One of mine is gifted, ended up at Harvey Mudd. She spent a couple summers in her early teen years at the Davidson Institute THINK program, and kept running into kids she knew from there at accepted college visits, and has kept in touch with some as well. Some of the schools they have ended up at include Stanford, MIT, Swarthmore, Cal Poly SLO, UT Austin, and one who is at community college.
The Ivy schools are very affordable to families with limited means. Families making under $60K have no expected parental contribution in most cases. But I suspect that many people don’t know this.
@hebegebe you are correct but I would suspect that a lot of the families here are in that middle sandwich layer. They are in the 120k-220k range (picked something at random based on some research I am doing for a family I know that may be getting an unexpected bonus which suddenly knocks them out of FA). Depending on how many kids they have they may not be eligible for any or very little FA (lets face it, with a COA of 68k, a scholarship of 10k does nothing). So for the family earning 200k which has to send two kids to college, one after another and lives in New York or LA, good luck making the ivies work.
We had an article in our local paper yesterday about Palo Alto thinking about subsidizing housing for families with incomes up to $250,000. For a Bay Area family with income around $200,000 or even more, Ivies are pretty unaffordable because we are spending most of that money on housing already. People do it, but I think a lot of us look at an Ivy at over $60K per year vs a state school at around $35K per year and there’s no question.
@carachel2: I don’t see why it is illogical. There seems to be obvious causal relationship between being in a gifted program and admitted into ivies and their peers. Of course, not all gifted students chose to apply to ivies and other selective schools for all kinds of reasons, but it doesn’t refute my conclusion based on my observation.
@moscott oh sorry As on all the multiple choice parts of tests. He dosent do the essay questions. I think this is really interesting because he is so crazy smart, but won’t do anything that requires more effort then filling in a bubble. Also we only take about 3 tests in each subject per semester.
@Lindagaf thank you for posting this link but I honestly could not disagree with this more.
A lot of the data they use is from people aged 30-60. Since the practice was not as prevalent when we were growing up it was usually done because the child had some type of delay, some times cognitive which was unlikely to be overcome by holding him or her back. In contrast, if a child was bright in that era they were pushed ahead. I knew many people who were not REALLY GT who started K at 4 and college at 16. I am sure it was similar in Norway or where ever the data comes from. So it may be a case of correlation not equaling causation or at least some selection going on by the parents. Even today there is some self selection, my friend held her last kid back by sending him to private K. If he did well, then he could attend public first grade at a competitive elementary school, if not he would repeat K in public.
My theory has always been that it depends on birth order as well. If a first kid is the youngest in the grade it has less of an effect than if it is the youngest kid. Since certain behavior patterns are generally associated with birth order and being the youngest at home and the youngest at school would reinforce them.
I did find that the advantage my oldest had (early in year birthday) leveled out in second grade but then took off again and stayed with my kid.
My friend has a late birthday girl, she was not great in K, caught up and surpassed the summer before second and was great for a few years but is now average in high school
As I said I have a boy who was not held back and should have been. While he is a smart kid, but is a slacker, has never demonstrated the grit the article mentions.
As for school being boring, you run that risk with any smart kid if the school does not have a GT program. I think what is a bigger problem without a number of GT kids is that they do not have friends with the same interests so they either are alone or conform and take interest in video games instead of robotics.
We live in California, not known for its wonderful public school system, and our school district was unfortunately no exception. So when both of my kids tested into the GATE program, we figured that even if it just meant they would get the education that someone in a state with a good system takes for granted, they would be ahead of the game. Both ended up at great private schools, Reed and Dartmouth, and I do credit the GATE education with getting them ready to perform well in high school and beyond.
My daughter was “gifted” - in the gifted program in elementary, junior high, and placed in it for high school, but she opted out so she could take more AP courses with her friends… In hindsight, I wish I’d encouraged her to stay with the gifted program, because …
That being said, she only applied to smaller state schools - “directionals” if you will, that I’m sure many see as “mediocre” schools.
We visited nine colleges, matches, reach, safeties, small, medium, large… She liked two, :), like I said, both smaller state schools, NOT the flagship, she hated flagships, too big and too sports-oriented she said…
I made her apply to one more, in-state - and of course, she chose another directional state school.
She recently chose to enroll at her favorite of the three - she LOVES the school, and did from the first visit. She went mostly by majors offered, size, and social fit. She is very excited about attending next fall.
Fwiw, this is the first time, in a very long time, she’s been excited about attending school, so… She has hated high school.
So, yes, she ended up at her first choice.
Older son highly gifted. Ended up in Comp Sci at Carnegie Mellon and is now at Google. Younger son gifted with some learning differences, ended up at Tufts. Recently aced the Officer Training exam and is still waiting for security clearances and the like for the next step. Both husband and I went to Harvard. Never tested, but Mensa says our pre-centering SAT scores are good enough to be members if we wanted to be.
Our school didn’t have a gifted program, but our middle school guidance counselor asked all three of my kids to take the CTY SAT in 7th grade. All three qualified for the CTY, the oldest missing the national gold medal award by only 10 points 
. The older two are at Cornell; the youngest stopped being a fan of school in middle school and has been more erratic in his grades because of issues with turning in homework. He’s applying to the SUNYs mostly…we’ll see!
