[+]mil over, sucking air out of the room as per usual. the idiotic things she says to dc age 4 make my skin crawl, so hard to bite my tongue.
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[+]trinity q: our interview/playdate is monday. i can't find much on UB about these (except for fact that it's a double interview). who observes dc? and who do the parents meet with? two friends of mine did not meet with doa. typical?
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help. dh and i like quite a few ongoing schools. what criteria--aside instinct--is helping you decided your top choices? what matters most to you? i feel like ultimately, the schools all offer a good education, a $$$ student body (even though i wish this weren't true), and good facilities.
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[+]Something for FANS OF PREPPING to consider. If you prep well enough to get into a TT private your DC will more than likely be counseled out if their performance is not equal to their entrance stats. Being counseled out is not the quiet, on the DL thing you had been led to believe it is. Everyone, classmates, teachers, parents know and the humiliation of that can be worse than going to 3rd tier.
8 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]I suspect the dcs who are counseled out are just as likely to have received 99s without prepping. Do you know why? Because testing a dc at age 4 is a silly notion and there are many, many smart kids who achieve academically because they are excellent readers (which probably translates better than anything else into academic success) but may not test as "gifted" at age 4. I know dcs who qualified for Hunter at age 4 but are struggling in school by 3rd grade. I guarantee you that rarely happens with the dcs who get into Hunter in 7th grade or tts in middle or high school. I bet a good % of those admits would not have received 99s on ERBS at age 4. Signed, mom who never had dcs tested, but thinks it's all a crock.
[ Reply | Options ]That does not dispute OP"s main point. Very smart kids actually do worse in school if they are not motivated, if the school cannot accommodate, or if they have social issues/behavioral issues, etc. There are MANY smart kids (who happen to test well which is the majority) who do quite well academically.
[ Reply | Options ]Yes, but there are also the parents who will do anything to prop up their kids. It's starts with prepping for admissions and continues ad nauseum. Ask any teacher. It's the worst thing you can do to a dc's self esteem. It also teaches the kid (yes, they eventually figure this out), that cheating is ok, AND the kids never learn how to do things for themselves. I find it very short sighted.
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[+]DC will be taking the hunter hs test in January. We like his middle school and were not planning to prep (certainly no tutors) - but as it is getting closer he is getting nervous. Is there some kind of test prep book i can get him just to feel more comfortable?
4 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]why is DC getting nervous? Are you putting any pressuring on him to perform? I told my DD the day of the test that she was going to meet with a teacher and do some games... It wasn't a big deal... Can't shouldn't prep for Stanford Binet. If you do, your DC will not pass 2nd round...
[ Reply | Options ]np: lol reading comprehension is lacking here. Op is talking about high school, where Hunter actually wants the kids who have proven themselves academically through 6th grade. By the way, the kids who came in later and aren't judged on the SB often are the "stars" of the graduating class, despite having 7 fewer years of that special "Hunter" education and clearly being at a huge disadvantage to the K kids judged on the SB.
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[+]I can not understand why it is ok to prep for Olsat, SAT, etc... but not for the ERB? Why is it that these DOA's find it "unethical?" (as suggested by the NYT article) I really don't get this double standard. Can someone please explain to me - what am I missing?
30 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]Um, prepping for ERB is also unethical. Where did you read that prepping for ERB is bad? BTW, it's entirely diff story to prep for SAT.
[ Reply | Options ]np: did you read the post? She wants to know why it's OK to prep for the OLSAT and SATs but not for the ERB.
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if it is not ok to prep for the olsat? Why does the city distribute the 16 questions?
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The article was saying that the SCHOOLS have different views about testing prep. Public schools don't have a formal position on prepping and have not sad anything about it even though they know it happens but private schools have a formal position which is that they look out for it and find it unethical.
[ Reply | Options ]And dumb in the long run. You prep the hell out and get the kid into a school he doesn't belong. Will need to be counseled out or tutored like hell.
[ Reply | Options ]it is unethical. but prep away and get your kid into a gifted program and watch him fall behind if he doesn't truly belong there.
[ Reply | Options ]np: no dog in this race, we didn't prep. but most G&T programs are not accelerated, just "enriched"... so they don't move very fast. furthermore, the OLSAT is really measuring a lifetime of prepping. so i'm not sure why explicit prepping during the last year would be so different or bad. we didn't prep because i want my kid to get to be a kid, and i just couldn't bring myself to make a 4 year old practice that stuff. testing will begin soon enough!
