Son’s school handed out a letter recommending many classmates participate in NUMATS on their own dime. The school doesn’t plan to do anything with the results. I don’t understand why a 7th grader should try a long ACT or SAT. He wants to do it for the new experience, as he never saw any standard test before except for whatever schools gave. Since NUMATS, Duke TIP and Johns Hopkins CTY are similar and some of your kids may have participated in before, what are the benefits and potential drawbacks you experienced, particularly if they are now in or out of college? Is this a public school only thing?
The biggest unexpected plus was that when my son got scores that put him in the top 5 to 10% of graduating seniors we stopped getting pushback from the school about acceleration. It really was clear he was not like other 7th graders.
He participated in three of the summer classes.
Game theory and probability was a fabulous class that didn’t just cover the math, but also the psychology and real world examples. They learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis and also about the early days of the Apple/Microsoft competition.
Cryptography. Fun class did field trip to the NSA museum I think. In either this or the other class he learned matrix arithmetic something he didn’t see again until he was taking a modern physics class.
Fast paced Chemistry. This one he took because he’d gotten off track with the high school science curriculum and tey thought it might make scheduling easier. He also didn’t want to go on a family trip to Scotland, so it was a good place to park him while we were away. It was the least interesting class, but it did allow him to take more APs in high school for better or worse.
It was also the first time he was surrounded by kids who were as gifted, quirky and intellectual as he was. Many were smarter. I think it probably made college less of a shock - because the CS program at Carnegie Mellon was very similar.
My nephew in private school could have participated, but his private school brainwashed the parents to think it was a bad thing. I have nothing but good things to say about the program and donate to their scholarship fund every year.
My kids plus various nieces and nephews participated in both the talent search and various programs- CTY and Duke, and many kids I know are now doing both distance learning and the summer programs.
Other than the cost- these programs don’t come cheap, and the financial aid is generous but for kids who are really living in poverty, not for kids whose families can afford it but will feel the bite-- I have never heard a single negative.
My own kids loved CTY. One of my kids went back as staff once he aged out of the program but wasn’t ready to leave. Fantastic intellectually, incredible socially.
Out of college- there are some alumni activities which my kids participate in when convenient and when old friends are going to be there. So I don’t think the upside is on “out of college”. But for a middle school or HS kid who doesn’t have tons and tons of friends who are wired the way they are… incredible opportunity.
One of my siblings has been successful in getting the local school district to pay for the distance learning courses during the year and I know of one family who got the local district to pay for a summer program (the middle school had promised a class during the year which never happened because they couldn’t find a qualified instructor). Just a thought.
My kids never took ‘regular’ classes like AP Chem although I’ve heard those are terrific. Mine took both humanities and science/math classes you can’t get during the year and loved them. The instructors are phenomenal, the evening activities are super fun, the day is well planned and well structured.
We are huge CTY fans as a result. I don’t think my kids would have been as ambitious intellectually had it not been for some of the incredible opportunities at CTY (one summer spent on a “dig” beside a highway out in the middle of nowhere excavating a Colonial era village- who gets to do that in 8th grade?)
I took the ACT in seventh grade and the SAT in ninth grade for talent searches. They didn’t find any talent, but taking the tests was helpful in itself because I was more prepared for them later.
LOL!
They obviously didn’t search hard enough.
My kids both took the ACT in 7th grade for Duke TIP. Both were already attending a local summer program that is cheaper so we never really considered any of the Duke programs–one of D’s friends had a great experience with it though.
I figured it was a good low-stress way to practice the ACT. I chose the ACT for a few reasons. A big factor was that you can opt to take it without the writing portion so it’s shorter.
If your kid scores high enough – I can’t remember the specifics – they get a discount on a class – at least for NUMATS. That said, the NUMAT classes are not inexpensive. There is also an awards ceremony and a medal. We did did not attend the ceremony, nor did my kid take any classes. We really just used it as a benchmark for her.
Ok, I remembered. If they score a perfect score on one of the areas of the ACT, then they were eligible for a discount.
My S took the SAT in grade 7 for CTY. His choice. He went to a summer CTY program every year for 4 years, and loved it. He chose to study philosophy for three years, something obviously not normally available in middle and high school. The last summer, he took Crafting the Essay, which really helped make him into a writer. Between 7th and 8th grade he was also able to take an online math class which resulted in his moving to a more appropriate math class for the school year.
He loved everything about CTY: the intellectual life, the social life, you name it. He looked forward to it as the highlight of his year. We got partial financial aid every year, which helped.
