TAMSter Parents

Parents Forum
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<p>I’ve asked about TAMS before on these forums, but only in terms of the college application process. I realized however, that if I’m going to be living somewhere for two years I probably should know something about it.</p>

<p>I mean, I know UNT’s party line on the program front and back, but I’m curious as to what actual experience is like from people slightly less invested in the program’s success. So if there are any parents of TAMS people here, I was just wondering how your child feels about TAMS, and if you would recommend it for another kid.</p>

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<p>My d was invited to apply to TAMS, but did not want to leave her h.s. She has friends who attended TAMS and there have been several TAMS kids posting here. Most have said they find the experience very enriching, but a couple have said they did feel they missed out on the high school experience somewhat and they didn’t feel that they were in ‘real college’ either. But the read I get is that all felt like the positives outweighed the negatives which were minor.</p>

<p>Keep bumping this and hopefully one of the TAMS kids will see it and give you better information.</p>

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<p>TAMS is one of those classic cases of a really tough time that students will always look back on as one of the best times in their lives.</p>

<p>First, the transition is hard for many students. The school does an excellent job of helping students adapt to going to college away from home, but, there’s only so much that they can do. Most students manage to adjust and they mature quickly (which can be harder for us parents to take than the students). We also lived very close to the school. It’s probably much more interesting for the parents from Houston or El Paso who can’t take the time to see their student as regularly as we did.</p>

<p>Next, the work and the competiton are both intense. The curriculm is that of a core engineering or pre-med program. Some classes require lots of hours for a student to be successful. The professors don’t cut anyone any slack, either, not with students this bright. </p>

<p>While there’s probably less competiton between students than in our local high school, students work to help each other more freely, for instance, it still plays a factor. Extremely talented students discover they’re not at the top of the heap anymore and have to face what it’s like to make their first B or not be the one receiving a choice opportunity or award because for the first time, someone else was more qualifed than they were. On the positive side, most students love working and playing where everyone one is so talented and from what I’ve seen, some very real, life long friendships develop from it. </p>

<p>The final thing is, what do students get out of it? On the education side, I’ve thought long and hard about it and I’d have to say that what the school says is true, that it is better than taking AP classes. You will learn more and be better prepared to attend college, at least compared to the very good public high school my son was attending.</p>

<p>Students from TAMS get into very good schools from TAMS, too, but so do students from other schools, so that varies. TAMS doesn’t necesarily shorten the time students spend in college after graduation, BTW. That depends on transfer policies and majors and other things that are unique to the college and student. The majority of students go to the University of Texas, however, which loves TAMSters, is a bargain even compared to scholarships elsewhere and gives them the best chance of graduating early due to state mandated transfer policies. YMMV</p>

<p>Would I send another of my children to TAMS? Well, the younger two probably aren’t interested. It is a great place for a more mature than average, self-motivated and talented student who’s sure they want to study math or science or a related field. It’s not a great place for less mature students or who need supervison to study or who are struggling with personal problems or who are not sure this is the kind of thing they want to study. The personal problem issue is a big one, because while they have lots of rules, students are still given incredible liberty for their age.</p>

<p>The one thing that I think the school doesn’t tell parents or students that they might want to know is their attrition rate. The two years my son was there, it ran above 15%. That was a shock. I have no idea what it’s like for a student who has to return to regular high school or how that affects their college chances afterward. I suspect it depends on why they left.</p>

<p>For all that and the regular complaints we received from our son about the school, now that he’s graduated he often speaks of his time there and the wonderful friendships he found there. Oh, and he thinks the classes were harder than his top 25 university, though I suspect that’s only because most of his classes were filled with nothing but those very bright TAMSters.</p>

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<p>I’m not a TAMS parent, but know quite a bit about the program. Six local kids I know well have applied and been accepted. Two decided not to attend. Four decided to attend, but 3 of those chose to leave after a year. The other one will be graduating this spring. My own child would have been an easy TAMS admit (he’s currently at MIT), but decided not to apply. He felt he had a much better deal going at home.</p>

<p>I think the essential question here really has to do with resources available in your own community. For a smart kid from a rural area who has maxed out his local high school, TAMS might be a godsend. For our local kids who have not gone, or who have left, that really wasn’t the situation. There are plenty of opportunities for them to take community college and university courses locally.</p>

