Private School Admissions - 2019 (Houston, Plano: school district, tuition, design)
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No. CATS is scored is scaled based on on 3 month increments. So a kid that is 5 years old will be graded more easily than a kid that is 5 years and 3 months old. So no real benefit from waiting.
No. CATS is scored is scaled based on on 3 month increments. So a kid that is 5 years old will be graded more easily than a kid that is 5 years and 3 months old. So no real benefit from waiting.
Got it, thanks! We were 5 yrs 3 months at that time.
My real point was that the bands are 3 months apart. I'm not quite sure if its 5 years and 5Y3M or 4Y11M and 5Y2M. I would also add that the psychologist notes as to focus, attention etc. are just as important as the actual score. And finally, I feel pretty convicted that the CATS score is used as a minimum cut-off and everyone making it is treated on the same level regardless of score.The group observation is probably the most important section of the whole process- it is the only time the school actually sees your child, and can compare them with others. The mindset for persevering and focus/motivation is valued more than a raw intelligence number (which everyone knows is unreliable for young kids) The only time CATS matters is as a tie breaker when 2 candidate do equally well in group, have similarly good references, and parents with good fit.
Its in my nature to research things well, and I've looked at a lot of information- studies and papers, including one from a prominent school in town about how to construct the process. All in all, I think schools do a pretty good job with all the available information (though I'm sure they'll make mistakes), and I say that as a first time parent applicant with no idea as to whether our kid would get in.
I have two friends who started at Alcuin for pre-K, kindergarten...both pulled their kids after K.
One of them is a teacher - didn't care for their approach to reading or lack of individualizing curriculum for the more advanced kids.
It’s definitely not worth the money if your child has been identified as gifted. There are three children this year that have been identified as gifted and referred to therapy by the school, and those are the ones that I am aware about. These children are also in different classrooms. None of the Primary teachers have gifted training, so they assume a child has a behavioral problem before ever considering or entertaining the idea of a child being bored or beyond the material. There are WAY too many children under the age of 6 being referred to therapy by the school. It’s extremely disappointing considering the school’s mission and the way that they market the school.
I HIGHLY recommend you avoid this school for early childhood if your child has been identified as gifted or you have the slightest feeling that they might be!! Your child will waste an entire year being held back to what their age group is doing and required to repeat the work MANY times before allowed to demonstrate that they have “mastered” the work before being allowed to move forward to the next level. It doesn’t matter if you tell the teacher your child is well surpassed a certain level of work. Your experience with your child will be ignored in the end, and later on, the school will likely refer your child to a therapist—One that specializes in ADD, OCD, ODD, anxiety, etc..
If your child is reading before preschool, it does not matter. The teacher doesn’t care if your child is reading at a 1st or 2nd grade level. They still will not be allowed to touch books that are designated strictly for the kindergarteners in the classroom. Your child must perform MANY repetitions of work involving the sounds of each letter before being allowed to show the teacher that they already know all the sounds. They must first practice the sounds of phonograms many times before being allowed to demonstrate their mastery to the teacher. It doesn’t matter if they already know them. They will then need to work with moveable alphabet to build words that they already know many times before they are allowed to show mastery of word building to the teacher. At that point, your child will not be allowed to look at kindergarten level books until they are already in kindergarten.
Math... it’s the same thing!
Maps.. same thing!
Writing... yup, same thing!
... And finally, I feel pretty convicted that the CATS score is used as a minimum cut-off and everyone making it is treated on the same level regardless of score.
This is partly incorrect. There isnt a ‘cutoff’ per se’. If something like one exists- its a pretty wide range. The younger the age at which you’re applying the more this is true.
In any case, there are many exceptions and intangibles. The schools are looking to build a class more so than admit a single kid. They need so many of X and so many Y’s and a few less Z’s etc. There IS intellectual diversity at these schools especially in the lower grades even though all the kids are quite capable.
