@TimeUpJunior I was referring to those classes as well! My bad for not clarifying either.
CTY sounds really wonderful for the right kids, and there might be something attractive to my son too. I hope taking the test opens doors that I don’t know exist to other opportunities as well.
Now that I’ve signed him up for the test, I wonder if taking the test cold is the right way to go. For a baseline benchmark score to be useful for comparison, he should be familiar with the format of the test now as he will be in the future. Going through the questions once or twice prior to the real test, not a full length practice but pieces of it, should help. But more practice may be useful in HS when the score really counts.
My son took a three week computer camp with CTY and really had an awful time. That seems opposite to what most people say, so I will need to give you some details.
He took the SAT cold in 7th grade, and this was a valuable experience. When he took the SAT for real in high school he was calm and confident. He scored well enough in 7th grade to be eligible for the higher level of CTY camps (there were two levels with two cut scores, can’t remember what they were called). He qualified on both the math and verbal side, and he was also given a state and national award and invited to some kind of Grand award ceremony in Baltimore to receive a medal. We did not attend either so they mailed us both medals. So far so good.
We signed him up for the Foundations of Computer Science class/camp which was for three weeks on campus living in a dorm at a university. The facility was very nice. When we dropped him off, the parent session was very serious. Lots of serious parents sitting in rows, no one smiling, staff being introduced by their qualifications, PHDs, grad students and so forth. That was to be expected but there was no evidence of the quirky fun and traditions that we had been told about. We had a young friend who had gone through CTY years ago when we lived near Baltimore and had read about all the fun and great social life in online reviews. Maybe the difference was that this was a newer venue on the west coast?
Well maybe it was just the computer science topic, but the experience was GRIM, like a forced cram school. My son is athlete and loves games like Frisbee and to be outdoors. He also love academics, but likes a balance. The first week he could not get much exercise to the extent that he called us and we had to call the CTY director who admitted that it had been lacking and promised that an RA would provide this the next week which they did to an extent. The brochures said to expect six hours a day of class but my son said it seemed like much more. They had assignments to complete in the evenings. He did not have fun. There was a lights out time, but the RAs went to bed and kids would get into my son’s room due to his roommate and keep him up all night. I know this for sure because he would skype from under his bed and we could hear the ruckus. This was not fun as there was a kid who did things like put his hairbrush in his water bottle.
My son did like some of the kids well enough but he said that a few in his class had been tricked by their parents and did not want to be there. One was told that he was going on family vacation but the family dropped him off on their way. There were kids who had flown in from overseas. The whole thing had the atmosphere of a cram school.
They did have the weekend dances but my son said that since he was in the computer science class and spending long hours with his classmates which were 14 boys and 1 girl, he didn’t know girls to socialize with. He said his roommate sat in the corner of the dance all night writing a computer app on his laptop.
He could not wait to leave and never wanted to go back.
I spoke to the mother of a girl who had picked one of the classes that you qualify for with a verbal score and she liked it a lot. I wish we had done that. I look back on it as the time we accidentally sent our kid to cram school. On the bright side, he did learn quite a bit. Basically it was a college class crammed into three weeks. Made him never want to go to Johns Hopkins either, even though he has the stats to be a very viable candidate. He still likes computer science so at least they didn’t torture that out of him.
I do think there is the danger that CTY has changed. It started out of a study done at Johns Hopkins to identify off the charts mathematical talents. They discovered that there were kids who could do very well on the math portions of the SAT even though they hadn’t been exposed to any advanced math. One thing led to another and the CTY camps were born. Back when my kids were young it never occured to any of us that you should study for the CTY placement. The whole point was to see how you would do even though you hadn’t been exposed to the math yet. Gifted kids can figure out the right answers surprisingly often. I think now there unfortunately a number of parents who push their kids into programs like this and kids who study for the tests. My son’s “Fast Paced Chem” class was more of a cram class, but we knew it would be. I think the best classes are the ones that cover broader topics that won’t ever be covered in school and that can go beyond the obvious. (So game theory ended up dealing with politics and sales strategy and not just math for example.)
@mathmom I’ve seen posts here on CC from middle school parents about how to study best for the CTY test. When DS took the SCAT in 7th grade with no prep, his favorite part about the test was that he figured out interesting new things about math (and English) while taking the test. He was excited to tell me those things after the test. There is some benefit to having a private test for which there is not really a way to prep.