[ Reply | Options ]When my dd applied, a part of OLSAT was available online (more than what the city gave us) and many cheated. I did not go online to find it because I did not want dd to go G&T if she couldn't do this on her own and if she did not belong. I also did not want to set an example for my dd that cheating is okay.
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It's bad because your kid is 4 years old, you freak. Why don't you chill a bit and realize that getting a good ERB score is not a guarantee for a perfect, happy life for your child? I've got two kids and one got a 99 and the other a 98 -- with no prep. After they each finished their ERB they were unaware they had even been tested. Instead, you'll make your kid crazy by cramming a tutor down his throat. Do you actually think that 30 years from now your kid's life will be better if you cheat on the ERB?
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[+]What are the chances of my early June ds getting shut out of private schools for being too young when he is as mature socially and emotionally as his preschool classmates who are older, and so far has not been shown to struggle in any areas and is strong verbally according to teachers and PSD. Just nervous about his birth date. Any btdt or opinions? tia
8 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]I have three, two born in July, multiple accepts and now all are at TT. If everything you say is true there will be a place somewhere
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[+]Where would be a great place to go skiing with a 6-year old where I can rent a room with a kitchen and not need a car to get to the slopes? Any ideas? TIA.
7 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]Stein Erickson Lodge at Deer Valley if you can spend $ (they have small suites with kitchens). You will not need a car at all (they have a hotel shuttle into park city). It's actually not terribly expensive, depending on when you go (especially considering that flights into Salt Lake City are cheap). I think we paid about $350/night for a junior suite last year with a full kitchen towards the end of the season. Was like a studio apartment, and would have been perfect for two adults and a child.
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[+]Does anyone know any magazines where 9yo dd could submit some poetry? No, I don't think she's a writing genius, but this is the first academic area she has shown interest in and I want to encourage her.
5 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]New Moon is a magazine full of girls' submissions. Here's their website: http://www.newmoon.com/
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[+]what did your ERB tester say after the test? WHat did your tester look like?
11 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]Pretty and young, probably in late 20s or early 30s. Said, "She was very cooperative."
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Took erb at the test. Tester smiled and waved good bye and turned right back. one hour. 99.
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No, not nec'ly. One of the subtest counts speed. Report said dd was very chatty and talked about her favorite books and tv shows, and explained in detail her answers. But you don't have to be chatty like that to score high. If you give an answer, short and sweet, you still get the same pts.
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[+]SO if G&T was created just to bring local kids back to public it sounds to me like a marketing ploy without any substance behind it.
33 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]It was at the time. It was created to make UMC white parents feel comfortable sending their dcs to schools that were not performing well and were predominantly filled with kids out of district and catchment. And as more and more kids have gone to the G&Ts and the population of the UWS has changed those schools have changed. 9 and 166 could easily phase out G&T at this point and be fine.
[ Reply | Options ]I don't think that is fair even though I'm not UMC white. I think it's great for smart kids in poor nabes with zoned schools that cannot accommodate these kids. Giving them an opportunity to district G&T is great and often the only option these kids have. The only sad thing is G&T cutoff should be higher and curriculum should be accelerated. With 90% cutoff is ridiculous.
[ Reply | Options ]seems so silly to me, like an entire program created to feed off of the competitive nature of adults with regard to their children but based in nothing real.
[ Reply | Options ]after thinking long and hard about it ita (and we tested and qualified for g&t, so no sour grapes). a school is only as good is its peer group, so the kool-aid drinkers say. nothing else matters. the teachers can suck, the parents can be minimally involved, the fundraising can be below where it chould be, the commute can be 1.5 hours each way but as long as the "peer group" is great, the school is great. the funny thing is that with a 90% cutoff at districtwides the peer group may be virtually the same as that at a top gen ed anyway.
[ Reply | Options ]sounds like you have a good local school and you are only thinking about your particular situation. there are many families who either get a G&T spot or have to move to a decent school district. In our school G&T families are mostly doing all the fund raising an the after school program management. If not for the G&T this school would be another terrible school. Now since the G&T has been there a while it is becoming a decent option for the non G&T classes as well. I believe that the DOE is trying to open G&T programs in new schools to try to get the parents more involved and get these schools to improve.
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my dc is in K in a local g&t on UWS. most parents are very down to earth and the children are more "interested in learning/focused" then most of the children we had in our expensive and popular nursery school.
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I don't think it was a clever marketing scheme, I think it was legislation. Most U.S. states have mandated that school districts MUST provide a G&T program for a certain fixed percentage of kids.
