In-Pool Results Thread 2024

[Anonymous]

Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

It still speaks to how skewed the FFX area is, if the majority of the top 10 percent of a grade are actually falling within top 2-3 percent or higher, nationally, such that a school cutoff just to be "in pool" is above the 97th (130) or 98th (133-134).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all giving the pyramid but not the specific school? Its the elementary school scores that matter for top ten percent. The pyramid is not relevant.

Maybe you should give your child'd gender, classroom teacher, and ethnicity as well to give a fuller picture? Not comfortable with that?? Well, pyramid generally gives enough information for SES generalizations and is generic enough to protect privacy, which is why I'm more comfortable using it than drilling deeper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

It still speaks to how skewed the FFX area is, if the majority of the top 10 percent of a grade are actually falling within top 2-3 percent or higher, nationally, such that a school cutoff just to be "in pool" is above the 97th (130) or 98th (133-134).

The CogAT national percentiles are based on kids who didn't prep. FCPS isn't that much more gifted than anywhere else. A lot of FCPS people prep, which boosts the scores enough to skew them. This actually happens in every major city with this type of gifted program. Suddenly, an overabundance of kids are in the national top 2% on whatever easily prepped standardized test is being used.

[Anonymous]

Cogat: 138
NNAT: 129
Pyramid: Marshall
In Pool (yes/no): No

We also received the cogat score via mail this past week. cogat score was 99 percentile. so the top 10% of the class is within the 99 perentile given I got no pool notification

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cogat: 138
NNAT: 129
Pyramid: Marshall
In Pool (yes/no): No

We also received the cogat score via mail this past week. cogat score was 99 percentile. so the top 10% of the class is within the 99 perentile given I got no pool notification

Is this the correct inference though? In-pool is based on NNAT and CogAT. Could it be that NNAT is weighted more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all giving the pyramid but not the specific school? Its the elementary school scores that matter for top ten percent. The pyramid is not relevant.

Maybe you should give your child'd gender, classroom teacher, and ethnicity as well to give a fuller picture? Not comfortable with that?? Well, pyramid generally gives enough information for SES generalizations and is generic enough to protect privacy, which is why I'm more comfortable using it than drilling deeper.

Ok but as you can see it's not really enough. Some elementaries are center schools, so cut off will be much higher, and in some pyramids there is a fair bit of unevenness across elementary schools in terms of SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all giving the pyramid but not the specific school? Its the elementary school scores that matter for top ten percent. The pyramid is not relevant.

Because naming the school makes it easier to identify who might be posting on the site and people don’t want that. Most ES in a pyramid are similar to one another so we would expect that the scores will be close to each other even if they are not identical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

It still speaks to how skewed the FFX area is, if the majority of the top 10 percent of a grade are actually falling within top 2-3 percent or higher, nationally, such that a school cutoff just to be "in pool" is above the 97th (130) or 98th (133-134).

The CogAT national percentiles are based on kids who didn't prep. FCPS isn't that much more gifted than anywhere else. A lot of FCPS people prep, which boosts the scores enough to skew them. This actually happens in every major city with this type of gifted program. Suddenly, an overabundance of kids are in the national top 2% on whatever easily prepped standardized test is being used.

I will say, my fourth grader took the COGAT in July because we were moving to FCPS and considering AAP. No prep other than I showed them a website with what the questions looked like the night before.

Verbal was 99th percentile which we expected and nonverbal was 97th percentile. However, quantitative was lower, 81st percentile or something. They didn't finish the quantitative section though what they did do, had gotten 90% correct on raw scores. Decided not to apply to AAP and was told here to just push my kid. 130 composite overall. Didn't question as math has always been their weaker scores on iready, 80th percentile vs always mid 90s to 99th percentiles on verbal - it made sense.

Then realized FCPS does the test again anyways so they took it again in October through FCPS. Zero prep from us, just curious to see if scores aligned. This time, finished most of quantitative (just didn't finish one question) and now 99th percentile in that section.

So just having experience with the test, and/or taking the test during the summer vs. being back in school for two months, somehow boosted them 18 percentile points on the quantitative section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

It still speaks to how skewed the FFX area is, if the majority of the top 10 percent of a grade are actually falling within top 2-3 percent or higher, nationally, such that a school cutoff just to be "in pool" is above the 97th (130) or 98th (133-134).

