HG/PG Dd has been asking to be grade skipped since 1st grade. She's currently in 3rd grade in a self-contained gifted class and still unhappy. The possibility of her skipping into 5th grade next year at a STEM school (5th-12th) has come up and we are exploring it. However I have reservations, the first being she could go to her current school for 4th grade (the 4th grade teacher is awesome), but the academics are still probably sub-par in my opinion). Then she could go to the STEM school for 5th and be very happy there as a true 5th grader since they will TRULY place kids according to test results. So if a 6th grader is capable they will put them in 10th grade math. So once at the STEM school whole grade acceleration isn't really necessary.

My main concern is regarding sports. She's a very talented swimmer and has enormous potential and I worry that getting bumped up a grade will make it more difficult for her to shine competing with kids a year older than she is. Thus... affecting chances of college scholarships. This could end up no longer being an issue if she decides down the road to quit swimming.

Oh and other concerns about 5th grade at the stem school is that this will be their first year having 5th graders and there is no playground. There will only be two 5th grade classes.

Is it selfish to keep dd in her current grade for sports?

I think $100K is a reasonable estimate for the extra lifetime income of a gifted person working one more year because he or she graduates from college a year earlier. What do you estimate the cost of a lower chance of getting a swimming scholarship to be?

What does she want? Unless she has the potential and interest to be an Olympic level swimmer, *I* would focus on academic and social fit first.

She is the one pushing the grade skip... the swimming thing is just another social factor. I'd let dd decide how important it is.

If a kid is a really fast swimmer I don't think spotting peers a year is going to make that much difference.

The top freshman are still faster than most of the upperclassman as I remember.

(and it's not like a team sport like hockey or soccer - in swimming you race against the clock so any good recruiters will take that into account too along with the age of the athelete).

Does the school have a competitive swim team? If not, she'll be doing club swim team and swimming in her appropriate age group, so grade won't matter.

Agree-- swimming is one sport where age is far less a factor.

College is a long way off, and only a very small number of HS athletes get scholarships. I wouldn't put your eggs in that basket.

I agree with all of the above.

I wouldn't be so concerned with athletic scholarships, because few get full scholarships. I don't know how many are allotted for DI swimming, but probably not a lot, and most scholarship kids likely get partial scholarships.

That being said, an athletic kid who is a year younger may well be at a disadvantage. And perhaps she'll try other sports, and perhaps being a year older, bigger and stronger would be a greater factor in those sports.

It is tough to tell what the future holds. I suspect that if my middle kid had not repeated 2nd grade (putting her in the correct grade for age when she switched schools - though we did it for maturity reasons), she would not be playing sports now. Small for age, slow to grow, not real athletic - likely would not be playing two varsity sports and travel now had she been a year ahead.

Middle kid will never play DI, but could play DIII. And here is where the sport could help her get into her college of choice. Perhaps she would like to go to a NESCAC school. NESCAC schools (and similar) need kids who can meet the academic standards of the school, and also play the sport. A kid with high SAT/ACT scores, good GPA with rigorous courses can have the coach give them a "tip" or "slot", or even just put in a good word with admissions. This is where I see more value in the sports (or if you are DI material, or close to it, this will help with the Ivies).

You will find that there are more swimmers (track/x-country, tennis players) with high SAT/ACT scores than team sport types with high scores, though that is a discussion for another day.

Tough choices if your DD winds up staying in swimming. The impact on your DD's competitiveness all seems to depend on whether her swimming program is organized by grade through the school and targeted at college or by age through a club system and targeted at the Olympics. USA swimming has the top 10 list for girls by age listed here:

http://www.usaswimming.org/_Rainbow/Documents/0be7cc17-d66c-4cca-a72f-01e24f245c94/girls_scy.pdf

Looking at the 50 yard freestyle, at every age the older girls win and more and more of them can beat the younger girls time. This is true from age 11 through 18.