<p>One of the kids who left found TAMS much more restrictive than his life had been at home. His mom described it to me as being more like boarding high school than like college. He and another student who left TAMS spent what would have been their senior years taking CC courses at home, then switched to UT. They will graduate from UT with all of their TAMS classmates who ended up there. nother student who left TAMS for family reasons took a gap year, then finished high school in another state. I know of another non-local kid who left for family reasons and returned to his previous high school part time, taking college classes the rest of the time.</p>

<p>The one kid I know who is completing the program has liked it. He left for TAMS at a younger than usual age because he was eager to get away from home. For him, TAMS involved a big increase in independence, unlike the experience of the two older kids who already had quite a bit of independence at home and gave it up.</p>

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<p>I have a teacher friend whose niece left TAMS due to the pressure of it. I think both my kids might have been accepted had they applied, but neither needed challenges that weren’t already available at our local high school and through their EC’s. We’re a tight knit family, and the thought of missing that time together as the kids grow-up and experience those high school years would have kept it from happening. No way! They grow up and out fast enough!</p>

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<p>That’s a bit of a shock. Over the years the rule book has grown larger as group after group of highly bright (and hormonal) students have passed through the place and invented new challenges for the faculty, but there were few restrictions we didn’t approve of. They’re pretty pragmatic. </p>

<p>When the students filled a bath tub with raman noodles to see how many packages it would take, they mostly reminded them they could have gotten the number by calculation and reminded everyone that stunts are OK so long as neither people nor property could reasonably be expected to get hurt.</p>

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<p>The communities that provide the most students to the program are Plano and Houston, both places with few limits to opportunity. Most students could find a way to get college level work. I’d have to accept the school’s argument that their program is different. It’s more challenging and intense and there’s very little substitute for attending where every student is high caliber.</p>

<p>YMMV, of course.</p>

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<p>caveat - the kids I have experience with going to TAMS have all been homeschoolers. Their alternative to TAMS is not a high school at all, but a combination of self-study and courses at the local CC and university, where they don’t have the course requirements, attendence requirements, etc that they have at TAMS. (like that required 8 am biology class at TAMS) Add in cars, life in a more interesting city than Denton, and possibly a later parental curfew than TAMS imposes for the dorm, and it is reasonable for many of them to conclude that they have a better deal going at home. I agree that the caliber of one’s classmates is very important for gifted kids. But looking at the local math/science kids who chose to go to TAMS and those who could have but chose not to, the ones who did not do TAMS probably have the edge. For my own family, TAMS made no sense at all. Son covered everything he would have taken at TAMS as self-study or distance learning courses in a fraction of the time. He spent the rest of his time taking graduate level courses which he would never have gotten to at TAMS. If the choice had been btwn TAMS and high school, we might have made a different decision.</p>

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<p>texas137: You say the non-TAMS kids had the edge. The edge in what? College application-wise? Socially? Academically?</p>

<p>And just a note, I’m one of the many(17 at last count! and we’re only one of five schools) applying out of Shepton High in Plano. So I’m basically deciding between a stellar traditional program and TAMS.</p>

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<p>I’m saying that the local homeschooled kids who could have gone to TAMS but chose not to are stronger academically than the ones who went. They have also been at least as successful in terms of college apps. Counting the students who skipped TAMS plus those who went to TAMS and dropped out, there are now 2 at MIT, 2 at Stanford, 1 at Pomona, 1 at Yale, 2 at UT-Austin, and one I lost track of. 3 are currently applying to elite schools and likely to be successful. Another TAMS dropout I know who returned to high school is expecting to go to Princeton. The one person I know well who is on track to finish TAMS is likely to end up at UT, which he could have done without TAMS. Don’t get me wrong. I think TAMS is a great program! But it cannot be assessed in isolation. It has to be compared to whatever your other options are. For some kids, the other options may be academically superior.</p>

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<p>I’m sure that some students would be successful in a “roll you’re own” version of the program. It would seem to put a lot more demands on the student and his or her family, and not necessarily academic ones.</p>

<p>Another option would be early admission, simply going to college before you graduate college. That’s right for some students. There are certainly enough students succeeding with “traditional”, AP oriented programs, too. I’d have to repeat what TAMS offers is intensity and comeraderie. It’s not for everyone, though.</p>

<p>BTW, I’d argue you can’t really judge which approach is better based on the anecdotal evidence you mentioned about homeschoolers and es-TAMSters getting in to particular colleges, texas137. Too much variability by student. Certainly not all the TAMSters who left the program left because they couldn’t handle it academically.</p>

