<p>I have been a lurker. I have a question. My daughter is in 7th grader. She has excelled in math as she studies math on her own. Her school recently promoted her in math and she is allowed to take the Mathematics A (9th grade math while in 7th grade). In addition, she loves math and studies her self as she is number driven and like math so much. Last year she has been published thrice in the Problems and Solutions for the Elementary Grades section of the State Mathematics Teachers’ Journal. She has won two awards in math at state level.
Recently her school guidance counselor nominated her for CTY. They recommend that she take SAT exams. Thus in practice Test she is consistently scoring 700 and above in math. She is also scoring 600 in Verbal and 650 in writing. </p>
<p>Recently when we visited her school with a meeting with her teachers, her teachers were praisingg her achivements. They told us that she is very gifted. Her math teachers told us that she should do a summer program. Do we enroll her in a math summer program? What are good program for a 12 years old girl. How much will it cost? The cost is a big concern to us. Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>It’s entirely up to you whether to enroll her in a summer program. Our D had similar scores in 7th grade but wasn’t interested so we passed. She just graduated with a math degree from a LAC.</p>
<p>Go ahead and have her take the CTY test. It looks like she’ll get scores that will qualify her for their programs and many other programs. They’ll send you a catalog of their summer offerings and you can see if there is anything that looks interesting. My math guy really enjoyed their Game Theory and Probability course and their Cryptography course. (Don’t know if they are still offering them as he has now graduated from college.) He also went to a local computer science camp for a week one summer, that was probably his favorite experience. But there may be other courses she would enjoy - I know one parent who was very surprised when her kid chose a philosophy course. My younger son also qualified, but said “Why would I want to go to school in the summer?” He stayed on at his traditional camp that he loved and later moved on to music camp. CTY does have some scholarships, I don’t know if you would qualify. There’s a big list of camps for gifted kids here: [Summer</a> and Saturday Programs | Hoagies’ Gifted](<a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/summer.htm]Summer”>Summer and Saturday Programs | Hoagies' Gifted)</p>
<p>You might visit the Summer Programs area of this board. There are some free - but competitive entry - math programs, and there are programs that are expensive but offer financial aid.</p>
<p>You also might look into the Stanford online math programs, a very gifted math boy I know did their programs as a supplement for the math at school.</p>
<p>For lower cost options, explore local programs including any community colleges. Our community college has gifted youth programs and also allows for the admission of young students to regular classes. Both our D’s played in their symphony and earned college credit, with D2 starting in eighth grade. They did have to jump thru some hoops (counselor rec, screening tests, etc.), but I think cost was about $150/semester.
Oldest D also did a summer residential program at Northwestern after ninth grade. That’s more expensive but they do have financial aid if you qualify, and they have middle school programs. D1 did a year of honors chemistry in three weeks (got high school credit) - worked very hard but she loved it!</p>
<p>Our big problem is our public schools have horrible math. They do this flipped classroom thing, where the teachers do not teach. The kids watch a video at home and do their own home work. Then, class time is just a tutoring time. They were still stuck in the class for the entire time regardless. And the teachers, since they have not been teaching for a while now, they do not even know how to do the math anymore. And the schools here do not participate in any sort of math competitions or anything. My daughter got in to Mu Alpha Theta and all they ever did was make blankets for a charity, which is completely not what it is supposed to be about. </p>
<p>We just kept chugging by. A lot of programs are expensive. I am unsure of any ends to these programs when the child has nothing they can “officially” do with the math. It is extremely frustrating. </p>
<p>I would suggest, if money is an issue, look to programs she can do at home, on her own. Like Singapore Maths or Art of Problem Solving or MOEMs has books. Those are the sorts of things we do. There is another book…I think it is by Jacobs, I will go look for it. It is a number theory book. It is not a part of a sequence, it is a “side trip.” But it really facilitates a higher level of thinking and a love for math.</p>
<p>Another side suggestion…how about working on Logic? There is a lot out there for Logic. And it would really help in speech and debate later and such.</p>
<p>I just want to add beware of other people’s agendas (the school’s) and, most of all, make sure that your child develops in all ways. Giftedness brings many complicated challenges at this age.</p>
<p>I would say follow your child. Does your child want to climb mountains or do art or serve ice cream… or do math in the summer? Is she old enough to go away? </p>
<p>What are the emotional effects of her giftedness, being placed with older kids, possibly going to college classes while only 12, and so on? Is she being teased at all? Doe she have friends who she can relate to?</p>
<p>Also, help her march to her own drummer and not get too hooked on the praise by others of how amazing she is. Encourage her to think about character, being nice to people, being authentic and so on: being good at math isn’t a virtue, but it is a talent that can make her useful in some way.</p>
