<p>Consolation, I have thought about her purposely tanking the test. I am going to get some information about the program to show her. I think she would be open to the day programs or online stuff initially.</p>
<p>The problem with her and her friends and the school is complex. First is her own problems. She feels uncomfortable being the center of attention in a class or large group setting. She is not good at picking up social cues, she is naive and ‘young’ for her age.</p>
<p>She really has a unique take on a lot of things that we embrace as being part of her but does not make her conform to a bunch of middle school girls. Her self esteem is not the best. And she is 5’7" at 12 years old, and is self conscious about that too.</p>
<p>The school culture at this point is not the best for her. We had enrolled her initially for just kindergarten, but we thought it was a good program for the early years and played to her strengths.</p>
<p>The middle school is not. It’s not an anti girl thing as there are way more girls in the grade school and the high school is girls only. But they embrace responsibility and conformity, within the culture of a largely Catholic group. We are not Catholic. My daughter’s learning issues are treated as her not being responsible. And it’s not that she doesn’t want to conform, in fact I think she tries too hard to. It’s just that she’s trying to conform to something that doesn’t feel right to her. And her way of coping is to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself. And the girls that do accept her are not high achievers, so she plays down her strengths to fit in.</p>
<p>And I am powerless to change this right away, but we are strongly considering sending her to the public high school. It will be hard for her to make the change though, since she will be leaving the only school she’s known behind. </p>
<p>So a program like CTY sounds like it could really be something to open her eyes, and get her to think about what she really wants, and not to be afraid to be herself.</p>
<p>Martina: This is what you should not do for CTY testing. Test prep defeats the purpose, which is to use out of level testing to see how far ahead in verbal and math ability the student is from their age peers. Really high out of level testing can help with academic accommodations you may find this useful as she grows. Your daughter will have plenty of time for test prep once she reaches high school age, and if she is indeed at the top of the testing heap as a 7th grader, she may not need HS test prep at all. Many a CTY kid has scored very high on the SATs in highschool without prep.</p>
<p>If you want to engage your perhaps reluctant daughter in making the decision to CTY or not CTY, have her take some time reading the Real CTY Wiki. Sorry I dont have the link but it is written by CTY kids for CTY kids and its very illustrative of all the fun that the kids have at the program.</p>
<p>My D tested at age 12 as a grade-skipped 8th grader, and was VERY reluctant to take the SAT. Bribery was used in our household. She took the SAT at the local HS with HS students, one of whom asked her which HS she went to, which amused her greatly. Bribery was again used to get her to decide to go to CTY she thought she would be forever branded as a nerd and shunned in HS. She ended up loving it just as much as all the other posters have mentioned it was a life-changing experience for her. She loves being a nerd and gained respect for her own intelligence for the first time in her life.</p>
<p>Well, I was just kidding about posting in the SAT forum, and I only want to familiarize her with the format of the test, so she will be less nervous.</p>
<p>I will check out the wiki with her, and certainly will consider bribery :)</p>
<p>The whole idea of CTY is to identify the kids who do well on the SAT without prep. Really all she has to do is do the practice test that comes when you sign up for it. That will give you a sense of the format. Neither of my kids prepped at all. My oldest always scored well above the cut-offs - he went to CTY and loved it. My youngest only qualified in verbal in 7th grade but for everything in 8th. He looked at the catalog and said why would I want to go to school in summer. One year he went to his last year of regular camp, the following year he went to music camp. </p>
<p>If you have a somewhat nerdy girl who has had trouble fitting in to a more conformist high school, I think you may find she’ll blossom at CTY.</p>
<p>And if you have a smart, not that self-confident girl, you may find that being surrounded by smart and capable kids (both genders) who will appreciate her humor and share her interests is just what she needs right now.</p>
<p>I wish H could read that. He kept asking D and now S to prepare. But both of them chose to ignore him A friend on the other hand tutored his kids for several weeks in preparation!</p>
<p>Martina - D was 12 and 5’7" inches too when she took the test. She wasn’t intimidated - more bothered by the fact that she had to miss a basketball game for the test. I don’t recall if there was a separate room for the middle schoolers - but once you get down to testing, there wasn’t really any issue. I dropped her off and went back to pick her up. While waiting I heard a few other moms standing next to me comment “I heard some middle schoolers are taking this test. What on earth are the parents thinking - pushing those young kids!” LOL!</p>
<p>My son’s prep was to read 3 sample questions from his cousin’s SAT prep book. He simply wanted to know what they ask. I would have read more than 3 questions :)</p>
<p>For the younger CTY (pre-SAT tests), none of my kids ever preped. S2 took the test twice because he missed the cut off for math. D1 rushed through the test. She decided 20 minutes into it that anyone who forced her to take these tests was not a program she wanted to be involved with – she was in 3rd grade. </p>
<p>My son did test in a separate room with only younger kids. We know a SAT protector – we were told that kids are grouped together IF there are enough taking the test at the location. For our area, it is hit or miss if the middle school kids are mainstreamed to sit with HS juniors and seniors.</p>
<p>I don’t think my kids prepped even when they were in high school.
