Are there ways to get kids ready for a WISC? Not "prep" but more just to make sure they don't do poorly bc they have never been exposed to such questions? Is it much like the CogAT?

There is enough time to take the WISC after the results come out. Do not take it unless you need to appeal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Also, I just checked and also see that the window between decisions and appeals is small indeed, so trying to do a WISC in that interval and get a score would probably not work.

We did a WISC and it was pretty quick to schedule - about a week - and then they turned the report around in about 5 business days, though they give themselves up to two weeks. They do a lot of testing for FCPS so they are aware of the timelines and will work with you. FWIW the CoGAT was only one point less than the WISC so i wasn't a huge difference. The benefit of the WISC is that it is very comprehensive and gave us some info about her strengths and relative weaknesses that I would not have otherwise been aware of. She enjoyed doing it too - it's 1:1 attention with a young adult, 8 year olds are the thrilled by that haha!

The other benefit of the WISC is that if the score isn't great you don't have to include it in the appeal. The WISC also includes a nice report that will provide additional insight to the AAP committee about your child.

Agreed that the timeframe is completely doable. GMU expects to be super busy with new appointments right after AAP decisions come out. If you call them within a day or two of the AAP decision then they should work you in and will get you results before the appeal is due.

Great to know, thank you!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Also, I just checked and also see that the window between decisions and appeals is small indeed, so trying to do a WISC in that interval and get a score would probably not work.

We did a WISC and it was pretty quick to schedule - about a week - and then they turned the report around in about 5 business days, though they give themselves up to two weeks. They do a lot of testing for FCPS so they are aware of the timelines and will work with you. FWIW the CoGAT was only one point less than the WISC so i wasn't a huge difference. The benefit of the WISC is that it is very comprehensive and gave us some info about her strengths and relative weaknesses that I would not have otherwise been aware of. She enjoyed doing it too - it's 1:1 attention with a young adult, 8 year olds are the thrilled by that haha!

Thanks, this is a good perspective! Maybe I will do this then if DC doesn't get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Also, I just checked and also see that the window between decisions and appeals is small indeed, so trying to do a WISC in that interval and get a score would probably not work.

We did a WISC and it was pretty quick to schedule - about a week - and then they turned the report around in about 5 business days, though they give themselves up to two weeks. They do a lot of testing for FCPS so they are aware of the timelines and will work with you. FWIW the CoGAT was only one point less than the WISC so i wasn't a huge difference. The benefit of the WISC is that it is very comprehensive and gave us some info about her strengths and relative weaknesses that I would not have otherwise been aware of. She enjoyed doing it too - it's 1:1 attention with a young adult, 8 year olds are the thrilled by that haha!

The other benefit of the WISC is that if the score isn't great you don't have to include it in the appeal. The WISC also includes a nice report that will provide additional insight to the AAP committee about your child.

Agreed that the timeframe is completely doable. GMU expects to be super busy with new appointments right after AAP decisions come out. If you call them within a day or two of the AAP decision then they should work you in and will get you results before the appeal is due.

Anonymous wrote:^^Also, I just checked and also see that the window between decisions and appeals is small indeed, so trying to do a WISC in that interval and get a score would probably not work.

We did a WISC and it was pretty quick to schedule - about a week - and then they turned the report around in about 5 business days, though they give themselves up to two weeks. They do a lot of testing for FCPS so they are aware of the timelines and will work with you. FWIW the CoGAT was only one point less than the WISC so i wasn't a huge difference. The benefit of the WISC is that it is very comprehensive and gave us some info about her strengths and relative weaknesses that I would not have otherwise been aware of. She enjoyed doing it too - it's 1:1 attention with a young adult, 8 year olds are the thrilled by that haha!

^^Also, I just checked and also see that the window between decisions and appeals is small indeed, so trying to do a WISC in that interval and get a score would probably not work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

They won't give you a retake of the same test in such a short period of time. Your best bet is to do a WISC at Mason but it costs 400 bucks. I would see if they get in and get and use the WISC for appeal if needed. What was the NNAT?

My understanding is that one retake is permitted. When DC did the CogAT under poor testing conditions, I contacted the school and they were willing to allow a full retake but told me I could also wait and see and then decide whether to use the one time retake for that test or NNAT (or not at all). At that time they said they needed to know right away in order to make arrangements.

I would rather avoid having DC do the WISC if I can, at least for now.

NNAT was 124.

Would it make more sense to retake NNAT or CogAT?