<p>Without doubt, the program puts students in some very good schools. Check the “Wall of Stars” on their website.</p>

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<p>

Absolutely! I am not saying that homeschooling is better than TAMS. I am merely saying that the TAMS decision must be made in the context of the student’s other opportunities. If those options include college classes locally, as they do for homeschoolers, early entrants, and people in dual enrolled situations, that may offer some of the same advantages as TAMS. If the student is in a high school with a critical mass of similarly strong math and science students, that may also offer some of the same advantages. If the student homeschools and has an organized peer group of other strong math/science homeschoolers in the community (which is the case where I live but would not be the case elsewhere), that may offer some of the same advantages. Some students (both homeschooled and traditionally schooled) decide that their local situation, in terms of academic resources, peer group, or both is superior to TAMS. I raised homeschooler examples because that’s what I know. I am sure that there are kids at the better local high schools who know about and could have attended TAMS but decided that their local situation is better.</p>

<p>Conversely, if the student lives in a community and attends a high school that offers bupkis, and there are no other kids around like them, then it’s a no-brainer. Go to TAMS.</p>

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<p>(I rewrote this and missed the 20 minute cut-off)

Absolutely! I am not saying that homeschooling is better than TAMS. I am merely saying that the TAMS decision must be made in the context of the student’s other opportunities. If those options include college classes locally, as they do for homeschoolers, early entrants, and people in dual enrolled situations, that may offer some of the same advantages as TAMS. If the student is in a high school with a critical mass of similarly strong math and science students, that may also offer some of the same advantages. If the student homeschools and has an organized peer group of other strong math/science homeschoolers in the community (which is the case where I live but would not be the case elsewhere), that may offer some of the same advantages. Some students (both homeschooled and traditionally schooled) decide that their local situation, in terms of academic resources, peer group, or both is superior to TAMS. I raised homeschooler examples because that’s what I know. I am sure that there are similar stories about kids at the better local high schools who know about and could have attended TAMS but decided that their local situation is better.</p>

<p>Conversely, if the student lives in a community and attends a high school that offers bupkis, and there are no other kids around like them, then it’s a no-brainer. Go to TAMS. </p>

<p>I’m sure that there are plenty of kids who wash out of TAMS. A range of kids are accepted, including many who are weaker academically than peers who choose not to go. TAMS doesn’t get the best X number of math/science kids in the state. They merely get the best X number of math/science kids who apply and decide to attend. There are plenty of very strong kids who decide against TAMS, which was the point I was trying (badly) to make. The pool of kids who could go and don’t is as strong or stronger academically as the pool of kids who do go.</p>

<p>Some kids may be up to TAMS academically, but simply not want to work that hard. That was almost certainly the case with at least two of the kids in my anecdotes who left after a year and went to UT. Simply going to college instead of TAMS gives them a lot more control over work load and course selection. Some kids may be strong enough academically, but not have the emotional maturity to be away from home, or may choose TAMS to escape a bad home situation and then succumb to stress. There were a couple of those in my little sample group also.</p>

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<p>My kid has health issues and was unable to keep up after missing several classes.
He may have to drop out now. What are his options ?</p>

<p>Will he get any credits for his course work in first semester ?</p>

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<p>My D (currently a graduating senior) attended TAMS’ Summer Math Institute (SMI) the summer after her freshman year. She loved it, enjoyed the independence of living in the dorms and being around like-minded math heads. A group of her friends from SMI applied to TAMS the following year, so she did too. She and many of her SMI friends were accepted. After much discussion, she decided to stay put at our local public H.S. Boy, are we glad! She has kept in touch with nearly all of her old friends. The drama that unfolded that first year they attended sounded terrible. All but one student left and returned after the first year. One girl even transferred back after one semester. Apparently the teachers did NOT care for this group of kids and let them know it! And these are GOOD kids…I met them. No behavior problems whatsoever. There were a couple of very driven asians in the group as well who I’m sure will end up at MIT or Cal Tech. Why TAMS couldn’t take this group of extremely bright, polite kids and have some success is beyond me.</p>

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<p>givings,</p>

<p>Were these girls able to transfer back to High School without losing much ? Any contacts ?</p>

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<p>Sorry, we’re out of town on Spring Break. Let me ask her. She keeps up on facebook and I’ll tell her to put that question out there.</p>