The confusion here stems from the fact that CTY has different academic standards for kids who score differently. Plus there are activities for students who participate (but do not necessarily score highly) in their talent search.

CTY was the best thing that ever happened to my kid. So much so, that she is applying to TA for next summer. If you don't want to send your kid that is fine, but my kid is still kissing my feet in gratitude for the opportunity I gave her. She is wrapping up her first internship at a scientific software company and was hired by a guy who was a CTY instructor. He said he created the job for her after getting her application through a campus career fair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not to sound snarky but the CTY is looking for 99% and in some cases 99.9%'s.

You can still be in that category with a learning disability?

It seems unlikely unless very skewed in one direction.

My kids are of average intelligence and would get skewered in these classes.

Not to sound snarky, but many true geniuses have LDs. Did you ever hear the one about the absent minded professor? Now we know that is ADD or autism or Aspergers or...

Yep. I got the 90s equivalent of 2400 on my SATs and I have pretty bad ADHD (though that's not technically a "learning" disorder). I was also selected for CTY (got 1250/1600 as a 12 year old) but chose not to go.

We were invited to the awards ceremony. The invite email was incoherent so we skipped it.

My son goes to an ok public school and took the CTY test. Scored above the cutoff in both Math and English. He never did any prep for this. We were very proud that he did so well, but then we checked the catalog and each class was very expensive and so we dropped the idea.

We went for the Awards ceremony, and frankly we were very underwhelmed by it too.

Anonymous wrote:This is not to sound snarky but the CTY is looking for 99% and in some cases 99.9%'s.

You can still be in that category with a learning disability?

It seems unlikely unless very skewed in one direction.

My kids are of average intelligence and would get skewered in these classes.

Not to sound snarky, but many true geniuses have LDs. Did you ever hear the one about the absent minded professor? Now we know that is ADD or autism or Aspergers or...

it's a business, people. they know parents will pay a lot of money for CTY label. all they have to say is "your kid is talented!!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's all fine and good, and probably a good experience. Although there are worse ways to spend the summer, all CTY signals is that mom and dad
paid for it.

Moms and Dads pay for lots of different types of summer programs and camps, but you do have to score high enough on the SAT or ACT to attend CTY. They also offer financial aid.

Do they take just average kids? You do need to score high enough on their tests, which are above grade level tests. If a 7th grader can score high enough on the SAT for CTY's cut off, that kid would not be just "average."

I have a kid who is average (and has ADHD) and a kid who qualified for CTY.

I have to say I was a bit skeptical about CTY. The marketing was a bit much. The cost? Too much. When I called to ask questions, the folks weren't the nicest people.

We sent our kid anyway because the kid wanted to go. Holy smokes. The program was spectacular. CTY definitely knows what they are doing. My kid just loved it. My big worry for next summer is that I won't find anything else comparable so we might just have to go back to CTY. Will start saving now.