The program is extremely well run, and organized in such a way that kids quickly bond with their classmates and are pretty much busy with classes, recreation, study halls, and meetings from the time they get up until they go to bed. The RAs are great about things like helping kids do their own laundry. It is a good first step towards independence, especially for kids who haven’t been to sleep-away camp or boarding school. Each campus evolved traditions that the kids took adorably seriously, down to the order in which The CTY Canon would be played at the weekend dances.
There were no drawbacks at all.
My kids both took them starting in 7th grade and scored very well, but I could never afford to send them to any of the camps. I’m amazed at how many people can afford it!
Did your kids prepare for the test(s) or just take them cold?
My kids took them cold. (I realize you’re asking everyone, not just me.)
We told our S that if he wanted to take it he should run through the practice sections they provided so that he would have some familiarity with the kind of questions. That was it.
Our POV was that if he couldn’t score well enough w/o prep that he didn’t belong there.
My two took the SATs in middle school and both have participated in the Duke TIP summer camps for high scorers. Our son has aged out - he was on Duke’s East Campus living in the dorms for 3 weeks each summer. It was pretty much his favorite 3 weeks of the entire year, at least the first two years. After his first summer (after 8th grade) he said it was fantastic. After his second summer he said (“as if it’s possible”) that it was even better. Then, by his 3rd summer (after 10th grade) he felt like he was outgrowing it and wasn’t sorry that he aged out and couldn’t do it again after 11th grade. The courses he took were good, but the real joy for him was living in the dorms with “interesting” students who cared about academics but also wanted to have fun at camp.
Our daughter did her second camp last summer. Didn’t have quite as good an experience with the class she took but also had a fantastic social experience in the dorms. She thinks she will do it again this summer.
So it is pretty expensive. However, one should compare it not to staying home and working and not to going to a day camp, but going to other 3-week sleepaway camps. Given that comparison, it’s not that much more expensive.
Also, my kids live in an area with lots of strong academics and academically-oriented adults. So the kids they hang out with on a regular basis are not that different than the TIP kids. There are some TIP kids from smaller, less academically-oriented areas who never interact with other kids like them until they get to TIP. For these kids, TIP can be life-changing.
Both my kids (I have a college freshman) and my 13 year old took them cold. Didn’t see the point of prepping for them when I was looking for a baseline, without any kind of prep.
Both my kids did DukeTip, and I would say absolutely do it. Actually, my daughter was “identified” in elementary school and I ignored it, thinking it was a money grab (like Who’s Who in American High Schools or something). But another mother told me about it in middle school so I signed her up. She took the ACT cold in 7th grade and did well enough to be invited to the national recognition ceremony at Duke. I think that is what lit a fire in her that her academic success really could get her places (hearing it from someone other than parents helps!).
Then, when I took my son last year to take the ACT as a 7th grader, we were in line with some of my daughter’s contemporaries. They said hello and the boys all commented, “Boy, we wish we had done this when we were in 7th grade. It would have helped take away the anxiety.”
My kids both decided not take the tests in 7th grade. Both weren’t interested in the high cost activities and saw no other reason for it to be useful.
Our school already had/has them on the high ability tracks for classes so using it to prove anything wasn’t needed.
Mine took the ACT through Duke in 7th grade (cold) just so that she would have an idea of what the test is like and not be so anxious about it in high school. She did fairly well and just missed the cutoff for state recognition. It’s given her enough confidence that she isn’t stressed about having to take it in high school, although she will prep for it when the time comes. If he had tried to get her to prep for it in the 7th grade, I think the anxiety would have sent her over a cliff.
She had absolutely no interest in taking any of the classes/camps. (At the time, she went to a year-round school and having to do even more academic work over her miniscule vacation was not appealing.)
She did have friends who went to state and/or national recognition. One, who was a C/D student in school scored a 30-something on the ACT and was suddenly faced with school and parental pressures to do better in school.
If you decide to pursue it (and I really don’t see too many negatives), I would go into it with a casual hands-off approach and just see what happens. It’s always nice to have a medal, but in the long run, there are other things more important.
D took the SAT in 7th grade. It provided a good baseline and introduction to the SAT. We didn’t bother with the awards ceremony or the expensive summer programs. She went to some free summer enrichment programs instead.
D took SAT in 8th grade; we did it for a baseline, more than anything, as she’d been floating around various schools for a few years prior. She qualified for CTY (on verbal only - her math score was pitiful) but we can’t afford any of their programs. I think it helped her confidence a lot. I don’t see any downside. She’s not a genius, and I’m glad we got that settled 