<p>Alumother, sorry to butt in here with a non-related question: but why do you say 'Son&only'. Do you have just one son? Just curious....I've not seen it used before.</p>
<p>ctymom, don't disrupt your son's studying for APUSH to respond to me. I am really just trying to prepare for the fall, so I have some time. When he gets around to it would just be fine by me. Thank you.</p>
<p>alumother, kids do not have to be prodigies to benefit from EPGY or some of the other references here. In fact, the qualifications for EPGY as basically smart but not necessarily prodigies. The qualification to take the courses are something like top 5% on a nationally administered standardized test, i.e. CAT or PSAT, etc. If you read more on the site you can take the courses if you are in the top 15% on a nationally administered standardized test (they have a list of them on the site).</p>
<p>Additionally, my son did not meet any other students through EPGY. It is self administering, though there are virtual white board sessions where discussion is held my son never went to one.</p>
<p>I would need to start another thread on the bored and acting up topic on my son. I think it is an issue with many students so your son is not alone.</p>
<p>Achat, I call him son&only because he is my one and only son. I have a daughter, the infamous Aludaughter, but this one is my only son and my last child. (Aside, I would have loved to have had more children but had to go back to work for financial reasons. So this is just a way to make clear I wish I had S2 and/or D2 but I also know how lucky I am.) Is it annoying? I will go back to just S if it is.</p>
<p>Alumother, it isn't annoying. I just have a knack for asking questions like that - I am 47 but haven't gotten out of my childlike curiosity mode of behaving....seems naive at times, plus, everything said and done, I am a foreigner (been in this country for 25 years, though). On top of that, I am a verbal person, turns of phrases interest me. :)</p>
<p>So continue using it - I was just curious. Sorry for the interruption.</p>
<p>Eagle - thanks for the response but let me clarify my question a little more. I do know that EPGY is not for prodigies only. For us, EPGY would be a residential summer program as we live 7 minutes from Stanford. And my guy doesn't really act out, he is just a smartaleck sometimes. </p>
<p>It's just that he breezes though his classes. Nothing has even caused him to break a sweat. When he was 3 they told us he could do 2nd grade work. We never skipped him because he is smallish and not a fighter. We never did any kind of academic extras. Beyond that, we sent him to an alternative school, because I am an old hippie who believes in leaving children in a state of benign neglect is good for their minds.</p>
<p>But now I just wonder if he could use more than high school is giving him. He isn't the type to do math competitions. Or the rocket club. Or Latin competitions, although they want him to. He likes to play soccer, or ping pong, or hang out with his friends. He's handsome (I know all moms say that) - although the short thing has so far kept him off the girlfriend marketplace. He likes to be "cool". He said he would love to find someplace with other cool kids who also breezed through school, but I know that a place with kids who don't mind social eccentricity because of the siren call of their own intellect and inner worlds wouldn't be it for him.</p>
<p>I need to make it perfectly clear that I have nothing but respect for those kids who ask their moms can they go to Math Olympiad. I didn't get one of those. But I do have one with a large brain that doesn't seem to fit the usual categories and I was just throwing it out to the community, as frankly I have before, any good ideas for him? I know there must be other parents with a similar kid at home. It's not the lazy smart kid, it's the smart kid getting A's and still kind of bored.</p>
<p>BTW, he has started taking Mandarin Chinese with me at night. And he wanted to do that. I am just curious about these organized programs etc.</p>
<p>Thank you very much.</p>
<p>Alumother, I just read your last post on page three, and your son sounds exactly like the kids who have the best times at the CTY Summer Programs. Is he too old for that? Has he taken an appropriate test to qualify? (Sorry if I missed that info earlier.)</p>
<p>I taught two summers at one of these, and my own son spent three sessions at them, so I know them inside out. The kids do NOT have to be prodigies by any means. Mine's not. But he did finally learn to be excited by learning and Ultimate Frisbee there, not necessarily in that order.</p>
<p>I should have said. He's a freshman in high school. The only standardized test he has taken was to get into his Catholic high school and then one they gave at the end of his 8th grade - I forget what it was called. He tests in 99% of everything so far. But, no, he hasn't taken the PSAT or anything. I mentioned it to him, he actually thought it would be fun. Is that a good thing to do at this juncture? Is there a downside to it?</p>
<p>Actually, what was said about CTY camp is also true for CMST, Mathcamp, PROMYS camps my kids went to; and I am sure many other camps I don't have a first (or second) hand knowledge.</p>
<p>Oh, and I want to second texas137's praise to Downing's book "Calculus the Easy Way" - great conceptual introduction! (and also his "Algebra the Easy Way" and "Trigonometry the Easy Way")</p>
<p>Achat - Oh gosh, no apology required! Happy to answer.</p>
<p>Check out the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth website, if you like. All the info you need is there if you're interested. He would need to take the SAT. If you want more info from me about the personal side of things, feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Alumother:</p>
<p>My S is somewhat advanced but no prodigy, unlike the 10 year old who was preparing for A-levels! And in many ways, he resembles your own son&only (I have two, and they are so dissimilar, I could also call them onlies).</p>
<p>My S is not interested in competitions, but he seems to have had fun at those he has taken part in. I think he likes the camaraderie of the teams. They are not that "organized"; disorganized is more like it. But, one way or the other, he seems to learn a lot, whether it is marine biology or fossilas.
