Anonymous wrote:Parents are allowed to prep their kids for the cogat. The school did some prep for the students, and prep materials are on the FCPS website. I havent heard of anyone spending 40+ hours on cogat test prep. That would also be a waste of time, much of that would be better spent prepping for iready tests and/or working with your kid to help them produce better writing work samples while they are in class (activities which will also better prepare them for school general in addition to increasing aap selection).

In other words, spending excessive time on the cogat is not a good way to "cheat" and would actually disadvantage their kids in the aap selection (and in school academics generally), so I highly doubt any parents are actually doing that.

I partially agree with you, but there is a lot of focus here on CogAT (and to a lesser extent, the NNAT) because they are used as the universal screeners for the "in pool" designation. And "holistic" or not, it's a pretty sure bet that being "in pool" gives kids an edge over kids who are only parent referred.

In school performance as perceived by the teachers (via the report cards and other testing* like iReady also included in the packet) do matter. *There is a lot of "paper" devoted to the VALLS since they dropped the reading iReady, but it's not clear how they are using that unless they are imputing percentiles (which are not available to the parents since it's only meant to detect risk of future reading problems). And the HOPE --the school's perception of the child's intellectual potential and social maturity-- matters too. TBH, I'm not sure how HOPE is used. Some of the background material says it's only supposed to be used to be more inclusive, not to exclude, but if there are a fixed amount of AAP seats, that could be just talk. And going forward, will FCPS continue to emphasize DEI, given it may result in the elimination of any federal funding?

Anonymous wrote:Parents are allowed to prep their kids for the cogat. The school did some prep for the students, and prep materials are on the FCPS website. I havent heard of anyone spending 40+ hours on cogat test prep. That would also be a waste of time, much of that would be better spent prepping for iready tests and/or working with your kid to help them produce better writing work samples while they are in class (activities which will also better prepare them for school general in addition to increasing aap selection).

In other words, spending excessive time on the cogat is not a good way to "cheat" and would actually disadvantage their kids in the aap selection (and in school academics generally), so I highly doubt any parents are actually doing that.

I don't know about 40 hours but I do know that there are places that offer weekly 2 hours classes on the CogAT for several weeks. I don't know about you but for me this crosses a line. However you are right that it can be counterproductive and is not enough.

Parents are allowed to prep their kids for the cogat. The school did some prep for the students, and prep materials are on the FCPS website. I havent heard of anyone spending 40+ hours on cogat test prep. That would also be a waste of time, much of that would be better spent prepping for iready tests and/or working with your kid to help them produce better writing work samples while they are in class (activities which will also better prepare them for school general in addition to increasing aap selection).

In other words, spending excessive time on the cogat is not a good way to "cheat" and would actually disadvantage their kids in the aap selection (and in school academics generally), so I highly doubt any parents are actually doing that.

For parents so obsessed about getting kids in AAP, just for the sake of getting into AAP, there are things you can help and things you don't have control over. Things you can help include prepping your kids with all tests and prepping your parental referals... Things you pray that your kids could do well on their own including behaving well in school and becoming teachers pet...don't complain about some other dumb kids cheating and stealing the spot from your kid. Both you and your kid need to do better to hack the system than those families cheated their way in.

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Anonymous wrote:Top athletes are being "prepped" as well. By top, I mean the very best in any league in any sport in our area. They have parents who played D1, D2, or D3 and spend time with their kids perfecting the sport, working on them from a very young age. Some can even afford to get trainers for additional workouts....It's the same game, people. Just the sport happens to be academia. So stop complaining.

Prepping for an aptitude test makes the tests unreliable. When kids who are gifted are losing out on gifted education because other kids are being prepped, parents have the right to complain, just like you do.

HA! So then prepping for a tryout makes the tryout unreliable?? When kids that are athletic are losing out on spots at top teams in the DMV because John was prepared/conditioned to excel from an early age, how many parents' complain? NONE.

Because oh John is just "naturally talented".

Giftedness is a type of neurodivergence. There are supposed to be gifted education classes to meet the needs of gifted kids. FCPS essentially provides advanced classes, not gifted education support— in part because of all this prepping. Bless you if you do not need to understand the difference.

Oh, so you don't like the parallel between prepping for an academic test and prepping for sports? And therefore, you are making this about "giftedness" and what "FCPS provides." You have the choice of completely opting out of all tests if you do not like the format or offerings. But here you are, complaining on an AAP forum about the "advanced support" that kids receive because parents are "prepping" and how that's diluting the service offerings and keeping gifted kids from getting in.

