Anonymous wrote:I have learned both Ashburton and Wyngate principals have questionable motives in the past for HGC admissions - the order they rank the children, the recommendations, the grading of students and the bias favoring PTA officers children.

How have you learned this?

It does not happen with middle school applications. This is only for the elementary HGC program.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ranking is separate from the test scores. The elementary school principals provide a list ranked based on their personal recommendations of who should be accepted.

Based on what? My kid hardly knew the Principal but is in HGC now. I guess the P could look at the kid's "transcript", ie, any behavior issues, accolades, etc... but I wouldn't think the P has direct personal experience with every HGC bound kid.

At our school, the principal meets with the third grade team. So probably the third grade teachers discuss each applicant with the principal. That said, I have never heard before that the school ranks them. I do not believe that this happens with MS applications.

And you actually have to have an IEP for the GT/LD program at Barnesly, as it is a SPED program. No 504's allowed. The 504 plans are not incompatible with the HGC classroom.

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like Travilah or Wayside. Enrollment declining, more than 1-2 students in HGC = going from 3 classes to 3 classes and staff cuts, principals crazy about high scores.....very Travilah or Wayside.

The PTA type are usually not serious contenders for HGC. The principal wouldn't want to lose them anyway. The unrest is with the other high scoring kids that don't seem to have a chance.

On Wyngate, Barnesly is GT/LD so the principal could be just getting rid of time costly IEP/504 kids.

The GT/LD orientation at Barnsely was separate from the HGC one, from what I remember. And there were several kids from Wyngate at the HGC orientation. The kids in the GT/LD program are in a separate class from the HGC kids.

Anonymous wrote:The ranking is separate from the test scores. The elementary school principals provide a list ranked based on their personal recommendations of who should be accepted.

Based on what? My kid hardly knew the Principal but is in HGC now. I guess the P could look at the kid's "transcript", ie, any behavior issues, accolades, etc... but I wouldn't think the P has direct personal experience with every HGC bound kid.

The ranking is separate from the test scores. The elementary school principals provide a list ranked based on their personal recommendations of who should be accepted.

Oops ...meant from 3 classes to 2 classes.

It sounds like Travilah or Wayside. Enrollment declining, more than 1-2 students in HGC = going from 3 classes to 3 classes and staff cuts, principals crazy about high scores.....very Travilah or Wayside.

The PTA type are usually not serious contenders for HGC. The principal wouldn't want to lose them anyway. The unrest is with the other high scoring kids that don't seem to have a chance.

On Wyngate, Barnesly is GT/LD so the principal could be just getting rid of time costly IEP/504 kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have learned both Ashburton and Wyngate principals have questionable motives in the past for HGC admissions - the order they rank the children, the recommendations, the grading of students and the bias favoring PTA officers children.

Do the schools really order rank the applicants?

It would make sense based on test scores, and then recommendations, wouldn't it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had heard from reliable sources that in my dc's home school, the recommendation was a "panel recommendation". I will not identify the school - because different schools do it differently, and I do not want to get into a flaming war here.

Once the students qualified the admissions exam, their files were evaluated by the principal, all the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers as well as the counselors. They also looked at the various scores of the student (MSA, Terranova, Raven) from the 2nd grade onwards. I thought this was a fair way of doing things.

This particular school is known for sending large number of their students to HGC. They do not hold back bright kids because their own MSA scores will suffer - mainly because they offer quite a bit of enrichment in school anyways.

Neither do they use HGC as a place to send their extremely bright students with behavioural issues. They actually evaluate which student is a good fit for HGC.

BTW - it is not a school in the "W" cluster... in a very affordable part of MoCo, and it is a great gem of a school.

I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn't work that way. The student's teacher and principal are part of the application process, yes - but once the student has taken the exam, the decisions are in the hands of the entrance committee for that HGC, and not those of the home school administration.

I agree. I am also skeptical that the recommendation makes that much of a difference. I think it's only in borderline cases.

Yes

Anonymous wrote:I have learned both Ashburton and Wyngate principals have questionable motives in the past for HGC admissions - the order they rank the children, the recommendations, the grading of students and the bias favoring PTA officers children.

Do the schools really order rank the applicants?

I have learned both Ashburton and Wyngate principals have questionable motives in the past for HGC admissions - the order they rank the children, the recommendations, the grading of students and the bias favoring PTA officers children.

I think that the PP the previous PP is referring to was talking about the initial screening done by the school.

The final decision is actually made by a county committee (not sure whether it's for each HGC or for all of them?) based on recommendations and the test results.

The recommendations matter the most for kids with borderline scores and there are probably a lot of those kids in our area based on the % identified as "gifted" through tests in earlier years. (I'm sure the ones with sky high scores will have a good chance of getting in despite negative recommendations.)

I think the point OP is trying to make is that if the principal is saying that only 1-2 students are HGC caliber material and their test scores are borderline then the county committee may go with a student from a different school with similar scores but stellar recommendations.

This is why the school recommendation is so important. I'm sure there are kids that have sky high scores that are admitted despite negative recommendations I'm willing to bet they are in the minority.