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So the test they use for kindergarten I believe you can only take once per calendar year. That’s a tough call on how to handle with admissions, I do know that you can contact the CATS testing service and there is an option for them to go over the report and your child’s testing with you, so maybe this will be helpful so you can have more information. I do know someone whose child had tested great and then tested much worse a few years later and they were going to dispute the results but then ended up deciding against it. This process can be so tough, I wish I had more in depth advice to give you!
Thank you, yeah I think you're right - we are stuck with the CATS results. I wonder how they even thought they might go about disputing the results? I can't imagine that would do much anyway (unless there was an identity mixup) besides making an adversary out of the only testing game in town or showing schools you like to throw big tantrums when things don't go your kid's way.
It is a tough process, and it's not a pleasant place thinking we are likely facing doing this all again next year since this year's admissions chances have most likely been scuppered.
Has your child ever done any kind of test before? Did they do well? I ask because I know several people who are very intelligent, yet, did horribly on tests growing up. The common denominator for them is they all have ADHD. I don't know anything about your child obviously, but just wanted to share just in case!
Thank you, yeah I think you're right - we are stuck with the CATS results. I wonder how they even thought they might go about disputing the results? I can't imagine that would do much anyway (unless there was an identity mixup) besides making an adversary out of the only testing game in town or showing schools you like to throw big tantrums when things don't go your kid's way.
It is a tough process, and it's not a pleasant place thinking we are likely facing doing this all again next year since this year's admissions chances have most likely been scuppered.
I think they were going to lodge some sort of complaint that the specific tester was discriminating against their child but then thought better of it for all of the reasons you mentioned above. I only brought it up in case once you talk to the CATS people you are thinking there was something wrong with how the actual test was administered. I would definitely talk to your child's teacher too to see any observations that they have or thoughts on the test score. A few years ago this helped me understand my child's score a lot better for what it's worth.
My son has pretty strong ADHD which we didn't see ourselves at age 4 because his type of ADHD isn't hyper at all, but rather inattentive (except when he is interested in something and then its hyper-focused). He taught himself to read at 4 and performed great in pre-school (other than in cutting which is telling in retrospect for fine motor skills). To us, he was brilliant and high-performing.
Once he started kinder though, he had different problems in completing assignments. He eventually tested fairly low/avg on an IQ test during an ADHD assessment. The assessor actually said that his IQ was much higher, but wasn't being assessed fairly because of his symptoms. It was an interesting perspective - especially as we didn't see it at home. Since then over the years, his testing has been all over the place. Sometimes very high - and sometimes pretty average. He ended up going to a TAG magnet school and now is in a HS IB program and we still see the variability.
Thank you for your advice and sharing your related experience, we will request the call with CATS and see what sense can be made of the results and try to go from there.
We were so thrown (and honestly still feeling offended) by the results it was hard to recognize the the benefit of calling and discussing results that are unrecognizable. Like did I want to pay another $100 to hear from someone who had so clearly misjudged my child? But I hadn't calmed down enough to consider that there may be helpful and/or somewhat reassuring context they can provide about why the results were so off. We will also discuss with the teachers to see if there's any way they can address the disparity in their recs, if they're not already submitted.
But yeah, still feeling like this admissions cycle is unsalvageable for our oldest, which is incredibly disappointing, to say the least.
My last thought on this since a pp touched on the topic….at the end of the day, you want each of your kids to be in a school where they will thrive and become the best version of themselves. There is a reason why many homes have multiple different private school signs in the yard - they have multiple, different, unique kids.
Be open to all feedback as hard as it is to hear info that doesn’t track with how you see your kids. Sometimes we’re too close. There are plenty of truly amazing schools for all different kids of *highly intelligent* kids in Dallas. Schools like Shelton support smart kids with learning differences. Montessori schools like Alcuin allow smart kids to work at their own pace and progress as fast as they can. Many of the top private schools have a robust staff / contractors on campus to help with occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc.
