TAG or GT center school and regretted it?

[Anonymous]

If your elementary school aged child qualified to go to a special Talented and CGifted Center-type school and you sent him or her -- did you have any regrets? Did you end up taking your child out?

[Anonymous]

I am wondering the same thing. Our DC was accepted into a GT program, but we probably won't go. None of DC's friends made it in and he doesn't want to go alone. I am also worried about putting too much pressure at a young age.

[Anonymous]

We also are wondering about this! We would be moving our DC from a private school to a GT center, so we don't have the same issues with respect to changing schools within the system, but we wonder if the environment will be a welcoming one to an "outsider" and whether it will be too intense academically for our DC.

[Anonymous]

i went to a GT center school starting in 3rd grade in FxCo - that was the earliest the program started. have to say - i never did quite fit in at regular elem school so SO nice to finally have friends i could connect with there. plus, we were all "new" - to this day i keep in touch with friends i made 3-8 (but didn't go to HS with) -- thanks to Facebook!

[Anonymous]

Absolutely no regrets. My DD just did not fit in well and the other kids called her "weird". Then she went to the GT center and found a whole lot of kids just like her. It's been such a boost to her self-esteem!

[Anonymous]

I'm a bit nervous about the decision. Right now, DS attends a neighborhood school, and the work is quite easy for him. On the one hand, I do want more challenge for him. On the other hand, life is pretty easy on the homefront. He whips through homework in less than 20 minutes and then can do whatever he wants. So there's NO struggle at all WRT homework, or even classwork. That's really nice, and good for family time.

The thing is, he's pretty much already learned 90% of whatever they are going to learn in class, unless the teacher goes above and beyond to provide somehting extra for him. So I feel like he's never getting a chance to be "behind" his peers in anything - and that is leading to a super-swelled head. When, trust me, he's no genius. He's a smart kid, but there are plenty smarter than him.

So I'm wanting him to have more of a challenge, as I am sure he will in the center school -- yet for the first time, I'll probably actually have to supervise homework, and might even have to deal with his stress on finding he actually has to WORK for a good grade on something. So, I'm just wodering what it was like for others in a similar position. Smart kid, but not a genius. He's actually not unhappy at school right now -- just thinks he already knows it all, and thinks that's the way it should always be,

[Anonymous]

There may well be a "small fish, big pond" issue for many of the kids who attend the GT programs or MoCo magnets and have been used to being big fish. We're wondering about that ourselves when both kids enter MoCo magnets next year. I guess we will try to provide support, massage bruised egos if necessary, and encourage our kids to step up to the plate.

[Anonymous]

"small fish in a big pond" is very true. I have many friends whose kids went to Blair or Thomas Jefferson but the competition is so intensive that they regretted attending these schools.

[Anonymous]

Competition in some of the regular MoCo high schools can be pretty intense, too. Has anybody read "The Overachievers?" It's probably bad in Virginia, too.

[Anonymous]

What I meant to ask in 21:47, but I don't think it came across, was whether the competition seems qualitatively different in the magnets?