Anonymous wrote:From my understanding to get into the pool you have to have a certain NNAT or Fairfax CoGat score. I think this is wrong. There are so many other things that go into making a kid a great candidate for the AAP program. My son is in first grade and he scored a 126 on the NNAT, which is below the automatic pool. I asked his teacher last Friday what her opinion of my son was and she said that he is the type of kid that needs the AAP center and that he would have an extremely high GBRS. I can list several things that my child does outside of school that leads me to have the same opinion as his teacher. So if he doesn't score high enough on the FFX test next year you better believe I am going to have his teacher refer him. I'll have his teacher do the referral because she cannot provide a letter of recommendation because she is a FFX county employee. So this is the only place she can offer her input.
A 126 is a good score and is close enough to the automatic pool that many parents would go ahead and do the referral.
Your child's first grade teacher's comments can be included on the second grade GBRS. My child's school automatically asked for input from the K and first grade teachers, along with the second grade teacher. If your school does not, you could ask the teacher to provide her input at the time they do the GBRS.
If you are capable of doing it, the school is likely to prefer a parent referral.