Schools aren’t looking for *perfect* kids and I think we as parents forget that. each school is looking for the kids who they believe (based on all data points collected) will do the best there & we are parents should be doing the same - the goal is to find the best school for your kid.
We just got very confusing CATS scores for one of our two children. Our younger child had a High Average composite, and the older (applying for K) scored shockingly low with an average that was labelled "Borderline" - this goes against everything we know about our child, especially when comparing the two siblings with each other. (I try to avoid making such comparisons, they are both very bright kids, but if you pressed me, our oldest has always had the edge "intellectually" over the younger even after obviously adjusting for age difference)
Obviously, we are feeling very discouraged about the chances for our oldest now. While we fully expect a completely different picture to be painted by the teacher recommendations, campus observations, school records, etc., we are worried that most if not all admissions teams will just completely write off scores like those.
Does anyone have any advice about how to approach admissions after this? Is there an option for supplemental or retesting? Should we address this in the remaining interviews? Or just go through the motions for this year, and try again next year with the expectation that whatever went wrong with testing this year is corrected next year?
Were the subtest scores for your older child roughly on par with one another or did they vary widely? That makes a large difference in how meaningful the overall composite (FSIQ) score is. I've quoted myself before on other threads, but see below for a more detailed discussion:
"FSIQ is impacted by regression towards the mean. The FSIQ (Composite score as you reference it) is not simply an average of the subtest/composite scores. Statistically, if all of the composite scores are above the mean and clustered close together, you will have an FSIQ that is higher than the average of the composite scores, as each "high" score has a cumulative effect on how common it would be to have high scores in each area. The opposite is also true - if all of the composite scores are low and clustered together, the FSIQ will be lower than the average of the scores. The effect is more pronounced the further away from the mean you get (i.e. if you have 4 high average composite scores, you will see the effect, but it will not be as pronounced as if you had 4 superior composite scores.)
Kids with "vanilla" composites (i.e. they are all a few points from one another) have abilities that are roughly equivalent and the FSIQ is a pretty accurate representation of their general abilities. In kids with composites that are pretty disparate, the FSIQ isn't as meaningful and is generally not a good representation of their overall ability. In kids with 3 high composites (by high, I mean significantly above the mean) and 1 much lower composite (statistically speaking - which is usually a standard deviation or more below the others), the FSIQ is misleading at best."
I've seen kids who are too young to be diagnosed with ADHD or LD who have 1 or 2 subtests that are substantially below the others, which results in the composite score being lowered to the point that is doesn't represent the overall intelligence.
Talking with the examiner is a good way to get more information on how/why your kiddo got the composite score they did. If it was refusal or one subtest that is way off, they would put that in their report to the school (which is different from the one you receive.) Schools know that 3-6 year olds have notoriously variable IQ scores based on a number of factors. If this score is explainable in an acceptable way to the school, it may not be as harmful as you think.
You really aren't supposed to administer the test more than once per year (so as to rule out learning effects since the material is the same), but if you had the time/money/inclination you could seek out an independent IQ test to cross check. The test they use for the CATS assessment isn't the only IQ test available, so if you found someone who is able to give an alternative measure, you could independently assess whether the original results seemed fishy without being at risk of "over-prepping" your kid for the CATS by repeating the same test.
Has your child ever done any kind of test before? Did they do well? I ask because I know several people who are very intelligent, yet, did horribly on tests growing up. The common denominator for them is they all have ADHD. I don't know anything about your child obviously, but just wanted to share just in case!
Never any testing before so nothing "official" (besides school performance, to which reports are as good as we would hope) to judge these results against - I'm certainly not ruling out ADHD as it is present or suspected on both sides.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peachy6264
I think they were going to lodge some sort of complaint that the specific tester was discriminating against their child but then thought better of it for all of the reasons you mentioned above. I only brought it up in case once you talk to the CATS people you are thinking there was something wrong with how the actual test was administered. I would definitely talk to your child's teacher too to see any observations that they have or thoughts on the test score. A few years ago this helped me understand my child's score a lot better for what it's worth.
