Will Acceleration Increase Chance of Ivy Admisson?

Parents Forum
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<p>“One Ivy League school that I visited this summer strongly suggested that I, a 14 year old senior, take a gap year before applying and make sure that my maturity and readiness for college shows through my recommendation letters and application.”</p>

<p>That’s advice I’d give to most 14 year old seniors too. (Taking the gap year at least, not waiting to apply though.) I graduated high school at 15 and spent a year with a French family. I learned to speak French fluently and entered college with quite a different attitude. I do think however it’s much easier to apply to college as a high school senior than early on in a gap year. I got accepted just like a normal student and then informed the college that I’d like to take a year off before attending. I think Harvard’s acceptence letter and website now suggest taking a gap year to all students, not just the young ones. I wouldn’t wait unless you have reason to think your teachers might comment on your immaturity.</p>

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<p>The issue of maturity and self-reliance is paramount. I know a dean of students who, after many years of dealing with immature though bright young er students at an Ivy, decided that she would make her kids wait until they turned 18 to matriculate. One of her kids had scored a 1550 on the SAT in 7th grade. She graduated early from high school, applied early to an Ivy, was admitted, but was made by her parents to take a gap year.</p>

<p>I do think it is not necessary to apply while in senior year. Andison was not admitted to the schools he’d applied to as a high school senior. He took a gap year and applied to different schools. He is now at MIT.
What would be good, however, is to get recommendation letters from teachers now rather than during gap year. </p>

<p>By the way, S has a friend at Harvard, who, I believe, has not yet turned 17. He applied early and was admitted when he was still 15.</p>

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<p>The selective colleges encourage gap years and look favorably at them IF they are spent in worthwhile activities. You don’t just take a gap year to increase your chances of getting into a highly selective school. My sons’ school encourages gap years, but also recommends you get into a college first, and then take the gap year.</p>

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<p>It’s a chicken and egg issue. If you are likely to be rejected on the ground of immaturity, it is best not to apply.</p>

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<p>What?!? This is downright frightening.</p>

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<p>Here’s a serious answer,
I am also in a grade with older kids because my teachers thought I was bright, but there were lots of times when I wished I was in the grade below. Especially in elementary school, sports, clubs, dancing classes are organized by grade. When I played softball for my town, I was on a team with kids from the grade below while all my friends from school were on a different team. Also, as you’re child gets older, there may be a larger gap between his maturity and that of other kids in his grade. Despite what teachers say, I think it’s best if your child stays with other kids of his age.</p>

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<p>whoops i meant they were organized by age…so i wasn’t in teams with my school friends</p>

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<p>One year ahead or behind really shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Any more or less might start to be problematic.</p>

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<p>boy, I hope the initial post was a very elaborate joke. Otherwise, I am indeed disturbed.</p>

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<p>As kinly07 points out, one year ahead or behind can make a very big difference to a child who is interested in activities where the grouping is by age. I had experiences similar to kinly’s 30something years ago. It can be very painful for a kid.</p>

<p>Also, acceleration doesn’t really work – if the goal is to put the child into a more academically stimulating environment. Sure it’s stimulating for the year or so that it takes the child to catch up with the new class. But once that’s over, it’s back to doing one year’s work in one year. Yawn. I skipped 3rd grade. I had a challenging experience in 4th grade. But by 5th grade, I was as bored as I had been in 2nd grade. And I was also socially out of place. I couldn’t keep up with the other kids in sports, and my interests didn’t match theirs because I was younger. What exactly did the acceleration accomplish, then?</p>

<p>Edited to add: Oddly, the one place where I didn’t feel out of place because of acceleration was at the Ivy League university I attended. As it happens, in those years, the city of New York had a massive program in which academically able students were allowed to do the three years of junior high in two years. My university, Cornell, was full of kids who had come from that program and were therefore a year younger than is typical for college students. I finally had a peer group! But I don’t think that program exists anymore.</p>