You can also see the USA national age group records listed here:
http://www.usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=1480&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en-US

Again the times consistently drop by age with very few exceptions.

Missy Franklin famously continued to swim for her High School after winning at the Olympics and has swum for UC Berkeley in college.

So the Olympic path may be by age, but the school and collegiate path would be by grade.

Hope the additional info helps. The STEM school that will place by test sounds ideal, but it is a tough decision to wait until then for proper placement .

I don't expect dd to be an olympic swimmer, I hope she would continue through high school and swim in college (D1 or D2). She just aged up on her swim team so when she was the oldest in her age group she was consistently in the top 5 and winning occasionally. Now that she's the youngest in her age group she's in the middle of the pack so it shows to me age does matter. This is a year round swim team and goes by age. It's not just about swimming, what if she decides to do another sport?

The STEM school doesn't have a high school swim team but they have an agreement with a nearby high school that the STEM kids can join that high school's teams.

Last year was the only year dd was happy and that was her first year in the self contained GT class and was a mix of 2nd/3rd graders so she was with older kids. She's tall for her age and was the 2nd tallest out of the whole class and some parents thought she was a 3rd grader. So she would fit right in with a grade older I think.

That said her strength is math, her writing is on grade level or a little above but not anything spectacular (PRI 151, VCI 124) so she's not an all around strong student working years above grade level in all areas (just math).

Although I don't advise avoiding a grade skip because of sports, it should be remembered that there are both implicit and direct sports scholarships. For the direct sports scholarships that most people think of, some or all of tuition and living expenses are paid in return for playing on the team.

Some prestigious schools with need-blind admissions offer big implicit sports scholarships for students not from rich families. For example, Harvard says

A student from a family earning $65K who gets into Harvard because she is a good athlete in addition to being a good student is better off than a comparable student without the sports hook who does not get in.

Bostonian, over how many years is parental income considered for the calculation?

The short answer is yes, especially if your DD is asking for a skip and is not concerned about the sports angle.

Our DD is a pretty good swimmer for her age, but 10 years from now I expect her satisfaction will be tied to how well she is doing in med school. Swim will be what she does for exercise.

Sorry if that was too blunt, but I would err on the side of academics - if she tears a rotator cuff, she can still be a scientist.

Best of luck,
--S.F.

I believe only current income is considered directly, although assets other than home equity and retirement accounts are also considered. The Harvard Net Price Calculator is at https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator .

I wouldn't hold back a kid just for sports or because maybe they will get a scholarship many years down the line. That puts a lot of pressure on the kids to stay in this particular sport. Children change and grow and they become interested in other things. I would do what is best for your child NOW.

Also keep in mind that in swimming as other sports age does matter a lot when you 10. But age matters less as you age and by 16-18 it's stops mattering as much. Until H.S. you daughter will swim against age peers. This will only be an issue when she hits high school.

We were in a somewhat comparable situation this year. DS8, in third grade, could have skipped directly into fifth grade in a congregated gifted program - heavily STEM focused, too.

He decided he didn't want to, which was the crucial factor - however other factors came into play for me to decide not to override DS wishes (I do that all the time, he is often too anxious to pick what I know will be the right thing for him):