It’s definitely not worth the money if your child has been identified as gifted. There are three children this year that have been identified as gifted and referred to therapy by the school, and those are the ones that I am aware about. These children are also in different classrooms. None of the Primary teachers have gifted training, so they assume a child has a behavioral problem before ever considering or entertaining the idea of a child being bored or beyond the material. There are WAY too many children under the age of 6 being referred to therapy by the school. It’s extremely disappointing considering the school’s mission and the way that they market the school.
I HIGHLY recommend you avoid this school for early childhood if your child has been identified as gifted or you have the slightest feeling that they might be!! Your child will waste an entire year being held back to what their age group is doing and required to repeat the work MANY times before allowed to demonstrate that they have “mastered” the work before being allowed to move forward to the next level. It doesn’t matter if you tell the teacher your child is well surpassed a certain level of work. Your experience with your child will be ignored in the end, and later on, the school will likely refer your child to a therapist—One that specializes in ADD, OCD, ODD, anxiety, etc..
If your child is reading before preschool, it does not matter. The teacher doesn’t care if your child is reading at a 1st or 2nd grade level. They still will not be allowed to touch books that are designated strictly for the kindergarteners in the classroom. Your child must perform MANY repetitions of work involving the sounds of each letter before being allowed to show the teacher that they already know all the sounds. They must first practice the sounds of phonograms many times before being allowed to demonstrate their mastery to the teacher. It doesn’t matter if they already know them. They will then need to work with moveable alphabet to build words that they already know many times before they are allowed to show mastery of word building to the teacher. At that point, your child will not be allowed to look at kindergarten level books until they are already in kindergarten.
Math... it’s the same thing!
Maps.. same thing!
Writing... yup, same thing!
Save for religious reasons or enrollment in a school for the gifted- I wouldn’t spend the money on private school for a gifted child.(By gifted i mean one who’s IQ is in the top 5th percentile of the population) The money would probably be better spent paying for individualized instruction or other enrichment for a person capable of functioning at that level. Private schools, like many other schools- aren’t usually a good academic fit for outliers and make little financial sense in those cases. (little to no benefit)
ETA: Differentiation of instruction costs money and is something most private schools try to avoid. If your child is special for any reason, one should stick with schools that specialize in ‘different’ or go public. Its the whole reason private schools spend months cherrypicking kids to ensure a good ‘fit’. Because most likely, its one curriculum for most everyone. That is something one should research heavily BEFORE applying anywhere.
Save for religious reasons or enrollment in a school for the gifted- I wouldn’t spend the money on private school for a gifted child.(By gifted i mean one who’s IQ is in the top 5th percentile of the population) The money would probably be better spent paying for individualized instruction or other enrichment for a person capable of functioning at that level. Private schools, like many other schools- aren’t usually a good academic fit for outliers and make little financial sense in those cases. (little to no benefit)
Is that satire?
For clarity I'm not talking about pre-K and K.
Several of the privates around here specifically cater to the top echelon or two of students. One of my son's friend's IQ is roughly 1 in 125,000 rare and he's seriously math gifted (rarity numbers are overstated amongst first world kids IMO but that's a different conversation). Think of the two best name brand colleges for math and he went to one of those and is currently a tenure track theoretical mathematics professor out west as a 28 yo kid (he might be 29). He did the catholic school thing here in Dallas K-12. He's one of those people who probably shouldn't have a driver's license or access to a credit card but if you need to pencil-prove a geosynchronous orbit around Mars with a gravity assist from the moon - he's the man.
Crikey POP catholic school in Plano had my son and a couple of other kids working legitimate calculus problems in elementary school. My wife and I knew he was at least somewhat gifted at math and other STEM-y areas. They figured out once his arithmetic and algebra were in order the more complex maths just seemed easy for him.