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[+]FYI: All of this tier nonsense you discuss here only gets handed down to your DCs. By the time we were 10 we knew the rankings of each school and which was considered filled with brainiancs and which were filled with just rich kids with the means not to be dumped in public. If you think that will not hurt or in some alter your DCs perception of themselves you are wrong. The cycle and the tiers have existed forever how about you start to break the cycle by growing up?
15 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]If the tiers have "existed forever", how would posters' "growing up" change anything?
[ Reply | Options ]I so, so agree. Besides, it is all BS. The best school is the best school for your particular child. People are kidding themselves. It is such a shame that parents in NYC can't get a grip on their social/status anxiety. I actually know parents who make snide comments about the schools their so-called friends kids are applying to. How f--ked up is that?
[ Reply | Options ]I know, we have watched it go on for years and our parents still tell stories about so-and-so saying a,b, or c about this or that school. I understand it is human nature to be competitive but really it is so damaging to the dcs themselves no matter if they are at collegiate or hewitt
[ Reply | Options ]some of the nastiest behavior comes from parents with children at the less competitive schools. When my ds was accepted to Trinity for HS, you should have seen some of the behavior from acquaintances with children at some of the lower tier schools in manhattan. One mom actually went out of her way to be mean to my younger ds. unbelievable.
[ Reply | Options ]Yes I hate to agree with you but I have to that it is very much the standard norm here. I am sure there are a lot of nasty obnoxious moms who want to broadcast that their dc is at a tt, but there are more angry and bitter mothers who did not get a slot for their child who make it their mission to attack the children who did. Sick.
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Actually, even if the parents did not say a word, the kids still figure out on their own. Human nature.
[ Reply | Options ]true, but parents should not fuel the fire that will eventually burn their own dcs
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[+]A modest proposal: Since the MS44 building seems to have a bit of room, Anderson should take non-"gifted" students in one or two additional classrooms on a lottery basis or as 87 overflow. It would become a school with a heralded gifted program, but not an exclusively "gifted" school. That would relieve some of D3 overcrowding, but still allow the programs geared to its students to continue, while also creating opportunities for other students in the region. Doesn't it make sense to use the space for D3 kids? What harm could there be to the school or to present students to have a few classes each grade that are not in the gifted program? (signed, an unaffected parent with child in another school - not 87 or Anderson)
38 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]Why would you want tiers in a school which currently doesn't have any? Does that even make sense?
[ Reply | Options ]Not a public mom I think the whole premise of the g&t is for the parents to feel their dcs are special or smarter and to gear their entire learning experience to that premise. To put them in normal classes or put normal kids in their classes would create a lot of hullaballoo from those competitive parents.
[ Reply | Options ]Do you think the same way about parents who have their children in private schools, esp the ones in "TT" schools?
[ Reply | Options ]Think what, that they are all overly competitive? Yes. All parents are about whatever they can find that they feel is better or best for their children.
[ Reply | Options ]Think that they need to feel their dcs are special or smarter and to gear their entire learning experience to that premise.
[ Reply | Options ]Yes,I do. If you took parents from Spence and told them Hewitt would be joining three days a week they would demand a refund from the school
[ Reply | Options ]So then what exactly are you saying? Only parents who send their child to zoned schools all their educational lives (only suburban parents, I guess) are normal?
[ Reply | Options ]It was obvious from the moment I posted, perhaps because I send my dc to private I don't know, that you have been trying to start a fight which I don't understand because I am not making a judgment about public or private I am commenting on the social behavior of parents when it comes to their children.
[ Reply | Options ]Right and my question is - how far does that judgment go? If it extends to every parent in NYC, what's the point?
[ Reply | Options ]Question to me or in general, because I have already stated I am not making a judgment about schools but about social behavior of every parents across the globe. if it isn't school its dance class or piano lessons or baseball teams. Ever parents wants to believe their dc is getting the best or is in a group that is labeled 'best' whether that is a school, a county's best baseball team, lessons with the best dance coach etc.
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LOL. But the Hewitt moms, who would have LOVED for their dds to have been accepted to Spence, would be thrilled and would pay extra.
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How would you know if your dcs don't go to G&Ts? It's like public school parents on UB saying that private school A is full of snobby, entitled kids - how would they know?
[ Reply | Options ]I am making a comment on parents and their capacity to compete when it comes to their children and always wanting their child to be in the group that is positively singled out. Not the school or the program. If you think parents who send their dcs to public want that any less than parents who send dcs to B, S, and C you are kidding yourself.
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They need to put another MS in there. D3 overcrowding is reaching MS very very soon and there aren't enough spaces by a long shot to place all the kids that won't make it to Delta. Or maybe they can expand Computer School.
