Anonymous wrote:"Prepping" for the WISC is NOT unethical. It is NOT cheating. These tests are supposed to measure some kind of innate ability or IQ. Guess what---if they truly did that, prepping would make no difference. Clinical psychologists (my sister is one) administer these tests for a fee (around here $285), the test is changed periodically (hence WISC -3, -4, -5), perhaps to make it better and perhaps to keep people from being able to "prep" and keeping the psychologists' assessments valuable. I question why the test has to be administered by a PhD psychologist with a hefty fee, as opposed to a scan-tron once kids are old enough to bubble and read (grade one).

Measures of IQ for young children are highly variable and therefore pretty useless measures. They change based on the child's motivation, interaction with clinician, mood etc. IQ measures tend to become more stable in later childhood. (Whether they are a useful metric is another discussion) However, I strongly feel that prepping is not unethical. I would be interested to know why you think it is so unethical.

Anonymous wrote:"Prepping" for the WISC is NOT unethical. It is NOT cheating. These tests are supposed to measure some kind of innate ability or IQ. Guess what---if they truly did that, prepping would make no difference. Clinical psychologists (my sister is one) administer these tests for a fee (around here $285), the test is changed periodically (hence WISC -3, -4, -5), perhaps to make it better and perhaps to keep people from being able to "prep" and keeping the psychologists' assessments valuable. I question why the test has to be administered by a PhD psychologist with a hefty fee, as opposed to a scan-tron once kids are old enough to bubble and read (grade one).

Measures of IQ for young children are highly variable and therefore pretty useless measures. They change based on the child's motivation, interaction with clinician, mood etc. IQ measures tend to become more stable in later childhood. (Whether they are a useful metric is another discussion) However, I strongly feel that prepping is not unethical. I would be interested to know why you think it is so unethical.

Anonymous wrote:"Prepping" for the WISC is NOT unethical. It is NOT cheating. These tests are supposed to measure some kind of innate ability or IQ. Guess what---if they truly did that, prepping would make no difference. Clinical psychologists (my sister is one) administer these tests for a fee (around here $285), the test is changed periodically (hence WISC -3, -4, -5), perhaps to make it better and perhaps to keep people from being able to "prep" and keeping the psychologists' assessments valuable. I question why the test has to be administered by a PhD psychologist with a hefty fee, as opposed to a scan-tron once kids are old enough to bubble and read (grade one).

Measures of IQ for young children are highly variable and therefore pretty useless measures. They change based on the child's motivation, interaction with clinician, mood etc. IQ measures tend to become more stable in later childhood. (Whether they are a useful metric is another discussion) However, I strongly feel that prepping is not unethical. I would be interested to know why you think it is so unethical.

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting to see how many parents trying to get into an advanced program clearly don't understand what it means to truly be intellectually gifted. Most kids, gifted or otherwise will prep for a standardized test like the SAT, but if you need to prep your kid for an IQ test like the WISC, they surely are not gifted. And as for the teacher who says some kids with learning disabilities might not do as well, the fact is that a fully battery of tests will identify and account t for the LD's and won't negatively impact the child's adjusted score, so that doesn't wash either.

Better to just admit that you want to child to be a high achiever or that your child is highly motivated on their own, regardless of IQ. Many kids who fall into the average range actually do better than gifted kids, both in school and in life. The higher a persons IQ, the more likely they are to suffer from a list of other challenges- emotional sensitivities, sensory processing issues, perfectionism, food allergies, etc. parenting a gifted child is no walk in the park, and watching your child fall apart in school because they can't deal with the boredom and the pace of the curriculum is upsetting and difficult. These kids have higher dropout rates and higher suicide rates that's the general population.

So, prep all you want to get in, but realize that there are kids out there that NEED these programs as much as other kids needs special Ed programs to make it through. While it might seem all the rage to be able to say your kid is in a gifted program, walk a mile in the shoes of a parent who is dealing with a truly gifted child before you decide it is the status symbol many make it out to be. This of us sitting in that seat would trade you places in a heartbeat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get your facts straight. No one here said that using study guides (which are commercially available) for the CogAT is unethical. We are talking about the WISC. Any competent psychologist will tell you that there are no ethical practice tests availabe for it.

so there are some unethical ones? Do they work?