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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think one piece of the admissions puzzle everyone is missing here is the fact that the committee wants to see how/why your child "Needs" to be in AAP.  My understanding is many parents write narratives that only talk about how great their kid is.  They want to know why you child will not do as well if they stay in general education.  Perhaps some of the children with lower test scores have parents who wrote referrals clearly explaining this -- with concrete examples. It's not just all about high performance, it's also about justifying *why* your kid needs AAP to succeed. [/quote]

I agree 100%. People seem to view the application as something that will be viewed objectively, rather than as something that a person with human feelings will read and be persuaded one way or the other by intangibles in the application.  The whole thing is ridiculous, because acceptance is more about whether the parent knows how to present his/her child well and less about the child's actual merits.  When I first applied for my oldest, I made the mistake of thinking that it was mostly about the scores, so I presented my child as a smart, good student rather than presenting her as a child who "needs AAP."  She was rejected with a 97th percentile CogAT, 15 GBRS, and LII in math and language arts since K.

When I had to appeal for my DD, the AART gave me a lot of advice on what to include and what not to include in the letter.  These were things like DON'T: Try to prove that your kid is smart, suggest your kid is bored in regular classes, suggest that the AAP committee or your child's teachers made a mistake, criticize anything about the process, compare your child to anyone else who got in.  DO: Give concrete examples of how your child is being held back or denied opportunities in gen ed that your child needs, Give specific examples of why your child would thrive in AAP.  My kid got in on appeals, so the advice must have been decent.

I'm betting that a decent number of the mystery rejections are from parents who are doing things on the "Don't do" list.  The AART seemed to suggest that saying your kid is bored in school, coming across as arrogant or presumptive, or in any way criticizing your kid's teachers or the AAP process would irritate the reviewers and lead to almost certain rejection.  [/quote]

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