Spin-off: test prep for CES?

[Anonymous]

On the main CES acceptance letter thread, there is mention of kids undergoing prep courses for the Cogat. Is this really s thing? If your kid was accepted into CES, did they take a prep course or other study in an attempt to score well
on the cogat?

My son was accepted with MCPS 95%, National 99%. No test prep.

[Anonymous]

94%\98% no test prep.

[Anonymous]

I know a family that enrolled their kid in Saturday school with the goal of getting them into CES. Not sure if this counts as test prep, but people definitely push their kids to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a family that enrolled their kid in Saturday school with the goal of getting them into CES. Not sure if this counts as test prep, but people definitely push their kids to get in.

I volunteer with reading once a week and there is a kid in my kids 1st grade class who is a neighbor who goes to Saturday classes, not sure of the benefit because his reading and writing is worse than my DD's and she is almost a year younger than he is.

[Anonymous]

Travel with your child, read to them when they are young, minimize TV, visit museums, talk over dinner, cook together, practice math facts, be educated yourself, affluent enough to send them to enriching summer camps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a family that enrolled their kid in Saturday school with the goal of getting them into CES. Not sure if this counts as test prep, but people definitely push their kids to get in.

I volunteer with reading once a week and there is a kid in my kids 1st grade class who is a neighbor who goes to Saturday classes, not sure of the benefit because his reading and writing is worse than my DD's and she is almost a year younger than he is.

He might be going for extra support!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel with your child, read to them when they are young, minimize TV, visit museums, talk over dinner, cook together, practice math facts, be educated yourself, affluent enough to send them to enriching summer camps.

99%/99% with no test prep but most/all of these things.

[Anonymous]

The point of using the CogAT was to help reduce the impact of prep at least that was the belief when they did this.

[Anonymous]

Admitted last year. No test prep. My kid does do an out of school math class, but that’s because of her interest in it and the fact that ES math was super boring for her. Now that she’s at CES and her school math class is interesting she is ready to drop the outside math class and we are not re-enrolling for next year.

[Anonymous]

No test prep. I didn’t even know what Cogat was until a few days ago. I may get kicked out of here after admitting that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The point of using the CogAT was to help reduce the impact of prep at least that was the belief when they did this.

meant to write CogAT screener

[Anonymous]

Creative play is another great ‘prep’ tool. Lots of problem solving involved. Learning and instrument as well. Helps with pattern recognition and non tangible quant skills

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the main CES acceptance letter thread, there is mention of kids undergoing prep courses for the Cogat. Is this really s thing? If your kid was accepted into CES, did they take a prep course or other study in an attempt to score well
on the cogat?

My son was accepted with MCPS 95%, National 99%. No test prep.

Accepted, no test prep, and it's not really a thing. There's a lot of racism and misunderstanding on this board from insecure parents looking to blame something or someone for their child not getting in. The afternoon or Saturday classes are enrichment so they will do extra math and extra writing packets just like many many parents do at home. And believe me I know a ton of parents who roll their eyes at these Chinese programs but they have books upon books at home and even demand that teachers let their kids do enrichment workbooks at school because their kids are so "bored." There is not much difference in these two approaches, except many of the parents who sent their kids to these after school programs are first-generation immigrants and may not have the same background to be able to do the enrichment at home.

Some of these providers do give a limited amount of standardized testing overview like how to guess on questions that are multiple choice, but you cannot prep for an IQ test which is what Cogat is. You can familiarize yourself with the format of the questions but that's about it. My child said that when they took the Cogat screener test a large number of kids -- all white kids, FWIW -- came out saying they were surprised it was only however many sections it was instead of having more sections and why weren't those sections included. Obviously they had done some test "prep" at home but their parents would never call it that.

[Anonymous]

Agree - Enrichment could be done at home as well. Not sure if it counts as test prep vs. enrichment. We do 'enrichment' for reading, writing, and math. We make sure that daughter (who got in) loves reading, and that she knows that she needs to improve from her school writing assignments. We never sent her to after/weekend school for test prep. I do know many parents around choose to do it that way because they have to work or don't know how to help their kids. One got waitlist (CS), and not sure about others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the main CES acceptance letter thread, there is mention of kids undergoing prep courses for the Cogat. Is this really s thing? If your kid was accepted into CES, did they take a prep course or other study in an attempt to score well
on the cogat?

My son was accepted with MCPS 95%, National 99%. No test prep.

Accepted, no test prep, and it's not really a thing. There's a lot of racism and misunderstanding on this board from insecure parents looking to blame something or someone for their child not getting in. The afternoon or Saturday classes are enrichment so they will do extra math and extra writing packets just like many many parents do at home. And believe me I know a ton of parents who roll their eyes at these Chinese programs but they have books upon books at home and even demand that teachers let their kids do enrichment workbooks at school because their kids are so "bored." There is not much difference in these two approaches, except many of the parents who sent their kids to these after school programs are first-generation immigrants and may not have the same background to be able to do the enrichment at home.

Some of these providers do give a limited amount of standardized testing overview like how to guess on questions that are multiple choice, but you cannot prep for an IQ test which is what Cogat is. You can familiarize yourself with the format of the questions but that's about it. My child said that when they took the Cogat screener test a large number of kids -- all white kids, FWIW -- came out saying they were surprised it was only however many sections it was instead of having more sections and why weren't those sections included. Obviously they had done some test "prep" at home but their parents would never call it that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On the main CES acceptance letter thread, there is mention of kids undergoing prep courses for the Cogat. Is this really s thing? If your kid was accepted into CES, did they take a prep course or other study in an attempt to score well
on the cogat?

My son was accepted with MCPS 95%, National 99%. No test prep.

Accepted, no test prep, and it's not really a thing. There's a lot of racism and misunderstanding on this board from insecure parents looking to blame something or someone for their child not getting in. The afternoon or Saturday classes are enrichment so they will do extra math and extra writing packets just like many many parents do at home. And believe me I know a ton of parents who roll their eyes at these Chinese programs but they have books upon books at home and even demand that teachers let their kids do enrichment workbooks at school because their kids are so "bored." There is not much difference in these two approaches, except many of the parents who sent their kids to these after school programs are first-generation immigrants and may not have the same background to be able to do the enrichment at home.

Some of these providers do give a limited amount of standardized testing overview like how to guess on questions that are multiple choice, but you cannot prep for an IQ test which is what Cogat is. You can familiarize yourself with the format of the questions but that's about it. My child said that when they took the Cogat screener test a large number of kids -- all white kids, FWIW -- came out saying they were surprised it was only however many sections it was instead of having more sections and why weren't those sections included. Obviously they had done some test "prep" at home but their parents would never call it that.

We didn't prep and kid is currently in 5th grade at CES. At a school event earlier in the school year I was actually approached by a parent of another CES student who asked, point-blank, which programs we were using to prep for the middle school test. Not if, but which ones (plural). I was dumbfounded. I just shook my head and replied 'a good nights sleep and a big breakfast'. Ironically, that child was not accepted into a middle school magnet.