My experience with education in general (taught in college), is that motivated children tend to succeed, regardless of other circumstances. The other factor that has a serious impact on how well a child does in class, IMO, is how good of a teacher they have. Kids failing in AAP, likely have teachers that aren't able to teach in a way that reaches them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I've had kids in the AAP center system for years (big age gaps between 3 kids) and every year there are several kids that drop out of AAP back to the base school due to struggles.

Sure. The issue I have is the implication that the struggling kids were admitted to AAP through appeals, and that parents who appeal are setting their kids up to fail. I doubt there's any correlation between whether or not a kid was admitted in the first round or in appeals vs. whether that kid was successful in AAP.

PP I agree with you--I don't even think you'll see much if any of a score differential between initial and appeal. But some posters were suggesting that AAP was so easy that any kid can be successful and I haven't found that to be true.

My child got into AAP on appeal and did well in the program. She's now in 10th grade in TJ.

Anonymous wrote:
I've had kids in the AAP center system for years (big age gaps between 3 kids) and every year there are several kids that drop out of AAP back to the base school due to struggles.

Sure. The issue I have is the implication that the struggling kids were admitted to AAP through appeals, and that parents who appeal are setting their kids up to fail. I doubt there's any correlation between whether or not a kid was admitted in the first round or in appeals vs. whether that kid was successful in AAP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

I see posts saying this, but I've heard from my DC's teacher that there are children who struggle, with math or all around. I also see posts here that say that too.

It's pretty dismissive to say that no children are less than successful in AAP. It's also untrue.

I've had kids in the AAP center system for years (big age gaps between 3 kids) and every year there are several kids that drop out of AAP back to the base school due to struggles.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

My oldest child got in AAP in the first round. He struggles in AAP because he has ADHD. Guess what, he would struggle in Gen Ed, per the neuropsych report because his struggle has to do with executive function and not intelligence. He scored a 140 on the NNAT and a 139 on the CogAT. Putting him in Gen Ed would actually make things worse for him as the worst thing you can do to an ADHD child is have them be bored.

I agree AAP is not difficult. My youngest (not middle) child is also in AAP and it's ridiculous easy and boring for her. She doesn't have ADHD. So the extent kids find AAP challenging, it may have nothing to do with the level of difficulty of AAP or that the child isn't smart enough to be there. Many kids are 2E and will struggle.

+1

Anonymous wrote:But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

My oldest child got in AAP in the first round. He struggles in AAP because he has ADHD. Guess what, he would struggle in Gen Ed, per the neuropsych report because his struggle has to do with executive function and not intelligence. He scored a 140 on the NNAT and a 139 on the CogAT. Putting him in Gen Ed would actually make things worse for him as the worst thing you can do to an ADHD child is have them be bored.

I agree AAP is not difficult. My youngest (not middle) child is also in AAP and it's ridiculous easy and boring for her. She doesn't have ADHD. So the extent kids find AAP challenging, it may have nothing to do with the level of difficulty of AAP or that the child isn't smart enough to be there. Many kids are 2E and will struggle.

Don't the pushiest parents usually get their kids in on the first round after assembling a stellar portfolio and prepping their kids for the CogAT? Appeals are for chumps who don't know how to push their kids into the program.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also heard that 50% of appeals get in. But the number of appeals is very very low, despite what you see on this forum.

A mom whose kid got rejected from TJ said about half. Her kid still didn’t make it.

Fixing the above-I meant AAP, not TJ. She also said that in hindsight, if your child got rejected the first time and you appeal and push them in through parent effort, odds are your kid won’t be thriving there anyway and it hurts kid’s confidence level.

How does a child know he was "rejected" from something unless the parent tells him? How does the child know anything about the "appeal" or the process at all unless the parent tells him? My child has no idea.

The problem I see with this line of thought is equating appeal with a parent “pushing a kid in”. Some parents appeal because their child
Should have gotten in first round, and they get in on appeal for that very reason not some parent bullying theory. Let’s quit assuming this as well as that kids who get in on appeal somehow are inferior or something. Many have WISCs scores justifying their presence perhaps even more than an NNAT score, and do great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

I see posts saying this, but I've heard from my DC's teacher that there are children who struggle, with math or all around. I also see posts here that say that too.

It's pretty dismissive to say that no children are less than successful in AAP. It's also untrue.

But how or why are those kids struggling, and why were they admitted in the first place? A PP was suggesting that kids who get in on appeals are the ones less likely to be successful. I think that's a crock of BS. I can imagine that kids with high test scores who are unmotivated and won't do the work might struggle in AAP. I wouldn't be surprised if kids who are admitted to AAP and strong in only one area might struggle in the weak area. I'm sure some just have social or anxiety issues with a new school. I doubt any of these issues are correlated with whether a child is in-pool vs. parent-referral vs. in through appeals. I doubt there's a huge correlation between success in AAP and the GBRS, CogAT scores, or anything else reviewed in the file.

Anonymous wrote:But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

I see posts saying this, but I've heard from my DC's teacher that there are children who struggle, with math or all around. I also see posts here that say that too.

It's pretty dismissive to say that no children are less than successful in AAP. It's also untrue.

But very few kids aren't successful in AAP, because AAP isn't that difficult.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also heard that 50% of appeals get in. But the number of appeals is very very low, despite what you see on this forum.

A mom whose kid got rejected from TJ said about half. Her kid still didn’t make it.

Fixing the above-I meant AAP, not TJ. She also said that in hindsight, if your child got rejected the first time and you appeal and push them in through parent effort, odds are your kid won’t be thriving there anyway and it hurts kid’s confidence level.

How does a child know he was "rejected" from something unless the parent tells him? How does the child know anything about the "appeal" or the process at all unless the parent tells him? My child has no idea.

PP didn't say that the child knows about being rejected, PP said that being in AAP but struggling can hurt the child's confidence. It's better to be successful in gen ed than to be less-than-successful in AAP.

Oh please, there is no way to distinguish between kids who got in first round and second round in any level 4 class. As we can see from info on this board, results are wildly inconsistent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also heard that 50% of appeals get in. But the number of appeals is very very low, despite what you see on this forum.

A mom whose kid got rejected from TJ said about half. Her kid still didn’t make it.

Fixing the above-I meant AAP, not TJ. She also said that in hindsight, if your child got rejected the first time and you appeal and push them in through parent effort, odds are your kid won’t be thriving there anyway and it hurts kid’s confidence level.

How does a child know he was "rejected" from something unless the parent tells him? How does the child know anything about the "appeal" or the process at all unless the parent tells him? My child has no idea.