Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the answer OP is FCPS AAP. But if you have a choice, one of the “good” ES Centers that feeds into Carson, Rocky Run or Longfellow, which are the TJ feeder MSs. Because that is where parents of very smart kids who care a lot about academics send their kids. So your DC is more likely to find kids who have the same interests and are his academic peers, and to find good extracurricular FLL, OOTM, Science Olympiad, etc teams, coding clubs etc.

PP, this is OP. Thanks for this very helpful info. Can you share which "good" ES Centers feed into Carson, Rocky Run, or Longfellow?

Carson will be Oak Hill, Hunters Woods and Navy. Also probably McNair.

RRMS, I know Greenbriar West and Mosby Woods are very strong. There are other Centers I don’t know about.

Longfellow, definately Hancock. Someone with experience should weigh in on the others.

Fox Mill feeds into Carson and has Japanese Immersion. I would think that a foreign language that is very different then the romance language would be an interesting challenge for a very bright child.

I am always a bit surprised when parents don't point out the benefits of the language immersion programs in FCPS for kids that are bright. They provide a totally different type of challenge that can help prevent a kid from being bored for the first few years of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the upshot seems to be that AAP will not meet the needs of a child with a IQ over 150?

We have a child like that, and were told by two different child psychologists in the area that none of the local schools, public or private, would truly meet his needs or give him a meaningful number of academic peers. We decided to stay with APS and while he’s often bored, overall he’s happy.

Ouch. That’s pretty awful, if true. So the psychologists were not impressed with schools like Nysmith or Feynman?

Did they offer any other options other than, “Your kid is doomed?” Being a bit facetious here, but your post is discouraging.

How old is your child now and how long has he been bored?

Our child is going into fifth, boredom has been an issue since kindergarten. He's not bored all day long because a lot of the work they do is kind of what you make of it - there's enough creative room for him to extend himself. But when the class is on day three of multi-digit multiplication and he taught himself that two years ago, yeah, he's going to get bored. Like I said, though, overall he's happy. He finds things that engage him, he has a lot of friends, so we're good with it. He also does a lot at home to engage himself.

We were told that if we wanted to truly find a peer group that would challenge him, we should look at boarding schools that truly were for gifted students. That's a non-starter for us, at least at this age.

Where is your child doing 3 digit multiplication in 5th grade?

[Anonymous]

If she’s the one (above question) whose kid is in 5th grade aap, they are learning 6th grade math. Here is the program of studies: https://insys.fcps.edu/PublicPOS/#/reportPanel/6/0

They do not learn 3 digit multiplication. You’re way off.

[Anonymous]

Op I haven’t read the whole thread. 150 Wisc is very highly gifted. My SIL is Wisc 140. She went to Holton Arms then Brown.
My DS not that high but went to AAP FCPS. It was pretty easy for him. Then he went to TJ. That was fine but you never know about TJ admits.
My other DS did not make TJ (not the type) and did private. This private not that hard; graduated top 10%. Private was really a better experience although TJ might be a better fit.

[Anonymous]

DS in AAP said I finish all my work on Monday and the rest of the week just sit there. I would not recommend AAP if you can afford private.

[Anonymous]

OP this is the public school is best forum. The AAP program does not even begin to compare with a top private. But you won’t here that on this forum. My DS and 3 others went from private to TJ. We couldn’t afford any more private or we would have stayed. WISC 140.

[Anonymous]

Which privates are you talking about that are so great?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We pulled DS from AAP to Nysmith. His AAP classmates are heavily invested in outside tutoring and prep centers while I do not believe in tutoring to get ahead of the class. As a result his classmates are placed at more advanced math group and he felt bad for himself and asked me if he is stupid despite his really high IQ. I know continuing at AAP will mean that I either need to follow the crowd and look for tutoring for him or I just let him faltered. Smaller class size in Nysmith suits him better and what he is learning is ahead of what he was in AAP. So for us it is a good fit.