Our son (now a college freshman) took the test for the Johns Hopkins program in elementary school, and went to one class. I think he enjoyed it, but by middle school he wasn’t liking school much. He was in a competitive magnet program in high school, but didn’t put forth a lot of effort and his grades suffered. He blew the PSAT and SAT out of the water. He was done with the CTY program before 7th grade, so he didn’t take the SAT until junior year. He was taking geometry in 7th, so I imagine he would have done fairly well. He just seemed to get tired of “playing the game.”
Probably not adding any new info, but…
Son took a live, free, practice SAT in 6th grade (Princeton Review used to offer those) with zero prep with the singular goal to see if he could even sit still for 3+ hours (adHd!). Once we realized he could actually sit still for a 3 hour test, he decided to take it for real in 7th grade to qualify for SET.
Based on the fact that he’d only taken 1/2 year of geometry in 4th grade and forgotten most of it, he watched some geometry videos (Chalkdust videos, borrowed from a friend) before taking the SAT in 7th. Qualified for SET, and decided to take it in 8th grade again (no need for prep since he was taking Calc I by this time) for the CTY competition. He scored well enough to go to the Grand Award Ceremony in Baltimore.
Pros:
- My mom paid for he and dh to go to Baltimore where he saw an Orioles game. :-) (Ceremony was boring, says he)
- Doting grandparents came to the local awards ceremony, and the ceremony was pretty fun.
My son never did summer programs. He was fortunate to have opportunities for academic peers in competitive chess and math/physics competitions.
@sbjdorlo This is helpful to my question of whether to take the test cold. I can tell that “cold” means different things to different people. For advanced kids like yours who took geometry in 4th grade, taking a 7th grade talent search test cold may mean that they don’t know the format but not the materials. On the other hand, for kids like mine who mastered their alphabets and 1-100 in kindergarten, taking the test cold may mean clueless. In a sense, the academic talent search is really a do-you-know-this-now test. It is a talent search in the sense that kids who do well may have started learning earlier, i.e., they are early learners or precocious. CTY makes perfect sense to them.
For my kid the official test will be his first time sitting for 3 hours for the test. He should go over pieces of a practice test once and then look at the missed questions one more time, which should be enough of a familiarity prep. We’ll see what he scores and how to interpret the results, but definitely I don’t expect him to be on a par with many kids of yours.
I’d say general familiarity with the format, reminder to fill out the info carefully and accurately, and discussing a strategy on what to do about guessing is probably all you really should do. I’m not a fan of having kids study for them. My kid DID want to do a little prep her second time, because her math score was fairly low the first time (in her mind, since it was a lot lower than her verbal score). But she literally spent maybe 30 minutes with a prep book, then called it good.
@TrudiRexar , thanks for that view of CTY. Completely opposite of what my S experienced, but it is different for differnt kids.
In terms of prep, frankly I think that if you look at the list of kids who score above 700 on each section–I’m talking about when there only were two sections, don’t know about now–it is pretty obvious that some ethnic groups are prepping the Math stuff to a significant degree: in a word, Asians. THere are FAR more kids scoring above 700 in Math, and most of them are Asian.
For that reason, I tend to think that one is more likely to experience the classic, free-spirit, free-thinking, highly intellectual CTY experience if taking a course that is not aimed at progressing through HS faster than everyone else: ie; not “fast-paced” anything STEM.
Of course, I realize that there are kids who do not match this stereotype.
@Consolation I think you are right about having a better time by not taking anything at CTY that is aimed at progressing through high school STEM classes faster. The computer science thing snuck up on us because my son is in a secondary school program that was designed around the liberal arts with no computer courses offered at all, so we reasoned that he should take the one subject that he was never going to be offered in school.
@eiholi You are right about the different definitions of cold. I should say that cold in my son’s case meant that his elementary school had accelerated him two years in math so by the time he was in seventh grade and taking the SAT, he was taking 9th grade math in school. We also bought a review book and had him take a practice test. We did not use any formal test prep courses, which some kids in our district do for CTY. I remember being shocked the first time I heard a seventh grader talk about taking SAT prep on Saturday mornings. Anyway, I guess in retrospect, my saying cold was very inaccurate. I meant without taking more than one or two practice tests from a book independently. I had forgotten about the math acceleration which surely entered in to it.
It seems wise to be familiar with the format and breakdown of the SAT before taking it for a talent competition. I would never advise students to go in without having seen an SAT test before. In my son’s case, knowing there was going to be geometry on the test, and knowing how much he loves math, it was easy to watch a few videos on the subject for prep.
My son who is now a college sophomore took the SAT in 8th grade for cty. Scored very high but never actually took any of the classes. So I had my DD take the test in 8th grade as well. Now we are considering a course at UC Berkeley for this summer. As a 9th grader, I’m a little worried that she will feel too young. The subject seems perfect for her, but she thinks it sounds like school. I said, well, it sort of is like school. So for those that have done a HS program recently, was it very intense or was there also fun stuff planned?
