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<p>Of course. When you lower standards …</p>
<p>IP, What standards are you referring to?</p>
<p>Academic standards.</p>
<p>Children are usually labled gifted based on how they score on tests of cognitive ability/intelligence such as the WISC or Stanford Binet. Sometimes achievement tests are used, but often in addition to the cognitive tests. Academic standards don’t usually come into play except to initially suspect a child might be gifted. But it’s not uncommon for gifted children to perform poorly in school. Especially one with “low” standards.</p>
<p>Sorry for the tangent :)</p>
<p>Look, IP, we GET that you think academic standards in the US are low, pitiful, jokes, whatever. What do you hope to accomplish by repeating variations of that theme over and over again? For such poor academics, we seem to have created the colleges that the whole world drools over. There’s hardly a grand movement among US high school seniors to explore Indian or Chinese colleges. </p>
<p>And if you already have observed that there are test prep places by observing those classes that are near where your son takes his lessons, why did you ask why they exist? Clearly there’s a market for them, that’s the reason anything exists. Parents who have the means want their kids to do well in standardized testing, the same way you, as a man with means, want your son to do well in music, math and squash. It’s rather like asking, “Why is there a market for squash and music lessons?” Well, because parents want their kids to do well in those areas. Duh.</p>
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<p>It’s not within the boundaries of normal social interaction to know what other people’s children got on their SAT’s … It might be excusable at the high school level among people who are close friends with one another, but certainly not at the 11 - 13 year old level.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing, IP.</p>
<p>The 11 yo who scores 700 on the math SAT doesn’t really go any farther in college admissions or in life for that matter compared to the 11 yo who doesn’t get a 700 on the math SAT until he’s a junior in high school. So what’s the point? It’s like the whole thing is a race for you. It’s like knowledge is sand, and it’s of critical importance to pour it all into your kid at age 11, 12, 13. What’s the rush? What possible difference does it make if your kid learns calculus at age 12 or at age 17? What’s he going to do with it that’s so meaningful? </p>
<p>I was advanced in math in junior high, and my parents were told to either advance me one grade in math, or have me take college courses. They wisely chose for me just to advance one grade in math. What would the point of college courses have been? Make me even nerdier than I already was? Make me a social outcast? For what end? Nothing horrible happened that I didn’t learn calculus til the end of high school. I even became a math major at a top 20 university, imagine that! What is the rush for? What purpose does it serve?</p>
<p>reeinaz-
the sad thing I have seen is that parents are starting to prime their kids to do well on the IQ tests. These are also being used for admissions to some private primary schools and parents are learning how to game that system too. Its really sad. Why people feel the need to cheat is beyond me.</p>
<p>We got a test prep book for each test our children were scheduled to take, but so far as we know they looked at few if any of them. At most they might have looked over a few practice SAT’s to get an idea of the format of the tests. </p>
<p>I do in fact sort of remember them opening one or two, going into a panic when they couldn’t answer some questions, and then requiring no small amount of reassurance to go take the tests anyway. Perhaps we were fortunate that their teachers did provide a few weeks of extra sessions before and after school for students preparing to take AP exams.</p>
<p>Anyway, Frazzled kids got some nice scores to submit even without the prep, and even though they did not take them in middle school. Perhaps they might have gotten more 800’s had they prepped? Anyway, we gave the books away, mostly to Asian classmates, who, from what I know of these kids, probably put on a small show of reading the books for their parents’ benefit, but then also went on to do well on the tests and get into good schools .</p>
<p>They did make good use of the Fiske guide.</p>
<p>Save yourselves some money…do the Xiggi method. The only thing you might want is a copy of that book “Real SATs” or something like that. It has SAT type tests that a student can do for practice. My kids said that was VERY valuable to them…just doing some practice tests that were in the same format at she SAT. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>We also got them some driver’s ed manuals to study before they took THAT written test…What’s wrong with a little extra preparation?</p>
<p>IP, I too knew a bunch of 11-13 yr olds who could [ and did] score 700+ on the SAT. They were at the school for gifted kids that my son went to. But the SAT is not for measuring the IQ of the top 1% of the population- i.e.gifted kids at a young age- its a rough, imperfect, measurement to compare the preparedness of any student [ including the other 99% of the population that aren’t gifted] who wants to go on to college.
