Reply to cutoff scores for Fairfax County GT centers for this year?

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[quote=Anonymous]Is this the beginning of the perennial AAP flame war? It got pretty nasty last January?

[quote]Anonymous wrote:Truly curious, whats the big deal that a kid "makes it into a GT pool" other than for the parents to brag about how all 4 kids are doing well in AAP blah blah. on internet boards. It all seems just prepping to score high and slogging from a young age in the rat race to prove some obscure point. What will all these geniuses end up doing or are we really dumbing up with coached 99th percentile "abilities" and competitive, prescriptive learning?

FWIW, got my older kid's 1st grade NNAT2 which is 2 SDs over mean, so not really a case of sour grapes...[/quote]

This quote falls under the general category of, "Why are you all pushing your kids to try to be geniuses?  Is it so that you can brag about them when they should just be kids? Oh, by the way my kid is a TRUE genius!" thread. There are at a dozen or so such comments back in this thread if you wish to take the time to go back and unwind it.

Umm, I'll take a crack at why folks might want their children in the program although it seems pretty obvious to me. The AAP program is an accelerated program for about the top 12% of students. Note that we talking about the top 12 % of students not the top 1 or 2 or even 5 %.  The learning is accelerated a bit but not so much that anyone who is not on the MIT fast track is going to have to struggle to keep up with program without going all Amy Chua, "Tiger Mother" crack the wip study 24/7.  Any reasonably bright kid in the program who can deal with the crushing burden of oh about ½ an hour of homework a day is going to do fine.

At the center your child is going to meet a culturally diverse group of kids including the small minority of super geniuses types who are on the fast track to MIT.  This is a good thing.  Having very smart and creative friends has enriched my life immensely.

In later grades when bullying can be problem there will be less of that as the budding high school drop outs and JDs are probably not going to be in AAP.  At the centers you have an active PTA and interesting school activities.  I'd eat my left shoe if they had a chess club in my elementary school or if there was even anyone who know how to play (and yes some of the students do enjoy playing chess).

I can come up with dozen other reasons why parent might want their kids to get in AAP but please just keep harping on the parent self esteem thing and bragging rights. If done with finesse you can probably add another 10 or so pages to this thread….
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