He is really weak in sports - so weak I'd be seriously worried about his somewhat tenuous social confidence if he were any weaker in comparison to his classmates. He was entered early with a birthday weeks after the cutoff, but as there is no red shirting in that school he's the youngest only by a few weeks up to a year - and STILL struggles to get Cs. I shudder to think how he'd struggle at the age of 8, in fifth grade, in a new school, possibly with red shirted boys in his class. He is tall and thin, moves a lot, swims, bikes, does martial arts, but is very very uncoordinated and physically anxious. Do grades in sports count? They did to me when I was a kid, and to everyone else.
So while I m not worried about actually competing in athletics, I m worried about competing socially, as it were. And I think he might really care about being competitive for academic competitions, or in band, or orchestra, or fine arts. (Which may affect his college options where we live, though athletics won't.) And while he is advanced in LA as well, he's just not as "out there" as he is in science and math (where he's been coasting along happily in fourth grade this year already anyway. Don't know what well do next year when he is in fourth and would have to go to middle school for math but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).
And he has complained about being the youngest in class already, at the same time as complaining about the rest of the class being SO slow.
So like you, I have hopes that fifth grade in the gifted STEM program might finally, finally be able to offer him that sweet spot of being with age peers (they usually have a number of skipped kids and the occasional double skipped kid as well as grade level kids so he'll be smack bang in the middle) AND being academically appropriately placed.
As I said, athletics won't affect his college options, the most important considerations for us were social vs academic fit now.
I wouldn't plan for what could happen when she's 17.

I have a dd who will enter 6th grade in the fall who is a talented all-around athlete but currently heavily invested in competing in one sport, at which she excels. Although her sport doesn't move up children specifically by age (instead by competition level), she is a kid who enjoys competing at a high level rather than acing everything at an easier level. I wouldn't for *one minute* use sports as a reason to not grade-skip a student who was academically needing it.

Although you're seeing a difference with moving up a level in swimming now, I wonder how large that difference really would be once your dd is in high school, or if it would even be relevant at all. What I've seen with my dd and other kids I know who compete in individual sports, the true standouts come as a combination of innate talent combined with years of practice. The high school teams don't necessarily draw kids who have been competing since grade school or the most talented kids in the sport. I don't know how swimming works where you are, but in my dd's sport some of the most talented kids don't even compete on their high school teams because it takes time away from the competitive league that leads (ultimately for the top kids) to the Olympics. The stand-out athletes still get college scholarships even though they aren't on their high school teams. I also suspect (from the collegiate sports tournaments I've seen) that the kids who get the scholarships for individual sports are truly the kids who have that combination of innate talent plus history of time invested in the sport to achieve to a certain level. Will skipping ahead one year in swimming make a difference? I don't know because I don't know anything about swimming, but... fwiw... in my dd's sport... the only time that type of a skip might make an obvious difference is in the early levels of competition, kinda like a certain number of kids can learn to read "early" if they are exposed to reading lessons, and they might look "gifted" because not every child has learned to read yet, when really they are just early achievers due to exposure. By the time kids get up into middle-elementary school those "gifted" readers aren't looking like stand-outs anymore, but the truly highly gifted kids have learned how to read and are taking off. Same thing seems to happen with individual sports (or at least it does in my little corner of the world lol). By high school, success is much more about ability and time devoted to the sport than it is about actual age.

OTOH, for my dd - I'd much rather put my focus on working toward academic scholarships so that she's prepped to go to the schools that offer an advangage in whatever field of study she ultimately chooses. I went to a great STEM program. Our university had several competitive sports. They weren't Olympic-league teams, because the top swimmers, for instance, who had a shot at the huge scholarships, went to university at a place that had a nationally competitive team and college was all about swimming and they got some type of degree as a sideline, but the degree programs at those schools weren't necessarily anywhere near as highly respected as getting a degree at a school with an academic reputation. In return, most of the competitive athletes at our school got really nice scholarships - without having to be at the very very pinnacle of their sport.

The other thing about making a plan now for a sports scholarship later - what if your child has a career-ending injury between now and the end of high school? I sure hope she doesn't, but it can happen. What if she gets tired of competitive sports in general? Decides she wants to spend her free time volunteering?

So no, I wouldn't worry about the sports and instead focus on the academics.


It also probably made a difference that she was actually in a GT class - no matter which grade it was. That's been our kids' experience even if they were in the same grade level - just being with kids who "get it" quicker than the average in the typical class made a *huge* difference in their educational experience. Soooooo. that's one thing I'd look at re the STEM school - the differentiation sounds great. What about the student body? Is it primarily motivated or GT kids, or is it an assortment of different types of needs/backgrounds?