My point is simple, its preparing to excel at something else. It isn't all that different. Namaste!

Prepping for sports versus prepping for a certain aptitude test are completely different. If you prep and train and practice for a sport you become better and continue to perform at a high level when on the team. If you prep for specific tests but your hope score/what you show in the class isn’t that great or iready scores aren’t 95%+ then you likely won’t be able to keep up with the faster paces of the class and all the writing that is involved. Sports prep to make a team and AAP prep to do well on cogat aren’t comparable

+1. The discrepancies between Iready, VALLSS and the Cogat are telling.

iReady and VALLSS is a lot easier than Cogat...

According to who? You can't prep for the IReady and VALLSS. They test actual knowledge.

Of course you can "prep" for iReady. By acquiring the actual knowledge.

This is equivocating on the word "prep". In the relevant sense we are talking about taking shortcuts, via test prep books or even courses.

Anonymous wrote:Can someone tell me if I-Ready is a big factor in the AAP selection process? I have two older kids in AAP one first grader so I will be going through this next year. With my older two, they had GBRS and work samples produced at school were weighed very strongly but I-Ready was never a factor. Has the entire process changed now??

I don't think anyone here actually really knows but if I was to guess it sure does matter. I think they want to see good things across-the-board. Discrepancies will be noticed and commented on presumably.

I actually prep my kid on cogat many times. I don't see significant improvements...very frustrated

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Anonymous wrote:Top athletes are being "prepped" as well. By top, I mean the very best in any league in any sport in our area. They have parents who played D1, D2, or D3 and spend time with their kids perfecting the sport, working on them from a very young age. Some can even afford to get trainers for additional workouts....It's the same game, people. Just the sport happens to be academia. So stop complaining.

Prepping for an aptitude test makes the tests unreliable. When kids who are gifted are losing out on gifted education because other kids are being prepped, parents have the right to complain, just like you do.

HA! So then prepping for a tryout makes the tryout unreliable?? When kids that are athletic are losing out on spots at top teams in the DMV because John was prepared/conditioned to excel from an early age, how many parents' complain? NONE.

Because oh John is just "naturally talented".

Giftedness is a type of neurodivergence. There are supposed to be gifted education classes to meet the needs of gifted kids. FCPS essentially provides advanced classes, not gifted education support— in part because of all this prepping. Bless you if you do not need to understand the difference.

Oh, so you don't like the parallel between prepping for an academic test and prepping for sports? And therefore, you are making this about "giftedness" and what "FCPS provides." You have the choice of completely opting out of all tests if you do not like the format or offerings. But here you are, complaining on an AAP forum about the "advanced support" that kids receive because parents are "prepping" and how that's diluting the service offerings and keeping gifted kids from getting in.

My point is simple, its preparing to excel at something else. It isn't all that different. Namaste!

Prepping for sports versus prepping for a certain aptitude test are completely different. If you prep and train and practice for a sport you become better and continue to perform at a high level when on the team. If you prep for specific tests but your hope score/what you show in the class isn’t that great or iready scores aren’t 95%+ then you likely won’t be able to keep up with the faster paces of the class and all the writing that is involved. Sports prep to make a team and AAP prep to do well on cogat aren’t comparable

+1. The discrepancies between Iready, VALLSS and the Cogat are telling.

iReady and VALLSS is a lot easier than Cogat...

According to who? You can't prep for the IReady and VALLSS. They test actual knowledge.

Of course you can "prep" for iReady. By acquiring the actual knowledge.

Is learning math prepping now? My daughter reads a lot. Is that prepping for VALLS?

Iready and VALLS are achievement tests. CogAT is an aptitude test. It’s not the same thing.

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Anonymous wrote:Top athletes are being "prepped" as well. By top, I mean the very best in any league in any sport in our area. They have parents who played D1, D2, or D3 and spend time with their kids perfecting the sport, working on them from a very young age. Some can even afford to get trainers for additional workouts....It's the same game, people. Just the sport happens to be academia. So stop complaining.

Prepping for an aptitude test makes the tests unreliable. When kids who are gifted are losing out on gifted education because other kids are being prepped, parents have the right to complain, just like you do.

HA! So then prepping for a tryout makes the tryout unreliable?? When kids that are athletic are losing out on spots at top teams in the DMV because John was prepared/conditioned to excel from an early age, how many parents' complain? NONE.

Because oh John is just "naturally talented".

