@hebegebe, your comment on middle school in particular hit the mark. In most districts middle school seems to be one big holding pattern for gifted kids. Many do not have advanced tracks (maybe a couple of math tracks, but nothing else). For my gifted kid, it was just treading water. No hard sciences, in a classroom for English where some kids were still trying to nail down what a noun is – or spending 10 weeks of classroom analysis time on a middle school book that took them an hour to read and had no significant literary value. It was all about helping the kids who weren’t quite up to snuff for HS subjects yet to that level.
@roycroftmom- Actually the public school system regularly has students who are testing 2-3 standard deviations in performance lower than their grade level in general education classes. Legally they are required to support all students in their least restrictive setting.
I don’t understand this whole thread. Gifted kids are highly individual in their strengths and weaknesses, and highly asynchronous in their development. Schools also differ widely in their openness, understanding, and ability to accommodate. Every situation will be different, and reducing it to any kind of simplistic approach is not likely to be very useful.
@Springbird When my kid was at Southern CA elementary or middle schools, they had something called GATE test which supposedly culled out gifted and talented kids. The problem was too many kids of above average intelligence but not what I think of as really gifted and talented (including my kid) got 99% on the test. I was telling my wife “I bet you really gifted and talented kids don’t even do well on GATE test.”
Pushing versus holding back. Gifted kids are too often told to run in place instead of being allowed to proceed at their natural pace. “Pushing” is done by parents with well above the mean ability while not holding back is done by parents whose kids are at the extremes. Letting a child take above chronological age level classes is not pushing, it is not holding them back. Trying to get a child to be in the most advanced classes because they exist and you want your child to be in them can be pushing. Compare it to being a gifted athlete. We do not tell kids to run slower, be less accurate with a ball et al. We, unfortunately do so with academic ability.
Social skills are a difficult area. Being gifted means a mismatch with academic and maturity/age. So often we tell kids (they are kids- not adults) they need to get along with their peers. But we do not provide the appropriate peer group. Attempts at relating on an intellectual and development level can be frustrating for a kid. It is so much easier being average. Arrogance can result- especially if a child is desperately trying to find something they are good at. I could go on forever about this subject. The worst thing society does to kids is to tell them their skills/native abilities are not valued. “Fitting in”. Imagine trying to make above average kids live in the world of the even moderately retarded- being forced to go slow and not have intelligent conversations…
@websensation you have to set the line some where. Generally speaking the bar is somewhere around 125 to 130 IQ
If you are worried about the profoundly gifted at 180+ or exceptionally gifted at 160+ as I pointed out above there’s a.scat handful in any age cohort across the US.
So you have the “normal” classes handling approximately 75 to 125 and the GATE classes handling approximately 125 to 160 and a few on either end who can’t be accommodated by either. If thw parents of 159 IQ feel the 126 kid is holding their snowflake back, they probably need to chill a little.
Calculus BC in 12th grade (+1 math track) is more than enough to major in math in any university in the US, including super-selective ones with extra-rigorous math curricula (e.g. Caltech and Harvey Mudd). Relatively few students, even at super-selective schools, have had math beyond calculus BC or equivalent while in high school.
There are students who are exceptionally strong in math who would better be served by letting them advance to the +2 (or higher) math track. However, such rare students must be distinguished from those who are inappropriately pushed into the +2 (or higher) math track by parents who believe that such is needed to compete for “top college” admissions. The existence of the latter is shown by high schools where calculus is a two year sequence (AB one year, rest of BC the next year) that slows the +2 math students down to +1 by the time they finish high school (probably necessary for the inappropriately-pushed-ahead students, but too slow for those exceptionally-strong-in-math students who would find BC in one year immediately after precalculus to be an easy A/5).
How often do middle and high schools get it right in allowing those students who are exceptionally strong in math to accelerate to the +2 (or higher) math track, while resisting inappropriate pushing of ordinary good at math students beyond the appropriate (usually +1) level?
Our recent experience differs, ucbalumbus. While BC calculus is adequate for admission to fine universities, those students will be playing catch up from day 1 if they are enrolled in the math or physics dept at Stanford or Princeton. I don’t have personal recent knowledge of other universities, but I expect there are others similar. Some manage to catch up; others don’t.
The Stanford math major curriculum allows for the possibility of starting in single variable calculus (MATH 19, 20, 21); starting exempt from single variable calculus with a 5 on AP calculus BC should certainly be fine:
https://mathematics.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate/math-major/sample-course-plans/
I am certain it is theoretically possible, UCB alumnus. just as it is possible to be admitted to Stanford with SAT scores below the national average. The actual experience of current Stanford frosh I know seems to differ from the theoretically possible.
I think we’ve moved off topic slightly, but since we have, I’ll follow the last two posts with an anecdote.
My son was able to transfer in his CC math classes to MIT (through dif. equations; his later math was done through an online tutor/mentor, so not transferable). He was able to start in upper division math classes at MIT as a freshman, and he finished the required math classes for his math degree by end of sophomore.
As advanced as he was in math (apx. 4-5 years), he said he was in the bottom 10% of math majors at MIT. The other math majors were USAMO, IMO, advanced university classes-in high school, type kids, and had way more depth and experience in high school than he did (and he was AIME 3 times, USPhO Semis 3 times, so he wasn’t a total lightweight).
This was mostly a socio-economic difference from he (moderate income, low income neighborhood, crummy local HS) and his friends (high income, private/best high schools and $$ to take university classes)–and let’s face it; some of his math friends at MIT were just out-of-this-world smart.
And he did share that many kids come into MIT inadequately prepared. MIT has some special summer program for their development cases to try to get them ready, but it’s a real struggle for a lot of kids to make it at MIT because of the lack of preparedness.
If he finished all required math courses at MIT for a BS by end of second year and he was in bottom ten percent of the class.when do most of them finish? Freshman year? If most math majors at MIT have already taken most of the math needed before even starting why even offer an undergrad program?
Because they can take graduate level classes. He actually moved into CS courses and only took one graduate math course, and is now a Data Scientist. He was going for his Math/CS degree, but didn’t quite get there. He spent more time on non-academic endeavors at MIT than on pursuing graduate level courses, but lots of kids take grad level courses as u/g’s at MIT. That’s the beauty of a place like MIT. That and being with kids who “speak your language”, so to speak. He had a great experience!
I mean bottom 10% in terms of what they brought in with them as far as understanding advanced math concepts. He never took number theory, real analysis and other AoPS type classes, and was more unschoolish in his study of advanced dif. equations, dynamical systems and real analysis. Also bottom 10% in the fact that the other kids were the ones that got the A’s in math classes at MIT (I guess professors limit how many A’s they give out). Unlike high school, my son didn’t get straight A’s at MIT. LOL!
However, pushing a good but not brilliant at math student to the +2 or higher math track in middle or high school is not going to make that student brilliant at math like those anecdotes of brilliant math majors at MIT or Stanford.
Those rare students who are brilliant at math should be allowed to move ahead (+2 or higher track) as appropriate. But those who are just good at math should not be pushed ahead just because there are a few brilliant ones who may be ahead.
I agree, ucb. So now I understand what “pushing” means: a parent wanting their child either subject or grade accelerated when it doesn’t warrant it. It gets tricky when kids are 2E. My middle son has a severe math disability (18%ile in math calculations) which would suggest there’s no way he could or should have been doing advanced math; yet with a tutor for every math class, he got through calculus I in high school, scored 750 on the old SAT math and 730 on the SAT Math II subject test.
I think the point of a few posters is, admins and teachers do need to listen to parents. I got into trouble with at least one admin when I was a teacher because I listened to the parents and advocated for the students to be placed properly. Fortunately, my last principal was wonderful, and understood the need for parents, teachers, students and admin to work together.
We were lucky with our school district as well. I met with about several people in a joint meeting when kid was in middle school to make sure his needs were going to be met. I’m a woman physician and have no trouble taking charge et al. As I recall there was the principle, his guidance counselor, and some teacher types. It was gratifying that we could do this without kid involvement and he got the special treatment he needed. His GC made sure when his class schedule was made up for future years he got he best, not the worst teachers when possible (she even apologized when scheduling didn’t allow what she thought was the best). Normally they do not let choices be made but- when there are special needs… (both ends of the Bell curve have them). HS finally had the classes for honors et al. Kid never told us he was bored in HS until years later, sigh. He needed to go to college and did fine. There was a local HS girl in his college honors physics- she was only 14. He was not the youngest!
The MIT discussion was good for me to see. It was my two grades ahead (turned 16 fall of HS senior year) son’s first choice of only three applications (couldn’t make him do more- as strong willed/stubborn as his parents…). I worried it might be too stressful for him, they did not take him. He told my sister he preferred UW to Stanford (for campuses I definitely agree- dislike the “Taco Bell” architecture). We were lucky to have a top tier flagship where he also got to take grad level math classes for his honors degree et al. He is no slouch in math but probably only the top 25th percentile- it’s a brutal field. He added CS and is happy doing his work. There is a lot of high power life outside HYPSM.
Some gifted kids are more intense than others among people I have known.
Thought this might be relevant (or not):
@VickiSoCal I was somewhat embarrassed at the title when most kids in GATE classes including my own kid were not really gifted and talented. Most of the kids were just kinda smart or motivated kids.
As an aside, I had a close friend who regularly placed in top 3 in state math competitions among high school students, and he got into all top schools he applied and went to MIT. There he got all As with a decent amount of studying, but he told me some kids regularly get As without studying, while working on their individual projects. He never was in any GATE classes but went to community colleges instead to take college level classes.
I attended Stanford. It was my experience that the vast majority of students took calculus in HS, regardless of major. I was the only person I knew of in my freshman dorm who took math beyond calculus. It was rare enough that it earned me a reputation in the dorm. However, there was a kid in the neighboring SLE dorm who was taking graduate level math as a freshman. The Harvard freshman survey is largely consistent with this view. More than 70% of Harvard freshman say their highest level math in HS was calc AB or BC, ~15% say multi-variable calc or linear algebra, and few says anything else.
Stanford has been making a strong effort to support students who attended HSs with weaker STEM offering and as such offers many different level sequence options for both math and physics, with different starting points, depending on background. They also have been updating their website to this effect. For example, when I attended Stanford, all the course plans for my EE major assumed starting with post single variable calc 50 sequence math or CME 100 ,which is similar to 50 sequence, but uses Matlab. A short time later they added course plans for starting with 40 sequence math (fast version of single version calculus), and last year they added the 20 sequence (slow version of single variable calculus). While you can do almost any major with almost any sequence, prospective majors are generally encouraged to take higher level sequences in their respective fields, and the vast majority do so. Some students probably would feel disadvantaged if they had a weaker background, which would result in some choosing a different major.
I placed out of the standard math sequence, which I felt put me at a notable disadvantage to other students overall. I took my math foundation class such as muti-variable calculus and linear algebra, at a different university, which I believe had substantially less depth than Stanford. The resulted in a weaker foundation than students who took underclassman math at Stanford. The advantage came in having more time for other electives. It should be no problem to complete the required courses for a math, physics, engineering, or any other major in 4 years with the lowest math/science starting sequence. However, if you want to do things like complete a co-term BS+MS in 4 years or a double major in 4 years or…, then it helps to place out with a lot of AP/DE transfer.