I wouldn't worry about the height. Honestly, I think we think about height too much when thinking will our kids fit in. Personality plays a larger role, imo.


That's still a strong VCI, so even if LA isn't her strong point, I wouldn't use that as a reason not to skip, especially if it's not a gifted-all-around program but is a school that differentiates.

Good luck with your decision!

polarbear

If your DD wants to go to the STEM program and it is a good fit, I would not make her stay where she is because of swimming. If I were in her shoes, I'd be rather resentful if I was held back because of swimming.

On the other hand, I do know a family that decided against acceleration because of the child's exceptional athletic abilities and he did end up receiving a full athletic college scholarship.

Have you spoken to her coach about the possible consequences?

Since she can go to the STEM school the following year, and that school would be a good fit, I don't think I would go for the skip. The adults I know who were grade skipped (especially those who had multiple skips) all seem to regret that they "missed out" on something. For some it involved the social aspects of school, for other it was sports, etc. The stuff like sports, academic competitions, music competitions, and prom only come along once. You do them while you are in school or they don't happen (except perhaps for a select few).

Yes, if you get injured you can still become a scientist. However, you can still be a scientist if you don't grade skip. But you can never go back and try out for the basketball team or all-state orchestra. You don't get a second chance at PSAT/NMSQT.

My concern would be that years later as an adult, my kid would say, "If you hadn't grade-skipped me, I could have ." I don't think a nine year old kid can see the potential consequences. Heck, my 17 year old can't see why we recommend she do certain things to improve her chances at getting into the college of her choice. And my 19 year old now says she wishes she had done certain things in HS...the very things we recommended she do.

Just like to mention that many of us are adults who were grade-skipped (some multiple skips), who have none (or few) of those regrets. There is data to support that the majority of adults who were radically-accelerated as children feel that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. One's child could as easily say, years later, "if you had only grade-skipped me, I could have..." (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/82/3/464/)

We make the best parenting decisions we can for our children, and communicate that a) all of our decisions are made out of love for them, and b) we are not perfect, so some of our decisions will turn out to be wrong.

And don't forget that a decision for one school year doesn't have to lock you into all the downstream decisions.

Sorry, didn't mean that the grade-skipped folks all had huge regrets. One multiple grade skipped woman I know is happily married, happily employed and early entranced her kids - her "regrets" were minor. However, another always felt like she was treated as an outcast by her schoolmates, and when she gained entrance to a prestigious conservatory, her parents said it was too far away for a kid her age - and she never went to college.

I guess you can always "undo" a skip with a post-grad year if that skipped year proves to be a disadvantage for college athletics. Of course, the tuition might defeat the goal of a swimming scholarship, though one kid from my school essentially did a post-grad year at her local public school,

We have not done a grade skip with DD due to sports. My husband and I were both D1 athletes and had scholarships that payed for everything. We were also both very good students. Honestly, students with perfect to near perfect GPA's and high SAT/ACT are pretty common. These students who are also D1 caliber athletes are rare. I had several friends who had slightly higher GPA's and SAT scores than me, I also was the one offered a spot at schools they applied to. We are a family of athletes and most neices and nephews are collegiate athletes. Ask yourself how talented your daughter really is, not just locally but regionally and state wide. If she is really an excellent athlete I would not do the skip.