Giftedness is a type of neurodivergence. There are supposed to be gifted education classes to meet the needs of gifted kids. FCPS essentially provides advanced classes, not gifted education support— in part because of all this prepping. Bless you if you do not need to understand the difference.

Oh, so you don't like the parallel between prepping for an academic test and prepping for sports? And therefore, you are making this about "giftedness" and what "FCPS provides." You have the choice of completely opting out of all tests if you do not like the format or offerings. But here you are, complaining on an AAP forum about the "advanced support" that kids receive because parents are "prepping" and how that's diluting the service offerings and keeping gifted kids from getting in.

My point is simple, its preparing to excel at something else. It isn't all that different. Namaste!

Prepping for sports versus prepping for a certain aptitude test are completely different. If you prep and train and practice for a sport you become better and continue to perform at a high level when on the team. If you prep for specific tests but your hope score/what you show in the class isn’t that great or iready scores aren’t 95%+ then you likely won’t be able to keep up with the faster paces of the class and all the writing that is involved. Sports prep to make a team and AAP prep to do well on cogat aren’t comparable

+1. The discrepancies between Iready, VALLSS and the Cogat are telling.

iReady and VALLSS is a lot easier than Cogat...

According to who? You can't prep for the IReady and VALLSS. They test actual knowledge.

Of course you can "prep" for iReady. By acquiring the actual knowledge.

Is learning math prepping now? My daughter reads a lot. Is that prepping for VALLS?

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Anonymous wrote:Top athletes are being "prepped" as well. By top, I mean the very best in any league in any sport in our area. They have parents who played D1, D2, or D3 and spend time with their kids perfecting the sport, working on them from a very young age. Some can even afford to get trainers for additional workouts....It's the same game, people. Just the sport happens to be academia. So stop complaining.

Prepping for an aptitude test makes the tests unreliable. When kids who are gifted are losing out on gifted education because other kids are being prepped, parents have the right to complain, just like you do.

HA! So then prepping for a tryout makes the tryout unreliable?? When kids that are athletic are losing out on spots at top teams in the DMV because John was prepared/conditioned to excel from an early age, how many parents' complain? NONE.

Because oh John is just "naturally talented".

Giftedness is a type of neurodivergence. There are supposed to be gifted education classes to meet the needs of gifted kids. FCPS essentially provides advanced classes, not gifted education support— in part because of all this prepping. Bless you if you do not need to understand the difference.

Oh, so you don't like the parallel between prepping for an academic test and prepping for sports? And therefore, you are making this about "giftedness" and what "FCPS provides." You have the choice of completely opting out of all tests if you do not like the format or offerings. But here you are, complaining on an AAP forum about the "advanced support" that kids receive because parents are "prepping" and how that's diluting the service offerings and keeping gifted kids from getting in.

My point is simple, its preparing to excel at something else. It isn't all that different. Namaste!

Prepping for sports versus prepping for a certain aptitude test are completely different. If you prep and train and practice for a sport you become better and continue to perform at a high level when on the team. If you prep for specific tests but your hope score/what you show in the class isn’t that great or iready scores aren’t 95%+ then you likely won’t be able to keep up with the faster paces of the class and all the writing that is involved. Sports prep to make a team and AAP prep to do well on cogat aren’t comparable

+1. The discrepancies between Iready, VALLSS and the Cogat are telling.

iReady and VALLSS is a lot easier than Cogat...

According to who? You can't prep for the IReady and VALLSS. They test actual knowledge.

Of course you can "prep" for iReady. By acquiring the actual knowledge.

Can someone tell me if I-Ready is a big factor in the AAP selection process? I have two older kids in AAP one first grader so I will be going through this next year. With my older two, they had GBRS and work samples produced at school were weighed very strongly but I-Ready was never a factor. Has the entire process changed now??

Fcps takes holistic approach in selection to make it as fair as possible. There are many kids with high cogat score not in. My kid is not selected despite of high test score. there might be prep involved, but cogat test score is NOT the only factor here and as matter of fact it is only designed to catch those kids who are not easily identified by parents or teacher. Parents should not overweight the test scores as the deciding factor, therefore there is really no point to call prep cheating.

My kid didn't prep but get in. I didn't even know there is way to prep and it helps. How do you prep for IQ test that consists of hundreds of questions?

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Anonymous wrote: prep tests like cogat so kids have better chance to get their feet in the door. What is wrong with that? You have to prep everything in life if you want to achieve any goals. Parents here definitely obsessed with getting their kids to aap so why complaint about kids prepping tests? For whatever reason kids score well on tests prep or no prep. They both deserve the placement. Btw what really made the difference is the feedback from grade reports and teachers input.