How strange. My son is going into 5th grade in an AAP class and I don't know any of his friends who go to "tutoring and prep centers".

Then you my friend are living under a rock. Every Asian/Indian kid in these TJ feeder middle schools goes to every possible prep class for Math, Science, Writing as well as TJ Prep. Apart from being enrolled in every possible activity - music, art, sports, and what not

[Anonymous]

I wish FCPS had a gifted program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish FCPS had a gifted program.

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS in AAP said I finish all my work on Monday and the rest of the week just sit there. I would not recommend AAP if you can afford private.

DS is in 6th grade AAP, and that is true last year when he was in 5th grade which had very little homework but much more project based. He never brought homework the entire years because the teacher allowed him to finish homework at school. But this year is much diferent: he has homework everyday, at leat two pages of math homework(Pre-algebra level). So my point is AAP is different from teacher to teacher, from grade to grade and from school to school. While AAP curicullum generally focuses on certain depth of the topics and encourages student to think and work independently, each teacher and school is allowed to create their own enrichment approach for their class. I believe that is a major different between AAP and private school for gifted children. The bottom line is not all gifted chidlren are equal, nor are the AAP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS in AAP said I finish all my work on Monday and the rest of the week just sit there. I would not recommend AAP if you can afford private.

DS is in 6th grade AAP, and that is true last year when he was in 5th grade which had very little homework but much more project based. He never brought homework the entire years because the teacher allowed him to finish homework at school. But this year is much diferent: he has homework everyday, at leat two pages of math homework(Pre-algebra level). So my point is AAP is different from teacher to teacher, from grade to grade and from school to school. While AAP curicullum generally focuses on certain depth of the topics and encourages student to think and work independently, each teacher and school is allowed to create their own enrichment approach for their class. I believe that is a major different between AAP and private school for gifted children. The bottom line is not all gifted chidlren are equal, nor are the AAP classes.

This was the story year after year. Maybe our center wasn’t good. It certainly rated itself well. The Nysmith students did better if academics was the measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We pulled DS from AAP to Nysmith. His AAP classmates are heavily invested in outside tutoring and prep centers while I do not believe in tutoring to get ahead of the class. As a result his classmates are placed at more advanced math group and he felt bad for himself and asked me if he is stupid despite his really high IQ. I know continuing at AAP will mean that I either need to follow the crowd and look for tutoring for him or I just let him faltered. Smaller class size in Nysmith suits him better and what he is learning is ahead of what he was in AAP. So for us it is a good fit.

How strange. My son is going into 5th grade in an AAP class and I don't know any of his friends who go to "tutoring and prep centers".

Then you my friend are living under a rock. Every Asian/Indian kid in these TJ feeder middle schools goes to every possible prep class for Math, Science, Writing as well as TJ Prep. Apart from being enrolled in every possible activity - music, art, sports, and what not

Just - wow. You know a lot about every kid, don’t you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We pulled DS from AAP to Nysmith. His AAP classmates are heavily invested in outside tutoring and prep centers while I do not believe in tutoring to get ahead of the class. As a result his classmates are placed at more advanced math group and he felt bad for himself and asked me if he is stupid despite his really high IQ. I know continuing at AAP will mean that I either need to follow the crowd and look for tutoring for him or I just let him faltered. Smaller class size in Nysmith suits him better and what he is learning is ahead of what he was in AAP. So for us it is a good fit.

How strange. My son is going into 5th grade in an AAP class and I don't know any of his friends who go to "tutoring and prep centers".

Then you my friend are living under a rock. Every Asian/Indian kid in these TJ feeder middle schools goes to every possible prep class for Math, Science, Writing as well as TJ Prep. Apart from being enrolled in every possible activity - music, art, sports, and what not

5th grade is not middle school in FCPS. You really have your finger on the pulse of what’s what.

[Anonymous]

Nysmith's curriculum is by far superior to AAP.