<p>If she loves loves loves math, then feed that with classes during the year (college? online?) and summer programs, but make sure she is also being exposed to other interests and abilities she might have if you can.</p>
<p>CTY- you must be on the east coast, with Johns Hopkins your GT source. In the Midwest it is CTD run by Northwestern. Definitely have her take the SAT (and ACT for those in the CTD area, I’m assuming other parents will glean knowledge from this thread). Taking the SAT through this will likely help assessing her relative to other gifted kids. They likely will also get you plugged into many resources.</p>
<p>We were in Wisconsin and son did not do the Northwestern summer programs like another family we knew but he had a great time at WCATY summer programs- some from OOS, including the east coast (with ties to the area I believe) did them. You might consider that program- they had self guided math and a geometry program back then (college prof instructor retired from it) that covered things never covered in a HS course. 3 weeks of living with academic peers was wonderful, even if kid came home with a superior attitude (where did he think he got his brains from??).</p>
<p>Definitely check out the gifted sites. Be aware that not all college courses are alike. One gifted girl ranked AP, local college, public flagship regular calculus, then her Ivy for material- too bad when she did the flagship calc as a HS senior she couldn’t do the Honors, it could have outranked her Ivy. </p>
<p>Our son was early entry to kindergarten, compressed a grade and went on to college- math major. He was a square peg/round hole (or is it vice versa?) kid. The definition of gifted assumes being out of synch with agemates. Do follow your child’s lead as stated in a previous post but do not hold her back. Summer programs allow kids to be with agemates who think like they do.</p>
<p>I found our school district’s agenda was to benefit the child- sounds like yours does too. Feel free to “PM”- private message any of the posters with questions et al. Sometimes we can share more privately and get into specifics. Research some of the CC threads with gifted in them- I and others have posted over the years. An ACT or SAT score is required for many GT summer programs.</p>
<p>Our eldest tested into the CTY program taking the SAT when she was 11 and in 7th grade (she’s a grade skipper.) However, she never did any of the programs. For us, it was cost prohibitive. There was very limited offerings locally and only in computer science which our D had no interest in. The summer college programs were out of our financial range (and we didn’t really qualify for any aid.) Now, that’s just our situation. Your area may have more offerings. Your budget may be more flexible than ours was at the time.</p>
<p>Certainly look and see that the options are with CTY. We know kids who go regularly and love it. ?Check our your local universities… many of them have their own programs. When she outgrows the math available in middle and high school, look at the local community colleges for higher options. Our D started taking most of her courses at the CC at 15 and has really enjoyed the variety of subject options and the pacing.</p>
<p>Math circles are free, and there may be one near you: [National</a> Associaton of Math Circles | National Association of Math Circles](<a href=“http://www.mathcircles.org%5DNational”>http://www.mathcircles.org).</p>
<p>Both of these free resources have been used by students who have gone on to excel in mathematics. Encourage your daughter to join a mathematics competition team when she gets to high school. Enjoy.
:-)</p>
<p>She doesn’t have to wait till high school for math competitions, her school may have MathCounts, which my older son loved. He also started taking the AMC math exams in 6th grade.</p>
<p>Second on mathpath. My son went two years. It’s an incredible program for the right kid. It’s expensive, but there is financial aid if you qualify.</p>
<p>There isn’t really a “CTY test”, but as someone else mentioned the various talent search organizations around the country (CTY, Duke TIPS, Northwestern’s NUMATS, etc) all can help you get her signed up for the SAT or ACT. Those scores can then be used for admission to those programs and others (can also be useful in getting appropriate math placement in school or getting them to eventually allow her to move to taking college level math classes).</p>
<p>One of my kids scored very well in middle school on the SAT, and attended the THINK summer program at the Davidson Institute for Talent Development for two summers. It was honestly the high point of her entire high school years. I kind of let my kid take the lead in picking summer programs. I identified possible programs and passed her websites/brochures so she could consider the options. But taking the SAT in middle school and doing well opened a lot of doors for her.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned the APoS website above. We have a couple of the math & answer books from their website, and they are very good and a rich source of hard math problems with pretty good self-study explanations. :)</p>
<p>My son LOVED MathPath. The leader loves math and loves the kids, and regularly beats them at soccer (he’s over 60). It’s like a buffet of the bits of college-level math that you can understand with a middle-school or early high-school level of pre-requisites.</p>
<p>I encourage you to look into programs that allow your daughter to expand her math experience, not just accelerate through the typical courses. It a hassle to run out of math early in hs. </p>
<p>Or… encourage other interests (music, atheletics, etc) to offset the math academics.</p>