Stop. You know exactly what is wrong with it and no one is talking about looking at a couple of tests to be familiar with format. It's the kind of prep that invalidates the test and if you think because everyone does it and is obsessed is a good reason then you need your head and your morals examined.

FCPS knows it's wrong too hence the downweighting of the tests.

DP, but I don't condemn prepping at all. FCPS does a lot of things wrong, such that we often find ourselves having to make up for their failure. Maybe "prepping" makes the CogAT less an aptitude test and more of an achievement test. But kids who can "learn" how to do CogAT well will also be more capable of learning the material in AAP. Frankly, working hard, training hard, putting in the time, is often what makes people successful in life. I think we all know it's not all natural ability (and that's a good thing).

Of course you don't because you cheated and your kid got in, taking another more worthy kids place. Condemn or not, it's not the way to get in. And you shouldn't have to extensively prep if your kid is AAP material.

Not the pp. I have 3 kids, including one who just got into AAP. The number of kids is not capped for AAP so one kid does not take another kid.

So maybe there is no cap. But if a certain amount of kids prep for it, it could raise the threshold of what qualifies for AAP in that school. Some schools you get in with 120s. Some you need 140-150. So say it’s a school that’s normally 130 is the level you have to hit. But parents prep their kids and now a lot of kids get 140 then the 130 who didn’t prep might get cut. I think they need to look at big picture, NNAT, Cogat, work samples, hope, iready, VALLS etc to see if there are outliers like a high cogat and low everything else to see the kid really should be there. Maybe they already do this? I don’t know how anything is weighted.

My oldest is now in high school. The bar just gets higher for everything whether it is sports or tests. When you compare gymnastics or ice skating from the past, the differences are shocking. This 2nd grade AAP test bar is only the beginning. Fcps created the local test pools to get more kids from lower SES areas. I’m not sure how that hurts the borderline kids at high SES schools.

My kid attends a high SES. Most kids have practices a little. These test books are readily available on Amazon. I’m sure the top 10% of our school was 140 and yes, if you only scored 130, you may not be in pool. If your parent referred you, you could still get in.

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Anonymous wrote:Top athletes are being "prepped" as well. By top, I mean the very best in any league in any sport in our area. They have parents who played D1, D2, or D3 and spend time with their kids perfecting the sport, working on them from a very young age. Some can even afford to get trainers for additional workouts....It's the same game, people. Just the sport happens to be academia. So stop complaining.

Prepping for an aptitude test makes the tests unreliable. When kids who are gifted are losing out on gifted education because other kids are being prepped, parents have the right to complain, just like you do.

HA! So then prepping for a tryout makes the tryout unreliable?? When kids that are athletic are losing out on spots at top teams in the DMV because John was prepared/conditioned to excel from an early age, how many parents' complain? NONE.

Because oh John is just "naturally talented".

Giftedness is a type of neurodivergence. There are supposed to be gifted education classes to meet the needs of gifted kids. FCPS essentially provides advanced classes, not gifted education support— in part because of all this prepping. Bless you if you do not need to understand the difference.

Oh, so you don't like the parallel between prepping for an academic test and prepping for sports? And therefore, you are making this about "giftedness" and what "FCPS provides." You have the choice of completely opting out of all tests if you do not like the format or offerings. But here you are, complaining on an AAP forum about the "advanced support" that kids receive because parents are "prepping" and how that's diluting the service offerings and keeping gifted kids from getting in.

My point is simple, its preparing to excel at something else. It isn't all that different. Namaste!

Prepping for sports versus prepping for a certain aptitude test are completely different. If you prep and train and practice for a sport you become better and continue to perform at a high level when on the team. If you prep for specific tests but your hope score/what you show in the class isn’t that great or iready scores aren’t 95%+ then you likely won’t be able to keep up with the faster paces of the class and all the writing that is involved. Sports prep to make a team and AAP prep to do well on cogat aren’t comparable

Maybe you are good at sport, but obviously you are not the smart one. AAP is just a standard learning, not even challenging at all for smart kids, and iready isn't hard also when compared to kangaroo/rsm, those kids prep for cogat, and i am sure their parents will have them prep for even more challenging materials and they will do better than those "gifted" kids with lazy parents who just complains prep.

Sure, that's why their kids are not getting into AAP with 160 CogAT and 86% I-Ready 680 VALLSS... LOL