HGC pros and negatives?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
For those parents of kids at HGCs, what are the major negatives of the program for your child? Is it the long bus ride and the loss of neighborhood social connections? How much impact does losing or a reduction in the closeness of the neighborhood/home school peers effect your child? Do the pros of the rigorous HGC curriculum and new peer group outweigh the negatives? Just trying to weigh these factors, if my child ends up being a candidate for the HGC

[Anonymous]

you don't need to worry about this until maybe March or April next year.

[Anonymous]

Apply and make the decision only if you have one to make..

[Anonymous]

I agree that you should apply if you think your child has any interest.

FWIW, my child enjoyed the bus ride, though arriving home later did make it more difficult to do extracurriculars during the week. We kept in touch with neighborhood friends and the kids were able to reconnect in middle school. Overall, our HGC was wonderful and my child thrived with the challenge.

[Anonymous]

I would recommend that you apply and then decide. When we first applied, we were pretty sure that we would not be accepting. But after the open house, DD wanted to try it. So we did end up going. She loves it. I was really worried about her friends from her home school but we make an effort to do playdates and also almost all her activities are with friends from her old school. This will be her last year. We definitely plan to go to our home middle school.

However, the caveat is that the HGC school is only 1 more mile from our house. So we end up dropping her off and picking her up. So there isn't much difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would recommend that you apply and then decide. When we first applied, we were pretty sure that we would not be accepting. But after the open house, DD wanted to try it. So we did end up going. She loves it. I was really worried about her friends from her home school but we make an effort to do playdates and also almost all her activities are with friends from her old school. This will be her last year. We definitely plan to go to our home middle school.

However, the caveat is that the HGC school is only 1 more mile from our house. So we end up dropping her off and picking her up. So there isn't much difference.

+1 for my DC, too, except DC's bus ride was about 40min or so, and DC ended up not socializing much with kids from neighborhood ES while at HGC. DC is now in 6th and didn't want to try for MS magnet because of the long commute, which I agreed with.

Having some of DC's HGC friends at the neighborhood MS has helped with the MS transition.

I didn't enjoy the haul over to the HGC school whenever they had some event going on over there. It mostly occurs during the evening, and trying to fit dinner in, fight the commute, and haul my younger DC with us in the evening was not fun.

Still, DC really enjoyed it and is encouraging #2 to apply.

[Anonymous]

I agree with all the PPs who have said apply if it is even on the radar screen and then figure it out. We ended up having quite a significant number of kids going from home school, and that made the transition a lot easier.

The logistics are a hassle for us. But this is the first time ever that my child has not been complaining about boredom at school. I also feel like this is the first time the teacher is able to see my kid shine. Worth it for us. There were a couple of kids at home school who passed on the offer because of logistics, friends, etc., and I do feel like they are missing out on something good. It's not the end of the world, but my kid's school life is better because of the program.

Please note that the math is the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would recommend that you apply and then decide. When we first applied, we were pretty sure that we would not be accepting. But after the open house, DD wanted to try it. So we did end up going. She loves it. I was really worried about her friends from her home school but we make an effort to do playdates and also almost all her activities are with friends from her old school. This will be her last year. We definitely plan to go to our home middle school.

However, the caveat is that the HGC school is only 1 more mile from our house. So we end up dropping her off and picking her up. So there isn't much difference.

+1

No downside of any kind for our DC. Only positives.

[Anonymous]

Anyone know what the typical academic profile is for HGC? Does reading proficiency need to be two grade levels above? Do you need half ES grades or all ES grades?

Just curious because I have a second grader that gets all Ps and is one grade level above in reading. I am assuming that this is probably not good enough.

[Anonymous]

There are kids at the HGCs with all Ps, even the occasional I. The criteria may be changing but according to the old criteria the test mattered the most. Many teachers or schools just don't give ESes or they only give them for certain goals for certain subjects.

[Anonymous]

One year is fine. Some schools cap reading levels at one year ahead. Ours does so every top applicant to the HGCs every year (in recent memory) would show up as being exactly one year above grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone know what the typical academic profile is for HGC? Does reading proficiency need to be two grade levels above? Do you need half ES grades or all ES grades?

Just curious because I have a second grader that gets all Ps and is one grade level above in reading. I am assuming that this is probably not good enough.

Probably not enough. I think the performance on MAP tests is a better indicator though. And whether your DC is in all the top groups and among the very best performers in class.

[Anonymous]

I think that at every school every year there are kids that get in that are not among the "very best performers in class." MAP testing is helpful but it's achievement oriented so some kids that are off the charts in cognitive testing may not look so great on MAP tests. The HGCs use a cognitive reasoning test as the main criteria. Grades, teacher recs also count but in our experience less so. It's different for MS and HS magnets where these other achievement criteria will really be the main thing they are looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that at every school every year there are kids that get in that are not among the "very best performers in class." MAP testing is helpful but it's achievement oriented so some kids that are off the charts in cognitive testing may not look so great on MAP tests. The HGCs use a cognitive reasoning test as the main criteria. Grades, teacher recs also count but in our experience less so. It's different for MS and HS magnets where these other achievement criteria will really be the main thing they are looking for.

Can you help me understand why MAP testing is achievement oriented as opposed to cognitive oriented? I am thinking specifically of MAP-Reading.

[Anonymous]

So, MAP testing is achievement oriented because it tests things that can be learned directly in an academic environment. In the context of MAP-R that's stuff like reading comprehension and inferences from the text. These are topics on which children receive direct instruction in school.

The HGC test isn't purely cognitive, BTW. There are "pure reasoning" aspects of analogies, for example, but the outcome can very much be influenced by vocabulary acquisition/instruction.