Reply to Best way to prep for the IAAT?

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "Best way to prep for the IAAT?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm glad I gave everyone the opportunity to pontificate and moralize about what I should be doing. You should thank me for giving you such great satisfaction![/quote]

Look. You need to get a grip.  You sound hysterical. About a screener.  That is months away.  On the second week of summer.  I live in the land of TJ crazy.  Put two kids through AAP and a big TJ feeder. Have one at TJ now. And forget the fact a kid who can’t pass an aptitude test at a 91%, nationally normed, will never survive Math 4/5 at TJ.  That kid is going to flounder in Algebra I honors in 7th in a strong middle school.  Math teachers and parents who have BTDT aren’t telling you not to prep because there is some conspiracy to keep your kid out of Algebra. They are telling you because they have seen what happens again and again and again.  Everyone thinks their kid is the special exception. They are not.  And BTW—getting into TJ is not enough. They end up losing about 40-50 kids per class who can’t hack it or who or so miserable they leave.   You do not want to send a kid there who can’t succeed.  It will crush them and you.

Case in point. My kids.  Kid 1.  Very strong in science, with a deep passion for building rockets from age 7.  Loves math. Super driven and hard working. TJ dream candidate. Hit 99% on the IIAT. Missed the SOL cut off by a question. Was a finalist to TJ without geometry.  Was not admitted.  Was crushed— because they have a planetarium mom!  And Cubesat!  Went to her base school, did very, very well well.  Now at a top engineering school studying aerospace engineering.  Doing very well.

Kid2. Hit 99% on the IIAT 2. SOL just above the cutoff. Algebra I in 7th.  Well rounded, good in everything. Liked STEM fine.  No particular STEM passion.  Didn’t pretend he had one. But brilliant/ quirky.  Admitted to TJ.  Which has managed to absolutely kill any love of math he had, because the math department is terrible.  Loves the school.  Loves the kids. Loves some areas of science and tech. Thrive among all the other nerds.  Applying to liberal arts colleges and says he is heading towards a PhD in an environmental science field.  I will not be shocked if he changes his mind and ends up in the humanities though.  Which, BTW, TJ does a great job teaching.

Point is, you can’t change who your kid is. You can help them be the best version of themselves. But trying to fake aptitude doesn’t work.  If your kids aptitude and passion is STEM, they will get there and if it isn’t, you can only force it for so long. Maybe you can force a kid into algebra without the aptitude. Getting them to succeed once they get there is a problem.  And the more you push them to accelerate, the worse it gets.   No one is forcing my TJ kid to be there. I have at various points told him we might all be happier if he wan’t.  But he thrives. Right school for him. But he stays for the peers and the science and tech in his area and despite the math.

I am saying this because there was a suicide at TJ this year in the freshman class. And several suicidal kids dropped out.  Mental health is a huge problem. You need to take a beat. Because you sound crazy.  And that hurts your kid.  You do not want your kid to be the suicidal kid on TJ Vents talking about how much he hates his parents for ruining his childhood.

In fact, read the TJ Vents FB page. It’s public. And enlightening.

And if you don’t want editorializing, don’t start threads on DCUM. We editorialize here.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics