<p>Chiming in late, but my S is another kid who adored CTY. He went for 4 years, until he aged out (ie, became a “nevermore” ), taking philosophy courses the first three and Crafting the Essay the last year (he had pretty much exhausted the philosophy offerings). It was the highlight of his year.</p>
<p>The downside is probably that it raised his expectations for what he would encounter in college. In general, he hasn’t found the classroom discussions as engaging as those at CTY.</p>
<p>He also took one distance learning class to correct an inappropriate math placement. It was fine.</p>
<p>I’m a huge fan of CTY: it’s a very well run program, and it meant a lot to my kid.</p>
<p>When I responded to the OP, I did not realize that the child is only 9.<br>
There are many ways of challenging a child of that age that do not involve a formal instructional structure, whether EPGY or CTY. For example, the child could be given books of logic puzzles; Martin Gardner is a prolific writer of math puzzles (there’s a profile of him in today’s NYT). Hoagiesgifted.org lists many resources for gifted children.</p>
<p>When D was that age she had a weekly pull out at school but we did a lot at home- tesselations, puzzles, reading. UVA offered a Saturday enrichment that we went to for two years and she really enjoyed that. I know she would not have been interested in distance learning at that age.</p>
<p>I don’t know about programs for younger kids like the OP’s, but both of my kids got a lot of benefit from summer CTY courses. My son also took “Crafting the Essay” online, and he believes that it helped him quite a lot with his writing.</p>
<p>My son complained bitterly about not learning anything in math. We tried out EPGY on two separate occassions. He covered 4-6 grade material for about three months in 3rd grade and 6-8 grade in 5th grade. I made a deal with him that if I was going to pay the money (and he was asking for it) he had to commit to 15 minutes a day five days a week. What we found was that while he liked working self paced he hated the computer voice, he didn’t always actually do enough problems before a concept was completely solidified and he missed being around other kids. We couldn’t get our school to recognize EPGY in anyway. We finally engineered a math grade skip in middle school by insisting he take the 7th grade final exam when he entered 6th grade. He got a B on the exam (he forgot which were x and y axes - see comment about not always practicing enough problems). They put him in an honors 7th grade class - in retrospect I should have insisted on 8th grade, but we felt lucky to get what we got at the time. The EPGY math curriculum includes a lot more set theory and logic than most current math programs. That was a plus. It didn’t include much of the fun creative and problem solving approaches that was a minus. </p>
<p>BTW my son did do a lot of math stuff on the side as well - Martin Gardner, The Sideways Arithmetic Books, various math books written for the adult general public.</p>
<p>I’ve heard pretty good things about CTY’s distance essay writing courses, but my son never did them.</p>
<p>On the other hand like other posters on this thread the CTY summer programs were great. He loved them.</p>
<p>Odyssey of the Mind and First Lego League are community-based programs that the OP’s daughter might enjoy. Lego League is sort of the “junior” version of First Robotics.
The Hoagies website is a great place to get started. The Duke TIP program (similar to CTY) has a newsletter with good information for parents on gifted topics. The articles are archived online. Google Duke TIP letter. Have fun learning with your daughter.</p>
<p>S1 loved EPGY’s distance-learning math program from a very young age (1st grade). I had to set up the program to turn off after 20 minutes, or he would have stayed at it indefinitely. There is an option to print out homework problems for more practice.</p>
<p>We went to a few day-long CTY family programs when he was young. These were excellent. I remember him commenting that, compared to his public school classmates, the kids who attended were “interested in everything” and had long attention spans.</p>
<p>The CTY summer programs don’t really start until after 7th grade. I think they have a few offerings for younger kids in the Baltimore area, and maybe a residential summer program after 5th and 6th grades. I didn’t want to send S1 away at that age.</p>
<p>D started the CTY residential programs after 6th grade- “baby” CTY. She’d been away at UVA’s summer program after 4th and 5th grades. Those were 2 weeks long, I believe, and good experiences, but not nearly the depth of the CTY offerings. I don’t believe there was a test score qualification, either. Definitely felt that the CTY program, while far more expensive, was also a better fit intellectually. D did both writing and math through the CTY distance program. She particularly enjoyed the writing as there was nothing comparable at our middle school. </p>
<p>All in all, I do think CTY/EPGY/TIP are truly legitimate programs that can truly enrich a child’s education.</p>
<p>Ours also went to the “baby” CTY after sixth grade and loved it. We were told about CTY by a counselor at his previous camp who thought that S was far too advanced for the camp (only half day was spent on academics) already. S loved both the baby camp and the senior camp where he spent two summers before moving on to a math camp.</p>
<p>He also loved doing math problems and puzzles all the time.</p>
<p>Marite, in addition to what you’re already considering for your child, I’d encourage you to look at programs which offer something different than just accelerating what your child will learn later on… I’ve had a lot of experience with this, and if you just accelerate through EPGY (which is excellent) then your child will run out of math in school. First check whether the school will allow your child to test out of a year’s worth of math (or whatever course). The one thing you DEFINITELY don’t want to happen is for your child to learn something outside of the classroom only to have to sit through it AGAIN in a regular classroom.</p>
<p>For this reason I urge you to look into competition prep and other expanded math programs. The AMC (American Mathematics Competition) will become important to you down the line. (MIT wants to know your score when you apply). Doing well on this can make your child eligible for the next higher level, and maybe eventually the International Math Olympiad. The first level of AMC exams is AMC-8. But you don’t need to wait until 8th grade. Most great schools will offer the AMC exam and allow 6th grade students to take it. Your school may not be one of these. If so, NOW is the time for you to bring it to their attention and get them to participate. It’s very low cost so they really shouldn’t object. Here’s the link [MAA</a> American Mathematics Competitions - AMC](<a href=“http://www.unl.edu/amc/]MAA”>http://www.unl.edu/amc/)</p>
<p>This kind of math will NEVER be taught to your child in school. There is so much more to math than merely going through the standard courses offered through school. Also, check out Art of Problem Solving (aops.org) This is an entire on-line math community which offers classes to students of all ages. They meet online at a specific day/time of the week and there is on-line live discussion of problems. </p>
<p>There are wonderful summer camps for kids who love math. mathcamp.org is for middleschoolers beginning at age 11. Something to keep in mind. After that there’s many other high quality programs. My daughter loved usa/canada mathcamp and the Ross program.</p>
<p>I’ve spent a lot of effort hunting out these kinds of things for my own daughter. If you want more info, you can pm me.</p>
<p>mom22girls, while you are right that school systems can be remarkably obtuse about math acceleration, I came to the conclusion that you need to do what is right for the child’s educational needs at the moment and not worry too much about the bureaucrats. Our school system didn’t offer any math beyond Calculus BC when my son started accelerating, they do now, because after I got him accelerated several other parents lobbied to have their kids join him. And then several kids decided to catch up via summer school. Suddenly there was a critical mass. But even if there hadn’t been there are all sorts of options - community college, EPGY, CTY etc for kids looking for courses when their schools fall short.</p>
<p>My daughter attended two CTY day camp programs here in Maryland. One was good (not fabulous) and one was not very good. The girl we carpooled with loved her program. Sooooo, we think they are somewhat inconsistent. They depend heavily on who the teacher is.</p>
<p>My daughter also attended the resident camp at Truman University (Joseph Baldwin Academy) in Missouri for Latin after eighth grade and loved that.</p>
<p>We stayed away from programs in math because our schools don’t have a gifted program and getting ahead would not have been a good idea.</p>
<p>Along the lines of great programs, Destination Imagination is wonderful. It is a problem-solving program that attracts all kinds of talented (and different) kids.</p>
<p>I believe CTY summer programs have (1) a score cutoff, the student has to have a standardized test score above a certain level to apply AND (2) a ranking process where the students with the higher scores are accepted first, going down until the class is full. So I think the more popular courses have a pretty bright group of kids in them. D2 is considering going to one of their summer courses next year (CTY vs. canoe wilderness tripping that she did last summer - - decisions, decisions!).</p>
<p>One other thing we got from CTY because of her high test scores was an invitation for her to join an online community run by CTY called Cogito. She LOVES this community (“mom, these are kids like me!!!”). And they have definitely spurred to her to work harder in her classes, because she realized she wants to go to college with kids like her Cogito friends. These online friends also prompted her to read classics, start learning Latin on her own, and study a bunch of neuroscience books this summer. Oh, and they are editing each other’s fiction writing as well.</p>
<p>How can I help my third grader? She is decent in math as she is learning 6 garde math at home. She reads at a much higher level. Though, her writing skilld needs improvement. She has scored highest IQ score ever in her very prestigious school district. What is CTY or EPGY? How do you qualify for these programs? My girl is very intereted in math/science?</p>
<p>Howvere her cousin at Harvard told us that math/science is okay but she needs to focus on writing? this is all new to us as we have recently immigrated to USA.</p>
<p>englishhelpneede, where do you live? There are different programs in different parts of the country:</p>
<p>Midwest - Northwestern’s CTD (they run something called the Midwest Talent Search)
Northeast - John’s Hopkins Center for Talent Youth (CTY)
Southeast - Duke’s TIPS program.</p>
<p>Not totally sure about the western US, assume EPGY thru Stanford is one of them.</p>
<p>The programs usually have a process to help you sign your child up to take tests (SAT, ACT, Explore) to help put a quantitative value on your child’s abilities. Some might have financial aid available for the testing, too. Then they have programs (online, summer, etc.) that cost money, but provide accelerated academics (again, some have financial aid available). You don’t have to work thru the program in your geographical area (for example, we live in Minnesota, but have signed up for both CTD and CTY. And we might use EPGY for some advanced math for our child once she exhausts what her school offers).</p>
<p>Some schools are good about working with you to allow your child to substitute one of these programs for in-school work (eg, math thru EPGY), others not so much. It can help to have an SAT or ACT score to show them what your child already has accomplished. Many states have laws about what services need to be provided for gifted children, but sometimes parents have to push to get services from their local schools (grade skips, etc.). Some states have parent organizations (eg, we have the Minnesota Council for the Gifted & Talented) that are a great resource for your local area. You might Google “gifted child resources” and your state name to see what you can find. Good luck!</p>
<p>I have read many posts about the “peer group” at the CTY Summer programs. One cannot overestimate the value of this aspect of the CTY experience. It is easy to forget how out-of-place a gifted child can feel in school. these students often interact so well with adults, that parents overlook how uncomfortable (or socially insecure) their own gifted kids are in school. The CTY Summer experience places these children with peers in a way that most have never experienced. Suddenly, they realize that being academically gifted does not mean being socially wierd – truly life changing.</p>
<p>S did math through Duke TIP for two summers which accelerated him beyond what was offered in our school system. He attended the Summer Institute for Math & Physics at Stanford as part of the EPGY program in 2001. His class was Real Analysis and he was able to work with college kids who had participated in Math Olympiad, etc. They covered 1/3 of the material and had the option of completing the other 2/3 of it through self-study to earn the college credit. He finished it up at the end of his senior year and was able to use the college credit at his university. It was a great experience. Our local school would have accepted the credit for hs had we desired, but he chose to put off finishing up the class and to keep it off the hs transcript.</p>
), taking philosophy courses the first three and Crafting the Essay the last year (he had pretty much exhausted the philosophy offerings). It was the highlight of his year.</p>