[ Reply | Options ]There is: West Prep MS started this year. It's going to grow as MS 44 is being phased out. Not sure about it's target enrollment though once all the grades are in place.
[ Reply | Options ]West Prep is very small school, and I don't think they are planning to grow it other than adding higher grades, so there is still net loss of MS seats as IS44 is being phased out. Where are the kids that were to go there going to go for MS?
[ Reply | Options ]MS 44 itself is pretty small at this point in terms of number of children per grade. There have been several newer D3 MS options created in the past few years. The problem is that aside from Center (yes, I know it starts in 5th), Computer, Delta, Mott Hall and the Columbia Secondary School, few feel that the other options offer an acceptable education. Also, relatively few of the options are in the southern end of the District.
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Conservatively, over half of the kids at Anderson are from D3 anyway (so maybe they could just all leave and add to the crowding at their home schools). This meme you people are floating, that Anderson is not a D3 school and should just keep moving like some hobo circus train is going to come back and bite you in the ass. And why does 87 need to bleed across the street? maybe because half the kids in that building are not zoned for it? How about this? no more out-of-catchment kids at PS87 and the Trump buildings go to PS191, like they were supposed to in the first place.
[ Reply | Options ]While I understand your premise on a local level, once you look at it on a citywide or even borough-wide level it doesn't make sense, given that many, many more children qualify for G&T than there are seats available. The bottom line is that there needs to be more elementary school seats across the board than there are at present.
[ Reply | Options ]I think the premise is to add seats where possible as priority, with g & t (which was created initially to bring local families back to public schools) as less of a priority. Look at the hysteria created unnecessarily (NY Times today on test prep). If Anderson were not a citywide school on 77th street, there would be that many more K spots for D3 kids available. The proposal retains the integrity of what Anderson has created for its kids over the decades, but allows the process of allocating school space for local kids.
[ Reply | Options ]I find it amusing but not surprising that no one was looking at OShea last year before Anderson was forced to move. And, again with the "local kids"--if you're talking catchment, half of 87 shouldn't be there either.
[ Reply | Options ]I am so sick of the out of catchement 87 BS. they have so many out of catchment kids because the DOE handed them to 87 without a choice. The current 2nd grade had 65 OOC spots via D3 lottery. The current 1st grade had 36. The current K had none but the principal decided to let in OOC siblings because she believed it was the right thing to do that late in the year. It made one K class. They could've done 8 K classes with 25-26 kids in a class but instead have 9 with 21 kids per class. Some kids get in OOC through the CTT classes or no child left behind and the school has no say in that.
[ Reply | Options ]They happily accepted OOC kids for years, in order to "build" the school. I understand, and sympathize. It's a bit misleading to say the DOE forced them in through the lottery the last couple of years. The lottery was simply to replace the "apply to individual schools and get in because the admin gets to decide which families they are going to give a spot to" method that was in place all over D3 for many many years.
[ Reply | Options ]True. But actually in 2007 the K classes expanded to 7 because the DOE gave PS 87 65 lottery seats rather than the 40 the school thought they could fit. The DOE has grossly underestimated the in catchment surge across lower D3. They also have done no accurate population prediction because they lump the district as a whole. PS 145 is half empty but no one from the W. 80s, 70s or 60s wants to go up there. What they should do is zone the trump buildings for 191 and then see what happens.
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If I may - to redirect conversation to subject-at-hand - True, MS44 space, if it exists, should be considered toward the imminent danger of middleschool chaos once the 2007 K kids reach 6th grade. But also -- the growing hysteria about gifted is just so out-of-whack with reality. And prevents other schools like 191, 84, 9, from really blossoming into the kind of sought-after institution like 199 and 87 (where they don't believe in the idea of "gifted")
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[+]I think i simply care less about education than most people do - I think there is a limit to what the best education money can buy will do for some kids. For some kids it will be life changing and profound - for some it will not matter so much
15 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]It isn't about buying a college placement for your child at an ivy. Its about creating and feeding a knowledge base that they will use and enjoy for the rest of their lives. My child already knows so much more than I do about art, history, different cultures, music it is astonishing, I love going to the museum with her, she points out things I never knew and she is in 5th grade! DD is no smarter than a lot of dcs but the education she is receiving is beyond!
[ Reply | Options ]DH and I went to Ivies and we feel the same way. We loved college, we got a lot out of it, etc, but don't feel it's worth pushing our kids through their childhood to get there.
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no, parents push their kids not the admissions process. it the parents who are signing them up for prepping and posting continuously on this board, asking what dc should wear, if they should give $ etc. not the process.
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you are justing mouthing the words, it is what most people who strive to get their dcs into tt say.
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