He is currently a junior. I wrote “rising” junior because should anybody read this six months from now to help their own teenager, it’s to show that the ACT score was from before the junior school year got rolling.
To date, his cumulative GPA is 4.0/3.5.
He’s completed during freshman and sophomore years: 2 honors, 5 gifted, 2 AP, 1 regular ed World Geo, and 2 yrs FL. He is currently in 2 honors, 1 gifted, 2 AP, 2 FLs. That puts end of junior year at 4 H, 6G, 4AP, and 3+1 FL, 1 reg ed WG. Senior year will have 5 combo of AP/G/H and another year apiece FL.
I know my kids were in the “gifted” program where they pull kids out to do cool creative stuff that other kids wouldn’t normally do. But I never heard of taking “gifted” courses. How is a “gifted” course compared to AP, Honor, or regular? I am curious.
The students have to test into the program with a certain number of standard deviations above a certain metric on two IQ tests. They go through a screening program, then a lengthy eval, and teachers have to weigh in as well. Most of them start the program in elementary school, but a handful are IDed in preK. There are other gifted programs across the US that don’t require this level of evaluation and offer “enrichment” pull out.
This particular program has classes that are both accelerated and enriched. By accelerated, I mean that the 5th grade gifted classes use the 6th grade curriculum with a series of extra topics added. Let’s say you have two children - a gifted 5th grader and a regular ed 6th grader. The two of them would be using the same science book, but the 5th grader would have additional topics added… maybe Powerpoint presentations from the teacher, online learning, extra projects, more reading, extra homework, lots of group discussion.
In junior high, the schools start offering honors in addition to regular ed and gifted. Anybody can take an honors class, but a student has to go through the laborious evaluation process to get into gifted (and then take its classes). In junior high, you’ll see students who were in gifted classes across the board in earlier years drop sometimes in certain areas. They may still be doing gifted math and gifted science, for example, but drop to honors English and honors social studies. A handful stay in gifted across all four core areas. My son dropped to honors math but remained in gifted in the other three core subjects. He used 9th grade textbooks in 8th grade gifted.
In high school, the regular ed, honors, and gifted categories still exist but by 11th grade, some APs are offered. Occasionally, they will allow a 10th grader to take an AP or two if s/he petitions to do so (my kid did). Again, anybody can sign up for an AP class, but they’d have to qualify to get into the gifted program. By high school, any student that hasn’t been in gifted will be hard pressed to get in. As far as difficulty is concerned, some gifted classes are more difficult than AP and vice versa, but since the AP curriculum is so widely known, most of the time the gifted kids will just take AP. If there are not enough seats for a gifted class, it’ll no longer be held. Likewise, if not enough students have had interest over the years in a certain AP class, say AP World History, then it will no longer be offered. The best part of the gifted program is that relatively few students are in it, so classes never have more than 14 or 15 students. The discussion style and group projects are sort of like seminar classes in college, so the kids end up learning from their peer’s insights in addition to the curriculum. It is great prep for AP and really enjoyable. If a student has been in gifted subject XYZ his entire school career, he will easily get at least a B in the AP class for subject XYZ in 11th or 12th grade.
All of that 'splaining only works if the school is either known or it is clear on the profile, get a copy of the school profile, because there really isn’t slack for lower GPA in more rigorous classes in most cases. Ask all the kids here who have 12 plus APs, the IBD, or go to schools so known for rigour that they don’t have any special classes at all. Did you state his rank?
The school profile shows all that, so not a concern other than the same as those kids you mention. Its those automatic merit awards that have me wondering. They don’t assign rank to juniors, so we don’t know. His is a class of 500+, so he should be in the top 10% or higher. Out of the 500, only 60 of them started out in gifted, and many have dropped across the board to honors.
Thanks @PolllyDactile I think i am familiar with how it works as well for the HS. Kids take materials above their current grade and they go a little bit deeper. But I was wondering how do colleges weight/value gifted courses compared to other courses?
For example, the UC system doesn’t care if you take Honor courses from outside of CA, it values Honor courses the same as regular course. But AP/IB courses will be recognized as higher level than regular courses, and therefore weighted more.
The admissions people we’ve spoken with accept them with the same weight as the AP classes. How they reshuffle internally, we don’t know. The schools here in the deep South do not offer as many APs as others do, so these are the most rigorous available. Consistency across high schools would make things easier!