Meh. I'd say I was marginally less ostracised in elementary after my skip than before. Middle school, no one cared. I'm sure I would have been just as unhappy at having no partner for prom being one year older - no idea why that should have made the straight A kid with the thick glasses and the big mouth any more popular with the boys. I had lots if women friends who gave me rides when I didn't have a licence yet, and at the time we all mostly still rode bikes anyway, because hardly anyone had their own car and our parents let has drive theirs only for special occasions. I probably would have been competitive for any kind of academic competition if my school had ever cared to actually enter a student (I asked and was shot down). I certainly got the full academic ride to college anyway, even a year younger. Socially, the skip could be called a disaster. I still do not regret in the least because I went from going out of my mind to only mostly bored.
It is almost impossible to find the perfect fit for our kids, unless you luck out with the perfect gifted school in our neighbourhood. I feel that for our DS (who HAS been accelerated once) a second skip might compromise his chance at finding a good enough fit, socially AND academically, in gifted middle school - I haven't mentioned yet that his EF skills simply aren't ready for middle school either, gifted or not. And he is NOT going out of his mind, only mostly bored. As he wants to stay with the kids he knows, we'll try to make fourth grade work. It's only another year now.
Could there be reason to regret either choice down the road? Of course! But I can only passably judge wether middle school this year or next will set him up for a good middle school experience, anything further off is trying to read the tea leaves. Divination being a very imprecise ranch of magic and all...

Note that I am NOT advocating against a skip for the OPs DD, just for trying to find the best fit, socially and academically AND athletically, because I'm sure her DD cares about swimming, too, NOW, not plan college applications. And our DS has been accelerated, but mildly, as it were. He is clearly a third grader, not a second grader. Sometimes you can tell these things just by looking at your kid among others.

OP, is your DD old or young for grade? If she's old, that would be another reason to skip, along with her feeling more at home with kids a grade above - and, of course, asking for the skip herself.

Unless not being challenged in school caused you to lose interest due to boredom. Or always being the top kid in your grade (without expending any effort) allowed you to become complacent and lazy in your studies (which made actual rigor in college a huge shock to your system).

I have a twice grade skipped daughter, taking two foreign languages, who has amassed more credits after 5 trimesters of HS than most of her peers will in 9, and she is still half-arsing most of her classes. I cannot imagine how bored she would be not having been skipped.

Would swim be a little more satisfying if she were with her age-mates? Sure it would. But a decade from now, I'd rather see a medical degree hanging on her wall than a swim team MVP plaque from HS.

Just my two cents. Please don't be offended by my brusqueness.

Best of luck,
--S.F.

According to this paper, "grade skipping may enhance STEM accomplishments among the mathematically talented."

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Park-Lubinski-Benbow-2013.pdf
When Less Is More: Effects of Grade Skipping on Adult STEM Productivity Among Mathematically Precocious Adolescents
by Gregory Park, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow
Vanderbilt University
Using data from a 40-year longitudinal study, the authors examined 3 related hypotheses about the effects
of grade skipping on future educational and occupational outcomes in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM). From a combined sample of 3,467 mathematically precocious students (top
1%), a combination of exact and propensity score matching was used to create balanced comparison
groups of 363 grade skippers and 657 matched controls. Results suggest that grade skippers (a) were
more likely to pursue advanced degrees in STEM and author peer-reviewed publications in STEM, (b)
earned their degrees and authored their 1st publication earlier, and (c) accrued more total citations and
highly cited publications by age 50 years. These patterns were consistent among male participants but
less so among female participants (who had a greater tendency to pursue advanced degrees in medicine
or law). Findings suggest that grade skipping may enhance STEM accomplishments among the mathematically
talented.
Keywords: educational acceleration, gifted, math/science talent, longitudinal analysis, propensity score
matching

The answer to the OP's question will depend on the relative importance one ascribes to academics and sports, and a forum for academically gifted children may tend to attract parents whose especially value academics. Most people here do not favor foregoing an academically justified grade skip for athletic reasons, but if the same question were asked in a forum for parents of gifted athletes, the majority opinion could be different.

A book I really liked

Developing Talent in Young People (1985)
by Dr. Benjamin Bloom

has chapters on various types of talent, including swimming. The chapters are as follows:
• The Nature of the Study and Why It Was Done
• Learning to Be a Concert Pianist
• One Concert Pianist
• The Development of Accomplished Sculptors
• The Development of Olympic Swimmers
• One Olympic Swimmer
• Learning to Be a World-Class Tennis Player
• The Development of Exceptional Research Mathematicians
• One Mathematician: “Hal Foster”
• Becoming an Outstanding Research Neurologist
• Phases of Learning
• Home Influences on Talent Development
• A Long-Term Commitment to Learning
• Generalizations About Talent Development

I am going to concur.