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<p>Marian:
Gifted students are said to learn at a different pace from other students, so grade skipping alone is not enough–as you found out. What’s needed is acceleration and curriculum compacting. There is no need to go over materials again and again because kids who are gifted in a particular subject get it faster than others.
S did precalc on his own in one semester in 7th grade then began calculus; he went v-e-r-y slow with calculus because he could not take the AP-exam until the end of 8th grade. He also took Physics as CTY so he could do AP-Physics in 8th grade while also doing AP-Calc. That worked well. Of course this meant college classes in high school, but like you, he did not find them too slow and boring.
He was subject accelerated, though he could have been grade-skipped. He was not a sports-oriented kid; also, since we live in a city, not being able to drive was not a problem (and continues not to be an issue).</p>

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<p>Marian, your experience with grade skipping occurs frequently with gifted students. That is why it subject acceleration that Marite’s son was able to get is preferable to grade skipping, especially if the student can enjoy integrating with kids his own age for social and athletic activities. There are kids who are so out of step with their age peers, that the best move is to get them into college or home school without regard to nonacademic opportunities, selecting them on an “a la carte” basis. But many kids can enjoy their own school, setting, but are intellectually wired so that their comprehension rate is just so much more accelerated than their peers, and it is to their advantatge to be able to hone in on that issue. Unfortunately, most school systems I have seen are not well equipped to handle this issue, and whole sale grade skipping is too often done as the solution to a child academically way advanced.</p>

<p>The top private schools, such as the New England prep schools address this issue very well. You see very advanced, very sharp, very motivated kids at these schools, and the curriculums are designed to meet their rates of comprehension and to challenge them while providing them with ECs including athletics with their peers. </p>

<p>Having many peers with similar rates and depths of learning is one reason, gifted students seek the more selective schools. Although many colleges have offering for all levels of kids including those at the very top, the most selective schools tend to have the largest percentage of such kids–they are the norm at these schools rather than the small “honors” programs kids.</p>

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<p>Meh, I think I’ve posted something to this effect in another thread but whatever.</p>

<p>From my limited personal experience, I would say that grade-skipping depends largely on the child and the environment. I’m three years younger than most of my peers but, honestly, age just isn’t something that I think about on a constant basis. Kids and most teachers at school, other than my closer friends, generally don’t know that I’m younger. They simply assume that because I’m in their grade, I’m their age and treat me accordingly. When the school newspaper did a focus on me a few months ago and mentioned my age, most people were really, really, really, surprised that I was 14. But then, perhaps I’ve been more fortunate than the average accelerated child and have amazing friends who treat me as an equal. Age rarely ever comes up.</p>

<p>I guess, in my choice of extracurriculars and such, I’ve also been quite fortunate in that little was based on age. Music depended mostly on skill level; most other things were based on grade level. The few sports that I’ve done (and promptly dropped because I hate running), Tae Kwon Do and Basketball, just also happened to be based on skill and grade level, respectively. </p>

<p>All in all, after being surrounded by peers about 3 years older than me for roughly 8 years, I can’t imagine myself in any other situation. (So there were a few snags in there - staying home a year, skipping again, etc) I’m happy where I am right now. While I get along with the few HS freshmen I know this year, I’m most comfortable with the juniors and seniors and I consider them, not those necessarily my age, to be my peer group. </p>

<p>Well, I’ve sent out my EA application so we shall see I suppose. I truly believe that my recommendations will speak for my maturity and readiness for college. One teacher I asked for an extra rec from had no idea that I was 14 until I requested her to address my maturity as she saw fit for that reason. It’s not necessarily that she doesn’t know me well, but just that age had just never come up in our past conversations. </p>

<p>As for the Ivy league admission officer’s comment, I understand that the concerns are perfectly justified. It just annoyed me in a way. I had been discussing my nonprofit with him (about sending in a portfolio on it perhaps) and he had been (as far as I could tell) genuinely interested and open. Then I mentioned my age. He was surprised and remarked on my mature appearence but then immediately started going on about how “____ wasn’t the only place to get a great college experience” and how I should consider taking a gap year(s) before applying. </p>

