussion of the test beyond that could lead to inflated results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The default is that prepping is not widespread. Just because you found some books at a supermarket doesn't make it a widespread phenomenon. You have no data to support it's happening.

How convenient that you decide the default is your position and thus don't need to support it with any evidence. I think the default is that we're just like everywhere else. Widespread prepping is an acknowledged problem for NYC gifted programs. Why would you imagine that we're so different from the people in NYC? I can't find the article right now, but even the authors of the CogAT have noted that the test is being heavily prepped, and that will inflate the scores.

Your viewpoint seems to be that all of the type A, overly obsessed, tiger parents who put their kids in Kumon and prep their kids for TJ are somehow totally chill about whether their kids get into AAP. Also, people in Fairfax are so special that even though prepping is widespread everywhere else that has dedicated gifted programs, with proportionally way too many kids in the top 2%, we don't prep and just legitimately have much more gifted kids than everywhere else. If you want to believe that, it's your prerogative, but the viewpoint is completely illogical.

Are you only defining prepping as attending one of the prep camps? What about the numerous people on this forum who claim that they "aren't prepping," but rather they just got the Amazon workbook or did demo problems on testing mom, just so their kids were "familiar with the test format." Are those people prepping or aren't they? Perhaps our difference in opinion is that I would view all of that as prepping, too. The test was normed assuming that the kids are going in completely blind, other than the handful of official demo problems shown to everyone by the teacher. Any teaching or discussion of the test beyond that could lead to inflated results.

DP. I also view all of that, classes or workbooks or practice questions, as prepping. But I also think that Fairfax County is very large and that only some portions of it prep and the other portions don't. So the default is prepping here and no prepping there. Although we picked our neighborhood and house because of other factors, I am happy that we happened to pick one of those areas and not the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
DP. I also view all of that, classes or workbooks or practice questions, as prepping. But I also think that Fairfax County is very large and that only some portions of it prep and the other portions don't. So the default is prepping here and no prepping there. Although we picked our neighborhood and house because of other factors, I am happy that we happened to pick one of those areas and not the other.

Are you in one of the normal people areas on the TJ mania map? I'm in a TJ mania area, and I know a lot of people who prepped for IAAT. I wouldn't be surprised if they prepped for nnat and cogat too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The default is that prepping is not widespread. Just because you found some books at a supermarket doesn't make it a widespread phenomenon. You have no data to support it's happening.

How convenient that you decide the default is your position and thus don't need to support it with any evidence. I think the default is that we're just like everywhere else. Widespread prepping is an acknowledged problem for NYC gifted programs. Why would you imagine that we're so different from the people in NYC? I can't find the article right now, but even the authors of the CogAT have noted that the test is being heavily prepped, and that will inflate the scores.

Your viewpoint seems to be that all of the type A, overly obsessed, tiger parents who put their kids in Kumon and prep their kids for TJ are somehow totally chill about whether their kids get into AAP. Also, people in Fairfax are so special that even though prepping is widespread everywhere else that has dedicated gifted programs, with proportionally way too many kids in the top 2%, we don't prep and just legitimately have much more gifted kids than everywhere else. If you want to believe that, it's your prerogative, but the viewpoint is completely illogical.

Are you only defining prepping as attending one of the prep camps? What about the numerous people on this forum who claim that they "aren't prepping," but rather they just got the Amazon workbook or did demo problems on testing mom, just so their kids were "familiar with the test format." Are those people prepping or aren't they? Perhaps our difference in opinion is that I would view all of that as prepping, too. The test was normed assuming that the kids are going in completely blind, other than the handful of official demo problems shown to everyone by the teacher. Any teaching or discussion of the test beyond that could lead to inflated results.

Why would the default be that a large portion of people cheat? That sounds ridiculous.

I had not heard of any of these tests until the results were sent home and had no idea that they were used for AAP selection until reading about it on DCUM when applying. My child did zero prep for any of these tests, was automatically in pool and got in on the first application. So, yes it's a foreign concept that anyone would prep for what should be an accurate read of whether they are prepared for AAP.

I would call anything from buying a prep book to taking a class prepping.