If your son loves math, investigate the various Math Circles in the Bay Area, Palo Alto. They may all have different flavors, some of which would be more to his liking. Summer programs are great, but they are not a palliative for boredom during the school year. Last year, my S countered the boredom of being in a too-easy class by launching on a project, together with another student in the same situation. They were overambitious, but at least they stopped complaining of being bored. Look into college classes and internships. Many college classes are very suitable for bright high schoolers.</p>
<p>Marite - I guess your son still looks like a prodigy to me:), not the kind who goes to college at 12, but maybe the kind to make significant contributions to a field that usually requires the contributions be made at a young age. Thank you for the suggestions. What about a kid who, in his application to high school, started out his only essay with the statement, "I love words." But not a creative writer, just someone who seems to love taxonomies of all sorts. Am I over thinking this? What about the EPGY humanities courses?</p>
<p>Now that I think of it, my brother double majored in philosophy and psychology at Harvard. That seems to be S's kind of world. I don't know if they have philosophy classes for kids who are bored in high school. Wait, isn't that what the father of the boy who's GC steered him wrong did? Hmm. All questions shall be answered on cc. somewhere...</p>
<p>Alumom, the math circles sound like they would be up his alley. Here is the link to the Bay Area Math Circle held at Berkeley:</p>
<p><a href="http://mathcircle.berkeley.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://mathcircle.berkeley.edu/</a></p>
<p>Professor Zeitz from USF is one of the organizers. He spoke recently at the Greater Boston Math Circle. He was quite interesting and animated.</p>
<p>Alumother - check out USA-Canada Mathcamp. It might be too late for this summer, but it's a good all-round "just for fun" math camp for smart kids. Not at all restricted to prodigies. Lots of non-math activities and unstructured time to play frisbee or cards.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. And, in light of the sound and fury on some other threads, I'm not saying a) my son will get into Harvard like my brother did b) anything at all bad would happen if he didn't c) that it wouldn't be great if he did assuming he wants to of course.... Eeek. I actually just rushed back into my office to post that disclaimer....</p>
<p>Re: post #60 and the subsequent questions, yes, EPGY can be a suitable course for a person characterized as bright in math but not necessarily a prodigy. As for whether or not Marite's S is a prodigy, I'm just not gonna go there, :) but anyway the various summer camp programs and distance learning programs in math are just looking for young people who would like more interesting and possibly more challenging math. Not all participants in those programs are prodigies. They may look like prodigies after a few years of participation simply because they have learned a lot of math meanwhile. </p>
<p>Best wishes.</p>
<p>So I just looked at the CTY site in depth. There is a course called Etymologies. Word origins, essentially. That he would love. Maybe also Existentialism. Is anyone famliar with the SysSym major at Stanford? That's the kind of thing he thinks is cool. Thank for all the suggestions - I guess he'll need to take the SAT this fall if he wants to go the CTY route, so at least my path as the administrator is clear.</p>
<p>I would not be in favor of skipping in the sense of omitting important material. But acceleration, especially compared to the the standard syllabus is very important in appropriate cases.</p>
<p>I consider it educational malpractice for a school system to fail to offer old-fashioned algebra 1 and old fashioned geometry (with proofs!) to those 7th and 8th graders who are willing and able. This allows them to take at least AP Calculus, maybe AP Statistics and maybe lots more in high school. Just think, they could actually play in the same game as bright students in other countries.</p>
<p>My son did not want the experience of being transported to a different school for his math classes, but his K-8 school did let him "skip" to pre-algebra in 3rd grade, "Integrated Math II" in 4th grade and BS geometry (with 8th graders) in 5th grade. He did Stanford EPGY on the side and subsequently, straight through the ranks of Algebra 1 and 2, Pre-Calc and Calc A, B, C. He got a 5 on the AP Calc BC test in 7th grade. He is not a super math whiz of the AIME/Olympiad type -- just a smart-enough kid who didn't want to review the same old BS year after year.</p>
<p>Alumother, I am not sure it's possible to qualify for CTY after 8 grade, you better check to make sure... As far as I remember, the kid needs to be a middle-schooler when taking the SAT.</p>
<p>CTD at Northwestern and Case Western is like CTY at Hopkins, but runs programs through 12th grade. It may be more interesting to students already in HS. A lot of different classes are offered, including many APs, but I'm told it is strongest in the social sciences.
<a href="http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu%5B/url%5D">www.ctd.northwestern.edu</a></p>