My son was study buddies with four girls from Hockaday. All five of them went on to make 40 or better on the old MCAT test - comfortably in the 100th percentile (the 99th percentile ended somewhere within 38) of test takers. Thinking it through a couple of things leap to mind. A). it throws some serious sunshine on Hockaday for cranking out kids who performed well enough in college earn those scores B). It implies convincingly that Hockaday deals with rare talent exceptionally well.
From experience as someone who paid the bills the top couple layers of private schools around here deal very well with gifted and exceptionally gifted kids and have for a long time.
Several of the privates around here specifically cater to the top echelon or two of students. One of my son's friend's IQ is roughly 1 in 125,000 rare and he's seriously math gifted (rarity numbers are overstated amongst first world kids IMO but that's a different conversation). Think of the two best name brand colleges for math and he went to one of those and is currently a tenure track theoretical mathematics professor out west as a 28 yo kid (he might be 29). He did the catholic school thing here in Dallas K-12. He's one of those people who probably shouldn't have a driver's license or access to a credit card but if you need to pencil-prove a geosynchronous orbit around Mars with a gravity assist from the moon - he's the man.
Crikey POP catholic school in Plano had my son and a couple of other kids working legitimate calculus problems in elementary school. My wife and I knew he was at least somewhat gifted at math and other STEM-y areas. They figured out once his arithmetic and algebra were in order the more complex maths just seemed easy for him.
My son was study buddies with four girls from Hockaday. All five of them went on to make 40 or better on the old MCAT test - comfortably in the 100th percentile (the 99th percentile ended somewhere within 38) of test takers. Thinking it through a couple of things leap to mind. A). it throws some serious sunshine on Hockaday for cranking out kids who performed well enough in college earn those scores B). It implies convincingly that Hockaday deals with rare talent exceptionally well.
From experience as someone who paid the bills the top couple layers of private schools around here deal very well with gifted and exceptionally gifted kids and have for a long time.
You can quote all the anecdotal evidence you want. It still does nothing to dispute the fact that highly gifted kids dont need a private school education. If private schooling is a huge difference maker for a certain kid’s academic performance then they probably aren’t all that gifted.
You can quote all the anecdotal evidence you want. It still does nothing to dispute the fact that highly gifted kids dont need a private school education. If private schooling is a huge difference maker for a certain kid’s academic performance then they probably aren’t all that gifted.
1). That's different than your two thesis points above.
2). We had to pull our son from a top rated elementary in Plano because they were killing his love for math. And they would not move him up or to another Plano school. So at least in our case a highly gifted kid absolutely needed a private education.
If your logic was in phase with reality we wouldn't have Bedford Stuyvesant, The Davidson Academy, TAG etc.
You can quote all the anecdotal evidence you want. It still does nothing to dispute the fact that highly gifted kids dont need a private school education. If private schooling is a huge difference maker for a certain kid’s academic performance then they probably aren’t all that gifted.
I don't think that academic performance is the metric most people would use to determine whether a private school education is "worth it." Truly gifted kids can perform in any environment, but some are more flexible than others. By their very nature, private schools are not handcuffed in the way that public schools are and thus, can allow for more individualized instruction and academic enrichment. They can also teach kids work ethic and foster a love of learning in ways that public schools often fail to do. I was in GT my whole life in public school and was bored to tears, didn't ever have to lift a finger, and got straight As. My grades would likely have been the same if I had attended Hockaday or Greenhill (or at least that's my fantasy, lol), but I guarantee you I wouldn't have been bored, I likely would have maintained my curiosity and passion for learning, and I would have been forced to learn how to work. We chose our school because they teach how to think rather than what to think - to me, this is a huge advantage for gifted kids. Critical thinking and mental flexibility tend to be more important in the real world than sheer intellectual talent. If you have the advantage of being born with exceptional ability, I don't understand why you wouldn't want to nurture that in the most advantageous way possible. Being a product of one of the best public school districts in Texas, I can tell you they did an abominable job of nurturing my motivation, curiosity, love of learning, and work ethic. My "academic performance" may not have suffered, but all of those other factors surely did.
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