My older daughter liked taking tests & she must have really freaked out the high school juniors when she was in line, cause she was about the size of a 4th grader( both girls were in a special research study at the UW which required them to take lots of intelligence testing- ), it was just another puzzle to figure out, but younger D didn’t like sitting still that long. ;)</p>
<p>It was ( the intelligence tests) good info to have though, especially when neither one of them did well on the group administered tests through the school district.</p>
<p>I had never taken the SAT & had no idea about CTY until the head of the middle school told us she ( D1) was eligible by her scores on a 6th grade test, we thought she was being challenged enough in school, but figured it would be good practice for later & she kept her friend company.</p>
<p>I know a friend of mine is going to start prep her daughter (8th grader) to take the SAT, so if she does well, she can do CTY. The whole idea irks me. As other post said, that’s not the purpose of talent search. I don’t know how to talk to my friend (the mother) though. She wants her daughter to have better friends, etc. which is understandable. but if a student is not talented, she doesn’t belong to CTY. If she gets a good score due to intensive prep, and gets into CTY, I don’t know how the girl will feel, when she is with a group of really talented kids.</p>
<p>I agree completely that actively prepping for the SAT misses the point of CTY. Since our S wanted to take the test, and we had to pay for it, we asked him to run through the practice booklet that came with registration, just to be familiar with the format. Our feeling was that if he didn’t score well enough with that level of preparation, he didn’t belong there. (To my knowledge, that’s the last PSAT/SAT prep he ever did! )</p>
<p>I will say, though, that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that many Asian families have their kids prep the Math section of the SAT quite extensively before taking the 7th grade test. (And possibly the verbal also, but it is harder to prep for, and the results are less obvious.) I think it goes with the cultural territory.</p>
<p>S1 did several practice math sets before taking it in 7th grade. His goal was to beat his sister’s score at the same age. He did by 60 points! His math score as a 7th grader was the highest in his school, which shocked many people, as he typically only did what was needed to get a B. (verbal was another story, however he scored an 8 on the essay).</p>
<p>The test site put the 7th graders in separate rooms, which was a relief to D1, as she was taking it the same day and did not want to be alphabetically next to her little brother!</p>
<p>I agree, please don’t make your little kids prep for the SAT for CTY! When I first started CTY, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the kids in my class that scored perfect scores on the SAT when they were 11 and the kids whose scores barely qualified. My scores were pretty average and I’ve had no problem getting my first choice of class every year for the past five years. The kids at CTY (for the most part, there are some exceptions) weren’t obsessed with SATs or getting into Yale, they were just really curious about learning.</p>
<p>@herandhisMom, we’re not really “talented” (that T is a little deceiving), just really crazy about learning. Kids that just grind away in school to get into Harvard and become a lawyer for the money, often hate CTY and don’t fit in there. As long as your friend’s daughter is really interested in the class she is going to take, she’ll do fine provided that she doesn’t minds six and a half hours of class, which are really hours of cool science labs, group discussions, projects, or interesting lectures by college professors.</p>
<p>Any kid that goes should go overnight; you miss out on some things with online and day programs. Even though I loved my classes, many of my best memories happened outside of class such as covering my dorm room with streamers, going on morning runs with my hall mates before class, weekend sleepovers, learning how to rave, and dances (I refuse to go to school dances, but I attend every CTY dance because awkward nerd dancers like myself can dance freely without being judged).</p>
