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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seattle private schools are increasingly hard to get into because of changes with not only SPS but also Eastside school districts.

My kids’ kindergarten class had ten applicants for one seat. [/quote]

Evergreen, UCDS, SCDS or Bush? [/quote]

Evergreen.  Interestingly all the private schools in Seattle are rather mediocre, with exception of Lakeside although I think it’s becoming more mediocre with the new HOS and his DEI focus.  All these schools take some of the smartest and affluent population of kids (some like SCDS and Evergreen with high IQ test cut offs) and don’t do much with them. These are kids whose parents went to Ivies and MIT and after 13 years of private school, a majority of them could barely muster UW.

Until the recent SPS changes to advanced learning, it was actually the public schools that had some of the most accelerated curriculum and that is still true on the Eastside. [/quote]

Part of this has to do with regression to the mean and the age when IQ tests are conducted. If both parents have an IQ of 120, the children on average will only have an IQ or 112. Cognitive test results are also not very stable until the preteen years. Once kids are in the 10-13 range IQ test results are tightly correlated with adult scores. However, a group of 5-6 year olds that test as gifted will include a lot of kids that turn out relatively average as a teenager or adult. [/quote]

Maybe.  Regression to the mean is probably less common with assortative mating like we have going on in Seattle where both working parents are working in same field requiring similar IQs.  In any case, it's disappointing seeing years of intensive private schooling catering to the "gifted students" like SCDS and Evergreen (cutoffs at 95-97th percentile, but they are largely accepting 99th percentile students) not contributing significantly much.  Something seems off.  Maybe these schools are actually counter-productive and inhibiting social skills and growth.  [/quote]

A lot of Evergreen and SCDS kids and families are what we would call "weird" when I was growing up. It's a small self-selecting group that is deliberately chasing a unique kind of school. I think it speaks to the many kinds of giftedness and where giftedness does and does not intersect with stereotypical definitions of success.

Most of the "intelligent" and successful people I know in Seattle do have inhibited social skills. They succeed in Seattle and its specific corporate landscape but they would and have flailed in many other cities. When we encounter really interesting, capable transplants here, I am always a little sad because I know they'll move back to wherever they came from in a few years.[/quote]

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