Lots of gifted kids, now grown up, are living under bridges. It means very, very little, in the grand scheme of things. I have a kiddo well in the “profoundly gifted” range. Another whose IQ was never high enough to raise the interest of the gifted program administrators in our district. Guess who was the more successful student? Who has a graduate degree from an Ivy League-caliber university? Who out-earns vast majority of the population? The sane, hard working one, lol.
@SeekingPam, your son could be my son. Years later this “immaturity” turned out to be an executive function disorder and ADD with atypical symptoms. I wish we had him tested in middle/early high school. It would have saved him a world of anguish. My advice to you: watch him closely. And don’t necessarily listen to those who dismiss his issues as immaturity. If you think he should be doing better, insist on testing, or have it done yourself. (Expensive. But, oh, so worth it.) With counseling, therapy and meds, you could have a high-functioning, happy kiddo. That’s what my son turned out to be… but it took a nervous breakdown, dropping out of college and a lot of tears before he got there.
@hebegebe… And they are very unaffordable to families that make >$100-150k who also happen to have GT kids. So if you are GT and poor then awesome. But if you are GT and middle class and have saved enough for college but not enough for $60k a year then you are out of luck.
But no one should make the conclusion that Ivy league = true outcome measurement of GT kid.
@katliamom Exactly! The GT kid who is willing to play the game, make the grades and work the system are the ones who succeed in life. I’ve known lots of GT kids over the years. Some of them are so smart they think they are “above” the system and refuse to engage in school, grades and tests and guess where they get? Usually not anywhere. Very sad.
Profoundly gifted kids think in “arborescence” and can’t really be accomodated by schools. Their thinking is so different from ours that they need to be in a specific environment that takes a lot of accomodation and sacrifices from parents. They also tend to be very sensitive and thus get hurt easily.
They’re exactly like the French poem: “His wings are of giants, but keep him from walking” *- parents need to find them skies to fly into and know “walking” requires tremendous effort.
- just checked the official translation and that's proof I'm no poet.. if you wan a less pedestrian translation, here it is: http://fleursdumal.org/poem/200
I attended an independent elementary school that did no testing, as all kids were taught at advanced level. I was never tested for anything; however, starting MS and HS, my scores in state and national tests always put me in the 99% percentile. In HS, I took 16+ APs and a couple of DE classes, took the SAT once – scored in the 99% with 800 in M and 770 in R. I became NMF and National AP Scholar at the end of Junior year (8+ AP test with at least 4 in all). Yes, I was admitted to some of the schools people are mentioning here, including M. Do I believe I posses some superior cognitive ability? Heck No! I personally believe that the “gifted” label is overused A LOT these days.
@katliamom this kid does not test as GT, bright average. He could be doing better. It is interesting what you say about ADD. I will think about some more. I do not think it is the reason for him. He is very affable and friendly and enjoys being the class clown. In his case it is the late birthday, followed by as it happened that his very mixed regular grade happened to range on the dumber side from K-8. So he never had good influences academically. It is a small school so the quality really changes from year to year. He is easily influenced by others. As it happened a new cohort joined the school this year of a bunch of academically hard working kids (no idea if they are GT but they get good grades). I am hoping this will help him with his attitude.
We have lots of ADD (the quiet kind with no H) but most of us do not medicate in our family but some of those people have graduated Summa Cum Laud from top schools, hold excellent jobs and we sort of dismiss it. We have a cousin from the same branch and all her kids are on medication but she lives and breathes getting her kids into top schools (succeeded with #1 (no add but other issues), failed with #2 (who refused to take medication) and we will see with #3 who takes his adderall first thing in the morning). Lately my K2 has been making noises that he has ADD too! I tell him that I do too and he needs to manage in spite of it. Which is partially true because I do not like the idea of him being on medication indefinitely (nor do I want to be). I feel like while there are legitimate cases where it can make all the difference, it is often over used. As in your kid is a procrastinator, ok try this to get him moving! No disrespect to your S, sounds like it made all the difference but that is the exception it seems.
It sounds like you’ve got a lot of insight into your son, and know what to look for, good for you. I actually agree with you on the meds issue, I was highly ambivalent, but let son/doctor play drivers on this one. The anti-depressants proved helpful, but son decided on his own to get off those, and he’s been just fine without them. The ADD meds, on the other hand, proved crucial; he definitely had a much, much harder time in college without them. He tends not to take them when he doesn’t need them – he’s not in school now and is off them. I had to smile when you wrote “I tell him I do too.” A friend of mine told his son he had GDS but was not going to take meds to help him cope. The kiddo says, “What’s GDS?” and my friend barks “Grumpy Dad Syndrome!”
@carachel2 said:
I agree with you. The well off can afford full pay, and the relatively poor can attend for free, but it really hurts those in the middle. I just didn’t know what those ranges would be so I didn’t post them.
Strictly speaking, you can get financial aid at the very top schools even if you earn up to 250k. 150k families would pay less to attend Harvard than to attend their state flagship at list price.