MoCo Highly Gfted?

[Anonymous]

Is there an IQ cutoff?

[Anonymous]

No cutoffs except for fixed head count.
From their literature and orientation meetings a potpourri of factors ("unweighted") go into the decision-making: including Grade 2 testing (Raven, Terra Nova, State exams) grades, teacher and parent evaluations, Grade 3 testing in January. MCPS representatives make it a point to state/claim no one parameter, rather the confluence, dominates or governs the final decision.

[Anonymous]

If you're a MCPS teacher, your kid gets in pretty much automatically. At least from what we've seen. It's a bit of a joke among friends.

[Anonymous]

thanks PPs. Does anybody have a ballpark?
Is it like the language immersion---10 applicants for every spot, and then random luck? Will 160+IQ assure you're in? Any chance for the 140's? Or is it everyone random above a certain threshold (excluding teachers kids!)?

[Anonymous]

It doesn't quite work that way. As a pp said, they look at the scores on the GT testing from second grade, at the scores on the SCAT done in third grade, at grades, at recommendations, at a writing sample done as part of the admissions testing in third grade. They create some kind of a rubric from all of these, and rank the kids for each center (meaning that the standards vary a bit from center to center).

My guesstimate would be, based on the kids I know who got in (some attended, some didn't) is that most of them would test in the 140's on a standard IQ test. But they wanted kids who did well in all of the parts of the assessment - I know some brilliant kids who didn't get in - they likely tested well but may have had lower recommendations or writing skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're a MCPS teacher, your kid gets in pretty much automatically. At least from what we've seen. It's a bit of a joke among friends.

Not so. My spouse is an MCPS teacher and our child did not get in. We appealed, and saw how he was right there in the median in terms of his test score, and how his third-grade teacher screwed him in her "recommendation" letter. She used to complaint to me how fidgety he was.

All these years later I still feel pissed off about it, but you know what? He's at Takoma Park's magnet program now (theoretically harder to get into than the highly gifted centers), so ~whatever~.

[Anonymous]

nothing like having DC's future at the whim of MCPS!

[Anonymous]

Can you apply to more than one or only to your local center?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you apply to more than one or only to your local center?

You apply to the program. If your child is admitted, s/he goes to the local center. So yes, you can only go to the local center.

[Anonymous]

does MCPS give standard IQ tests anymore?

I have no idea how to intepret the results MCPS sent me from the 2nd grade tests - the Raven and there was another test - does anyone know anything about how these scores equate to a the standard IQ measurement??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't quite work that way. As a pp said, they look at the scores on the GT testing from second grade, at the scores on the SCAT done in third grade, at grades, at recommendations, at a writing sample done as part of the admissions testing in third grade. They create some kind of a rubric from all of these, and rank the kids for each center (meaning that the standards vary a bit from center to center).

My guesstimate would be, based on the kids I know who got in (some attended, some didn't) is that most of them would test in the 140's on a standard IQ test. But they wanted kids who did well in all of the parts of the assessment - I know some brilliant kids who didn't get in - they likely tested well but may have had lower recommendations or writing skills.

How do you know it is the SCAT that they take in 3rd grade? At the 2nd grade global GT screening, the kids are given Raven and InView, but when our daughter took the test in 3rd grade to get into the HGC, the HGC admission/denial letter only came back with her scores and then information about the mean score of accepted students. There was no information about what test was used for the HGC admissions test and no information about how the scores translated into percentiles..... Can you provide more info on why you think/know it is the SCAT they take?

[Anonymous]

Do we know what kind of testing MC does for this program?? Does it have a name?

[Anonymous]

When my DS applied, which was six years ago, it was the SCAT. It's the same test as is used at that age for CTY programs, but a different level - I can't remember which was higher and which was lower. There was also a writing test - answering a prompt of some sort - that was homegrown.

[Anonymous]

Different poster than PP.... I was told by the then head of AEI several years ago that they used a higher level SCAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:does MCPS give standard IQ tests anymore?

I have no idea how to intepret the results MCPS sent me from the 2nd grade tests - the Raven and there was another test - does anyone know anything about how these scores equate to a the standard IQ measurement??

MCPS reports these without including information about percentiles, so they're basically impossible to interpret. If you troll around on the internet, you might be able to find some raven score/percentile reference from something else and make an extrapolation.

I did this and, if I remember correctly, the Raven cut-off was about the 90th percentile. This should correlate roughly to whatever the 90th percentile score is on an IQ test, because, more or less, most kids who score 90th percentile on a Raven would score similarly on an IQ.

My child is a 148 IQ. Child is top of the gifted class in reading. Child is in the "lower" section for math. All kids in the program are at least 1 if not 2 years ahead in math. All kids read above grade level as far as I can tell, and my impression is that there is a lot more quantity and complexity in the reading than in the regular program. Orientation mentioned that reader level was 6-8th grade level texts for 4/5 grade kids.