I am almost certain you can't retake one of these tests within a year. The results of the battery itself are invalidating by doing so. It's not an FCPS policy but rather a characteristic of the test. The retake would be, retake it a year from now, so it would not help you on the appeal.

Ok, thank you. That is good to know. DC is bright and advanced but not (in my estimation) gifted. I don't know that the WISC would help unless it was off the charts. I could try but I also don't want to put DC in too many testing situations. I might just wait and see what the outcome is of the parent referral. I could try to submit better work samples at that time or opt to do the WISC...

Do you know what the timeframe is for getting WISC results?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

They won't give you a retake of the same test in such a short period of time. Your best bet is to do a WISC at Mason but it costs 400 bucks. I would see if they get in and get and use the WISC for appeal if needed. What was the NNAT?

My understanding is that one retake is permitted. When DC did the CogAT under poor testing conditions, I contacted the school and they were willing to allow a full retake but told me I could also wait and see and then decide whether to use the one time retake for that test or NNAT (or not at all). At that time they said they needed to know right away in order to make arrangements.

I would rather avoid having DC do the WISC if I can, at least for now.

NNAT was 124.

Would it make more sense to retake NNAT or CogAT?

I am almost certain you can't retake one of these tests within a year. The results of the battery itself are invalidating by doing so. It's not an FCPS policy but rather a characteristic of the test. The retake would be, retake it a year from now, so it would not help you on the appeal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

They won't give you a retake of the same test in such a short period of time. Your best bet is to do a WISC at Mason but it costs 400 bucks. I would see if they get in and get and use the WISC for appeal if needed. What was the NNAT?

My understanding is that one retake is permitted. When DC did the CogAT under poor testing conditions, I contacted the school and they were willing to allow a full retake but told me I could also wait and see and then decide whether to use the one time retake for that test or NNAT (or not at all). At that time they said they needed to know right away in order to make arrangements.

I would rather avoid having DC do the WISC if I can, at least for now.

NNAT was 124.

Would it make more sense to retake NNAT or CogAT?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

They won't give you a retake of the same test in such a short period of time. Your best bet is to do a WISC at Mason but it costs 400 bucks. I would see if they get in and get and use the WISC for appeal if needed. What was the NNAT?

+1. My similar profile child (VQN was 135 and scores were clustered pretty close together but all below the VQN) got in last year coming from a mid-SES center. Was not in pool and while the teacher mentioned child was very academically engaged I didn't get the sense she was going to give her a strong HOPE. That said, we had a strong parent packet.

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

They won't give you a retake of the same test in such a short period of time. Your best bet is to do a WISC at Mason but it costs 400 bucks. I would see if they get in and get and use the WISC for appeal if needed. What was the NNAT?

My child was not in pool but got a VQN of 132. Weakest was verbal with 121. I was not expecting a top score because there were some things that happened that made the testing situation less than ideal. But I'm curious if others think it's worth asking for a retake? NNAT was 124. The school is a center school, moderate SES.

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone from GBW get in? We haven’t received any “in-pool” email yet but our AART teacher has been OOO since November. Not sure if that has anything to do with lack of notification or did my child simply not make it.

The email was sent out several weeks ago by the central office from an email aap@fcps.edu. Your school AART had nothing to do with the in pool notification.

When school is back in session, AART along with teachers will put together your child’s packet if you parent referred along with the students were in pool via being top 10% of your school by test scores.

Anonymous wrote:Question from someone less familiar with this process and the CoGAT... my DD will be coming from another district to FCPS next year. She is currently in GT where we are based on her CoGAT... which was a 123, but says 94th percentile. But this was a CogAT from 2017. Is it fair to compare her scores to those being shared here or is it different year to year? Trying to gauge what chance we have of getting her into AAP when we move! THANK you!

I have read online, so we all know that this infomration is correct, that many school districts use scores in the 90th or 95th percentile to set their GT programs. The program in this area would be huge if that was the case. There is a higher then average number of people with advanced degrees, which tends to mean parents with higher then average intelligence and a strong interest in their child doing well in school. The in-pool threshold for most of the ES in FCPS is in the 99th percentile. My kids ES was one where most of the parents did not move their kids to the base and our in-pool score is in the 132 range. The scores at schools were parents are very interested in kids getting into AAP have in-pool scores in the 140. The only schools that fall below that are the Title 1 schools, so high FARMs, those schools seem to have test score numbers closer to your child's score.

I believe that FCPS looks at what program your child was in before the move and takes that into condiseration. I have no idea if they will see the old CoGAT score. I know people who moved into the area whose kids had to take the CoGAT at the beginning of the year and were placed in the AAP class after the scores were released.