<p>I think it’s appropriate to prep your 7th grader for the types of questions they will encounter on the SAT. That’s what I did with our oldest - bought the least expensive review book and had her at least understand the format of the exam, as it is quite different from other standardized tests. I also pointed out that random guessing or filling in bubbles when you were nearly out of time would hurt your score. </p>
<p>My son is the competitive one and pushed himself to work through the math sections. I didn’t make him. Up to then, he had lived in his sister’s academic shadow and wanted to beat her at something.</p>
<p>My son took the SAT for CTY in both 7th and 8th grade. He did really well in math a 700 the first time on the old SAT and an 800 the second time on the new SAT. Both years he received an award for math locally and nationally. He was bummed when he took the SAT “for real” in 11th grade since he got a 780 on the math portion (he had an 80 on the PSAT). However he never had any interest in the summer programs he decided that he would rather go to a sports camp instead. Oh and his junior high did have an after school prep session for the test which he thought was a waste of time.</p>
<p>My son loved CTY residential camp. It’s a great way to connect with other smart kids and to stretch academically. I recommend not doing a lot of SAT prep - that’s not the point. It’s worth going through the prep booklet CB sends so that kids understand the format and can try a few questions. Most, but not all test sites now have rooms for the ‘little kids’.</p>
<p>My friend’s daughter doesn’t read, period. Well she reads what the school assigns, that’s about it. She gets As in school, but not much desire for knowledge outside the scope of school. Her mom wants her to change that by exposing her to CTY. </p>
<p>My daughter has been doing CTY summer programs for a couple years. Through her, I know what kind of people are in CTY. (like Appollo said, crazy about learning.) that’s not my friend’s daughter. She belongs to a different category, even though she is pretty smart. The hope from her family is, prep her for SAT math, get her in CTY, then she will learn from her peers at CTY and will be willing to read. Do you think it’ll work?</p>
<p>^Nope. In fact, it might backfire - she probably won’t like many of her CTY peers and decide that being smart really isn’t cool. Peer pressure only works if you <em>want</em> to be in the group.</p>
<p>It’s great that your friend wants to inspire a love of learning in her D. I see no harm in trying CTY. You never know. If she gets in, goes, and is completely disaffected, well, I doubt that anything will have been lost on the intellectual front and it’s only 3 weeks out of her life. </p>
<p>S did have one roomie at CTY who didn’t like it and thought that most of the other kids were too nerdly for him. In contrast, many of the kids at CTY <em>proudly</em> call it “nerd camp.” But the kids do have a lot of fun, and the social scene is a big part of that.</p>
<p>Course selection would probably be key for your friend’s D. Assuming that her CR score qualifies, the reading in the available classes would range from comparatively light–Crafting the Essay–to very dense (kids in the philosophy courses read Aristotle and Nietzsche). Crafting the Essay might be a good place for her to start, unless she has a burning interest in some subject area.</p>
<p>Both my kids took the SAT as a 7th grader, and had a blast. They did take it in a seperate room with other middle schoolers. Believe me the hs students are too busy sweating bullets over the test, while 7th graders can just be laid back.</p>
<p>We never did the cty programs but know students who did and they loved them - and made many friends with similar interests.</p>
<p>The SAT did help with advocating with their school for more challenging work. WHen your 7th grader outscores your hs seniors they see the need for more challenge. Teachers, adminstrators understand what these scores mean (and remember their own).</p>
<p>If you want more information about gifted programs, and talent searches, google Hoagies Gifted, and just start following the links. The are tons of online options, and gifted listserv where you can get tons of information.</p>
She took the SAT at the local HS with HS students, one of whom asked her which HS she went to, which amused her greatly. Bribery was again used to get her to decide to go to CTY 
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