<p>Honestly, the few things that I really dislike about being younger (that I can think of right now) are (1) Not being able to drive and (2) Not being old enough to legally sign for certain things regarding my nonprofit and (3) Not being old enough to hold my freaking plane ticket when flying to mathcamps and such. I really am capable of holding a piece of paper and not loosing it. >.< (4) Having to deal with college essays and such this year. None of the above, with the exception of the last one, would really be different if I was a 9th grader and not a senior right now. College essays? I would have had to do them eventually anyway. Plus, how many of you parents have 17/18 y.o. seniors who are loving college essays anyway?</p>

<p>Side note. Being a year ahead really isn’t that rare. Many kids around here start kindergarten/1st grade a year early. Graduating HS in three years is also relatively popular at my high school. As a result, once in a while, you do see a student who started early graduating high school in three years at the age of 16. These kids generally don’t always make the highest grades or take the most challenging (AP, Honors, GT) classes. They just want to get a diploma and get out of HS. </p>

<p>And this got slightly offtopic and distracted me from the Rice app I probably should be working on.</p>

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<p>A couple of somewhat related articles I thought interesting:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/nyregion/19kindergarten.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/nyregion/19kindergarten.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/business/21instincts.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/business/21instincts.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Read the studies on acceleration in the gifted and talented literature; they report no problems secondary to being accelerated. Just saw son this weekend, he’s doing well, being challenged and happy; his school seems to be a good fit- he’s nearly 17. Senior year in HS he was bored and let his grades slip due to homework issues, not exam grades. He had a full HS experience- academics, music, sports and friends. Reviewing his past, I don’t think spending another year in elementary school would have helped his grades in high school and I don’t think he would have fit in any better, his intelligence would have still been noticed by his classmates.</p>

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<p>The selective private schools have always been proponents of “redshirting” in pre school. Many kids are deferred to the next year for maturity issues. As a result, their early childhood classes tend to have older, and more mature kids, making it difficult for younger kids to gain entry.</p>

<p>It is not true, as the one director in the NYT article states, that it is all negative about being the youngest in the class. The Terman studies of gifted children consistently show the younger kids being the smarter ones, and from what I have heard from other “mites” studies, this is still the case. Even as the private programs are holding back, many precocious kids are being accelerated by skipping grades. In the top private schools, the depth of the curriculum make skipping grades and acceleration, a rare thing, but in most programs designed not only for the average child but with addendums for those who are also a bit slow, the bright child can spinning in one place. Acceleration or grade skipping is often the best academic choice. Weighing in the social and athletic issues can make it less desireable for some children.</p>

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<p>In the ISL (Independent School League) here in Boston, it is very uncommon to see someone younger than grade and extremely common to see someone older than grade, particularly for boys. </p>

<p>As an extreme, there is a 17-year-old quarterbacking BB&N’s freshman football team. They’re undefeated. He was kicked out of Belmont Hill for drinking. Was probably old for grade level there and then got kicked back another grade in the transition to BB&N.</p>

<p>Wonder how being an athletic star (plus three years on his competitors) will impact his college chances?</p>

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<p>Some kids are on the regular track and it"s working fine for them. Obviously, I’m addicted to CC or I wouldn’t be here so much, but my kid is a public schooll kid who I think will do fine and I think his friends will do fine. Ivy mania sounds unpleasant.</p>

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<p>What a ■■■■■!</p>

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<p>My daughter skipped a grade in elementary school. She has a late birthday so many kids in her class are 1-2 years older than her. I think the decision to skip or to hold back purely depends on each indvidual child. In my daughter’s case, she is very mature, tall and outgoing. She really enjoys being the youngest and smartest in the class. This is a great boost to her confidence. I also see some kids’ social life suffers from being young, especially those that are not physically well built and outgoing. </p>

<p>As far as college is concerned, I do not see any advantage of being young in age. Instead, there are some draw backs for being young, for example, many internship positions are only open to kids over 16. But kids who are young have other options, for example, they can take off one year to explore the world or learn another language after high school without worrying that they will be older than their peers when entering the college. This can be very positive experince for many kids.</p>