The CogAT national percentiles are based on kids who didn't prep. FCPS isn't that much more gifted than anywhere else. A lot of FCPS people prep, which boosts the scores enough to skew them. This actually happens in every major city with this type of gifted program. Suddenly, an overabundance of kids are in the national top 2% on whatever easily prepped standardized test is being used.

I will say, my fourth grader took the COGAT in July because we were moving to FCPS and considering AAP. No prep other than I showed them a website with what the questions looked like the night before.

Verbal was 99th percentile which we expected and nonverbal was 97th percentile. However, quantitative was lower, 81st percentile or something. They didn't finish the quantitative section though what they did do, had gotten 90% correct on raw scores. Decided not to apply to AAP and was told here to just push my kid. 130 composite overall. Didn't question as math has always been their weaker scores on iready, 80th percentile vs always mid 90s to 99th percentiles on verbal - it made sense.

Then realized FCPS does the test again anyways so they took it again in October through FCPS. Zero prep from us, just curious to see if scores aligned. This time, finished most of quantitative (just didn't finish one question) and now 99th percentile in that section.

So just having experience with the test, and/or taking the test during the summer vs. being back in school for two months, somehow boosted them 18 percentile points on the quantitative section.

*told here to just not push my kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all giving the pyramid but not the specific school? Its the elementary school scores that matter for top ten percent. The pyramid is not relevant.

Maybe you should give your child'd gender, classroom teacher, and ethnicity as well to give a fuller picture? Not comfortable with that?? Well, pyramid generally gives enough information for SES generalizations and is generic enough to protect privacy, which is why I'm more comfortable using it than drilling deeper.

Not the poster you’re responding to, but using the pyramid isn’t very helpful for places like Edison and West Potomac. In both pyramids, the range of SES free/reduced meals is anywhere from 75-85% down to less than 10%. Hybla Valley ES is in the same pyramid as Waynewood ES. They couldn’t be further apart on the SEE continuum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cogat: 138
NNAT: 129
Pyramid: Marshall
In Pool (yes/no): No

We also received the cogat score via mail this past week. cogat score was 99 percentile. so the top 10% of the class is within the 99 perentile given I got no pool notification

Is this the correct inference though? In-pool is based on NNAT and CogAT. Could it be that NNAT is weighted more?

it is probably averaged and NNAT pulled down the average to 133.5. Most important is to parent refer

[Anonymous]

I'm just speculating, but I would posit that the scores aren't averaged and that the higher of the two is used for in pool calculation.

For example, the 2nd poster on this thread posted:
Cogat: 139
NNAT: 118
Pyramid: Falls Church
In Pool (yes/no): Yes

The average of the two would give 128.5 and that wouldn't seem high enough to be in pool. Again, I'm just speculating as I don't know what the local school norms are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Small schools like Vienna elementary have around 50 kids in second, so that would be top 5. Its not per class but per grade. I also think there can be multiple kids with the same score making the top 10% greater than actually 10% of the class.

Then there are large schools that have 200+ kids making the pool larger.

It still speaks to how skewed the FFX area is, if the majority of the top 10 percent of a grade are actually falling within top 2-3 percent or higher, nationally, such that a school cutoff just to be "in pool" is above the 97th (130) or 98th (133-134).

The CogAT national percentiles are based on kids who didn't prep. FCPS isn't that much more gifted than anywhere else. A lot of FCPS people prep, which boosts the scores enough to skew them. This actually happens in every major city with this type of gifted program. Suddenly, an overabundance of kids are in the national top 2% on whatever easily prepped standardized test is being used.

DC is a major metropolitan area and families move to Nova for their schools. We live in a high SES area and our school is filled with well educated parents from Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, UVA, etc. The offspring of these engineers, lawyers and doctors will also test well like their parents. MCPS, FCPS, LCPS, Arlington all have concentrations of well educated people. These are not the same as any normal area.

[Anonymous]

Cogat: 131
NNAT: 159
Pyramid: Robinson
In Pool (yes/no): yes