Your smug attitude about the small % of the population you seem to be surrounded by is very telling, and typical of many hi IQ Indians in this country, who think that because they are smart, and successful, therefore they know it all AND need to tell the rest of the world what they doing wrong…
I see it all the time here in SV…</p>
<p>I do admit that my oldest attended a school with IQ test for admission. :o BUT our ins paid for it as she participated in high risk follow up study at the local U. ( All children who had been discharged from NICU were eligible)
I would have had no idea how to help her with that ( or incentive, as the whole purpose was to see how she was developing)
But I did notice that some of the questions were culturally biased but probably not enough to make a big difference.
( I think the IQ test was left over from when the school was part of a research study at Harvard of gifted preschoolers- but given that it is expensive to administer the test, they had quite a self selected group even before you looked at tuition)</p>
<p>But still even with these sorts of private schools, I haven’t noticed ANY SAT test centers. I did buy a booklet to familiarize them with the test, but it still looks brand new! I don’t think they even cracked the cover & that was the extent of their prep. They both were admitted to every college they applied to. Many universities also are interested in essays, ECs, recommendations , community service & interviews, just as much or more than numbers from grades & test scores.</p>
<p>In defense of having 12 year olds take the SAT…I will say that the results can be very a useful tool in getting a very high end student the correct resources at a public school. </p>
<p>At our local public school where every parent thinks their child is a genius, the teachers don’t really pay much attention to parents’ claims that the curriculum isn’t enough for their child. A parent whose child is scoring over 700 on one or more sections of the SAT at age 12 gets attention around here since at even at our local high school these scores are not that common.</p>
<p>Our local flagship U, also has an early entrance program for students who are ready to skip high school before entering the U. One of D’s friends participated and taking the SAT in 6th or 7th grade was part of the process.</p>
<p>My older D * liked* taking the WISC-R & other tests, they were just another puzzle to her & as I had never taken the SAT in my life, I thought it would be a way to get it out of the way " when it didn’t count". But I would have never had my youngest do that, because she is dyslexic which complicates testing.</p>
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<p>PG, Why are you so upset with me when there are so many others that claim that the US K-12 system is in shambles? I am not interested in the superficial answer that there is a market for test prep because people want to do well in the test. That’s like saying there is a market for air because people need to breathe. Of course, but that is too simplistic. The question is why do kids find it necessary to prepare for a pretty simple test? How is the school system failing them? The analogy to squash and piano is not appropriate as there are no regular schools in squash and piano in the USA. Yes, there are academies, but kids who go to such academies do not need supplemental help. Why is that not the case for regular education? I can tell you why it is not for math - the curriculum is weak. So the simple solution to me seems to make the curriculum stronger. What am I missing here?</p>
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<p>For you. In my friend circle people are pretty open about sharing many things about their kids. It depends on the strength of the relationship. You really have a closed mind.</p>
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<p>Taking SATs at any stage of your academic career is a waste of time indeed. But if you have the capacity to learn math, why not learn it? What’s the downside to learning to your full capacity, especially if you like math?</p>
<p>In my friend circle people are pretty open about sharing many things about their kids.</p>
<p>I agree it does depend on the relationship they have with their kids. Some might feel that things like test scores are personal and up to the child to disclose, others may feel that their children are just an extension of themselves and so it is up to the parents to decide if they want to share the information.</p>
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<p>All I said was that if 11 year olds can do well in SAT, then the SAT is likely not a very hard exam. No more or less. Hence, test prep for SATs seem ludicrous to me.</p>
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<p>Give me a break. It is no different than telling your close friends what college you kid is attending or where he works.</p>