I think many schools that offer gifted are going well past giving a 5th grader the 6th grade curriculum.
And the unfortunate reality, when applying to highly competitive colleges, is that details beyond course labeling matter. It’s not as simple as tougher classes making a B a non-factor. In a sense, whatever your cohort is in high school, the expectations can be high. That’s the competition for the admit.
But OP, it does seem you’re looking at a range of school and strategies. That’s what matters more, the search for the right fits and the right avenues to self assess. Then you work on the best actual app package you can pull together. The better you know the more competitive targets, the better you can sense out what makes a great package, all of it.
Its those automatic merit awards that have me wondering<<<<<<<<<
Well, the beauty of automatic is that you need not worry. It isn’t nuanced, and they either do or don’t use UW GPA. Which auto merit schools are you looking at?
You’re absolutely on target. He is seeking the best fit and has cast a wide initial net in building his first spreadsheet. In-state, OOS, privates are all sorted by that upper 25th percentile on ACT. He has ten or more other attributes to weigh, of course, but getting a feel for his odds will help cull the list. We know that many meets-needs schools are not generous with non-need merit, but there isn’t much transparency on what to expect. He has a couple “hooks” so to speak, so we believe the schools with “holistic” consideration will do best by him. I suppose he’ll just have to apply and wait.
I’m curious if the school profile describes the “laborious” process to get into the gifted courses? (My younger daughter is gifted, but somewhat lazy, and likely would not be bothered with such a process if it were offered - it’s not in our school system.) If so, it could be a tangible positive signal about the work ethic of the student involved, apart from the effect on WGPA, but this presumably would be more closely scrutinized at more holistic schools.
That’s an excellent point. The online profile has a table with five columns listing the classes - on level, honors, DE, gifted, AP but doesn’t elaborate on how they have to test into it. Maybe the guidance counselor describes it?? He’s our only college bound child, so we are at a loss as to how things will go during the application process.
Wow, this is really interesting. Many colleges would LOVE a student like this because of the effect on their ACT average. MInd sharing where he’s been accepted/rejected at this point?
The IEP is not for a disability - it is for the gifted program.
His hooks, if they’d be considered as such, are that he researched and published two large works on enslaved populations and Native cultures that were located here locally and of whom our local city council and regional government had no knowledge. The state ended up publishing his reports and he’s been doing sort of a speaking circuit on the topics. He’s done magazine, newspaper, and TV interviews. Granted, it isn’t solving world hunger, but he dug through 200 year old mortgages (handwritten in French) and found all the names of each man, woman, and child who were held in bondage. He also found paperwork that showed that the enslaved men had incredible technical skills (engineers, architects, schooner pilots and crews, etc). With what he discovered about these individuals and the Native peoples as well, he wrote scripts for and had two historical markers installed. Again, not earth shattering achievement, but he now has a group of African American churches who want him to come speak before their conferences. Books and TV tend to cast the enslaved as just field workers or house staff. The opposite was true. They designed, engineered, built, and ran entire towns. He wants people to know that the enslaved were just as capable as any of us today and yet in far more dire circumstances.
Second possible hook is caring for his older brother who has significant special needs. In a handful of years, he will become his guardian.
Just to level-set, please note that this is not extraordinary and no “slack” will be cut. That’s not a voluminous number of weighted classes. It is expected that he will have a rigorous program. He will be competing with students who have taken 10-12 APs (or more). All students he’s competing with will have taken all gifted/honors at a minimum. What really matters is what’s available at his HS. If only 4 APs are offered, and he’s taken all of them, then that’s great!
He’s just a junior, so he hasn’t applied anywhere yet. He does have a massive first list that we’re trying to cull down. We’ve managed to visit 19 campuses so far (some we just toured because they were close to a target school, ie Clemson because we were already touring Furman). He needs to take a swing back into VA to see a few we haven’t hit and probably southeastern PA. That said, if he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance, I’m loathe to waste time, money, and effort on the road trips. Is UVA even worth thinking about? Dunno. Washington & Lee? Dunno.
@PolllyDactile Those are impressive ECs indeed, but I wouldn’t consider them “hook” per se. I could be wrong, though. Would love to hear other’s opinions.
And not for nitpicking reason, it’s important to understand the terminology so one can understand their chances.