Daughter took SAT in middle school. She did not attend awards ceremonies or participate in summer programs. Her summers were already full with a variety of activities. We used her middle school SAT scores to convince the HS administration to exempt her from some mandatory HS classes such as freshman writing. She also took CTY non-lab classes such as AP STAT and JAVA to allow time in her HS schedule for music and every available lab science class. Raising a healthy well-rounded gifted child is a challenge once academic opportunities are plentiful. Finding time for music, sports, youth group, volunteering, friends and exploring each of the sciences in depth takes careful planning.
Without any prep (beyond reading the packet sent by the SAT board) or outside math classes, you will learn if your child has an innate ability to problem solve without being taught and understand their reading comprehension and vocabulary levels. It is not really about the score but how far advanced your child’s score is as compared to their exposure.
Pros: A WOW may make you step back and plan. In our case, we realized that since merit aid is not offered at top tier schools, we should start saving more by 7th grade. Also, although she was/interested in STEM fields, she performs at the same level in humanities classes, and a university with several colleges would be a better fit than an engineering school. She is now enjoying the engineering curriculum and classes in other schools a top tier university.
The cost of the SAT is a small fraction of the cost of a prep class. Practice without a permanent record is worth every dime.
A few hours is not a concern for a truly gifted child. I would not suggest that my younger children do the same even though their grades and HS SAT scores are similar. The key to a worthwhile talent search data is that some children achieve at such a high level without being taught.
My oldest tested into the program in our area back when he was in 8th grade. He took one class at a local college, but he wasn’t feeling it. He was my “one” that just rebelled at classroom learning every step of the way, although he did manage to graduate college in 4 years and is doing fine in life so I will give him that. The class he took he enjoyed because he took a lit class and he’s a reader. He liked the exposure to true discussion based education which is in short supply in public K-12. Because of him the next two boys refused to test in middle school even though they were invited.
Both my kids took the SAT cold. One qualified for taking anything, and the other qualified for the non-math related classes. One son went to CTY one summer (his camp was actually closed down bc of swine flu) then attended actual for credit classes at JHU for 2 summers. He wanted to do the classes as opposed to doing a “fun” type of camp. He was also an RA himself for JHUCTY. The other son had no interest, and stuck with “regular” camp.
I wish I had had an opportunity to do something like this. My progressive private school didn’t believe in this kind of thing. I had a taste of what “nerd camp” was like when I was on Teen Jeopardy in 10th grade. I didn’t win on the show, but being around kids like me was priceless. We all got along so well, even though we were competing. It was a highlight of my whole teen life (though that isn’t saying much).
Not a make it or break it thing. Some just take it cold or take few free practice tests online to have a general idea, others slave at prep center to prepare. A small percentage attends pricy summer programs or take online courses after qualifying while rest doesn’t. Half of the people getting involved like it while other half doesn’t care for it. These things doesn’t effect your chances to get into those colleges. These are as good as any other paid summer camp. One advantage that I see for people taking the SAT cold is they get an idea of exam before high school and if they do well then they feel confident to try for further challenges. I see no point in making a 7th grader prep for SAT but we all know you can’t argue with helicopter parents.
However, no doubt that high recognition at national level is an achievement and tells you that kid is on right track to become a NMSF. Most who make National in middle school Duke TIP or JH CITY easily make NMSF without prep if they are making good grades in school.
Agree with @“Yalie 2011” above. S and D took it cold and qualified for TIP summer studies. They would not have prepared even if asked. They did not go to the “recognition ceremony”. They both have done the summer camps - these are not regular courses at a local college like some programs mentioned above - they are summer camps for 3 weeks where you live in dorms, spend about 5 hours each weekday on a single academic class of your choosing - same one for all 3 weeks. There is no academic credit - the point is to allow you to study something deeply that you like without any pressure. Most of the kids who attend these camps think that’s the greatest thing ever. The rest of the 19 hours in each day, plus weekends, is on traditional camp fun activities - ultimate Frisbee, talent shows, lip sync contest, field trips to baseball games, hanging out in the dorms. Expensive? Yes, but really not more than most other themed sleepaway camps. Obviously these camps are not for kids who want nothing to do with academics when the school year ends.
Also, Duke explicitly states that your TIP records are not looked at for Duke admissions. So while participation in TIP might send a signal for college admissions to any competitive college, and while participation in TIP might also send a signal to Duke that you might be higher yield if they accept you, there is likely not any other admissions advantage to participation.