We are planning on discussing our results with CATS soon. When you discussed your child's results with their teacher, did you go based off the parent summary/score readout provided initially or had you gotten more of an in-depth report through the post-test discussion options (either with Dr. Anderson or a third-party professional)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by texstout
My son has pretty strong ADHD which we didn't see ourselves at age 4 because his type of ADHD isn't hyper at all, but rather inattentive (except when he is interested in something and then its hyper-focused). He taught himself to read at 4 and performed great in pre-school (other than in cutting which is telling in retrospect for fine motor skills). To us, he was brilliant and high-performing.
Once he started kinder though, he had different problems in completing assignments. He eventually tested fairly low/avg on an IQ test during an ADHD assessment. The assessor actually said that his IQ was much higher, but wasn't being assessed fairly because of his symptoms. It was an interesting perspective - especially as we didn't see it at home. Since then over the years, his testing has been all over the place. Sometimes very high - and sometimes pretty average. He ended up going to a TAG magnet school and now is in a HS IB program and we still see the variability.
This is very interesting in how similar this may be for our oldest. Getting great reports from teachers, but pretty much the only specific area for improvement they have highlighted is for scissor cutting...I didn't think much of it because I just thought it was an oversight of mine that I never really exposed them to safety scissors etc while they have been home. I will add that to my list of things to follow up on. I am so glad to hear that your son had his challenges identified early and is thriving!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80
My last thought on this since a pp touched on the topic….at the end of the day, you want each of your kids to be in a school where they will thrive and become the best version of themselves. There is a reason why many homes have multiple different private school signs in the yard - they have multiple, different, unique kids.
Be open to all feedback as hard as it is to hear info that doesn’t track with how you see your kids. Sometimes we’re too close. There are plenty of truly amazing schools for all different kids of *highly intelligent* kids in Dallas. Schools like Shelton support smart kids with learning differences. Montessori schools like Alcuin allow smart kids to work at their own pace and progress as fast as they can. Many of the top private schools have a robust staff / contractors on campus to help with occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc.
Schools aren’t looking for *perfect* kids and I think we as parents forget that. each school is looking for the kids who they believe (based on all data points collected) will do the best there & we are parents should be doing the same - the goal is to find the best school for your kid.
Yes, we have been reminding ourselves (and mostly succeeding) in not getting too attached to any particular school, just because it ticks the boxes for us as parents, or because of preconceived notions going in. Not only because admissions are so competitive but we want to keep an open mind about what is really the best fit for our kids. For instance, we went in to a tour/visit with a school we expected to love/feel like a fit, but were underwhelmed.
I thought we were being very sensible and measured about the whole process, but then the borderline CATS result has totally thrown me off. I am fully aware I could be coming across as one of *those* parents that cannot see anything but *genius* and *talent* in their kids, but I think I view them realistically enough and can identify obvious strengths and weaknesses. I could be too close, but I don't think that I am misjudging my kid's intellect that badly... but I will remind myself to be more open minded. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I am grateful more than one person here recommended seeking a report review with Dr. Anderson, as I was still resistant to it (hopefully I would have gotten there on my own eventually!), and I am now eager to hear how she can put those scores in context.
Does anyone have any insight about any increase in numbers of applications this year, particularly for the preschool/lower school? I haven't heard anything from any school officials (probably because not all applications are submitted at this point) but was just wondering, as some of the open houses and other events we have attended were packed.
I remember that when Meadowbrook informed it's families last year that they would be closing I figured that would make the competition even tougher if Meadwobrook families applied this year en masse for the preferred schools at those earlier grades, but just recently I heard they have transitioned to a new location instead of closing. But I don't know if that news came early enough so that their families knew they could stay put, or if all those families still applied out?
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