Kids get addicted to easy success-- and frankly? STEM in post-secondary is a wicked beast if you are conditioned for that.

Dealing with this particular cocktail of factors right now. DEEPLY regretting not accelerating harder on math-- until it wasn't so easy.

Deeply.

I say that as mom to a kid who is a 15yo college student. So she was "accelerated" significantly-- but graduating #1? Yeah, clearly 3y wasn't enough, and we should have figured out SOME way to get her learning some of what she needed to know. Things like "life is hard, but you can improve if you work" and "not everything that is worth doing/learning is going to be OBVIOUS the first time that you see it."

Advanced STEM topics aren't easy for anyone. Being bright is necessary-- but not at all "sufficient."

Hard work also necessary-- but not sufficient.

There's no way to "work harder" to an understanding of some topics if your FSIQ is just 100 or 110. Won't happen. Then again-- osmosis isn't a good plan, either, even if your FSIQ is 150.


What I'm going to say here is likely to be non-PC, and may make some people unhappy-- but-- what we're finding is that our child is looking at what is "easy" for her versus "hard" for her-- and realizing that she can more or less CONTINUE to be a slacker and not face down her perfectionistic demons (that is, perfection is still more or less attainable with little effort) in her arts/humanities courses. Not-so-much in STEM.

That said-- it IS possible for people who are bright enough, and have learned that schooling is a 'demonstration of innate knowledge' (as opposed to a learning opportunity) , to skate by even in college. They just won't be doing it in STEM.

Ask yourself if you want to help close that door. Seriously. If it's that it isn't your child's nature/passion, well-- so be it, perhaps. If it is, however, I'd proceed with caution on allowing things to be too easy.


I would not consider sports in an academic placement decision. Look to club sports with age placement if it is important, and realize that you've made some trade-offs. But decide which is MORE important to the long term well-being of your child. Proceed accordingly.

I, to, hope that this isn't too blunt. Hindsight, though-- I sure wish that someone had tipped me off to this one when DD was 6 or 7y.

Having been a D1 athlete and also having earned a Ph.D. (my partner has an MD and was a D1 athlete) we agree that it is sports that taught us to work hard. School never became difficult. There were hoops to jump through, a dissertation to write etc.. but nothing very mentally challenging. The daily grind of being an athlete is much more difficult than school. Having to be up early, play games that end late and still pull the same grades as your peers is what teaches you to not waste time. You learn to complete assignments and study for tests early because you don't have later. We prioritize athletics and academics in our house. DD makes perfect grades without breaking a sweat. She is performing three grade levels above peers academically (on average). Allowing her to skip one grade or even two will not make school hard it will just force her into a situation where she is socially awkward. Sports (which she loves) force her to work hard. Every child is different, but I would encourage anyone who has a child interested in athletics to give them the opportunity to play. There are so many posts on this board about teaching children to work hard, athletics will do that. It will teach them skills that academics will not.

http://www.thedp.com/article/2015/02/student-athletes-work-hard-and-play-hard

However, if you read the OP, it is the child who has been asking for a grade skip for *2* years... to me, that is a big issue. How do you explain to a child that you do not want to skip simply because they may (or may not!) be a D1 swimmer 6+ years down the road - we don't know what level of passion the OP's child has for swimming over her desire to be grade skipped.

Burnout happens in sports all the time - I see it so often with kids who played a certain sport all the way through high school and just did not want to do it during college. I know of people who were recruited for their sports skills (from D1 to DIII, which does not offer scholarships but where their sports background was a factor in admissions) and then completely drop that sport in college and do a different sport or no sports. I played an indoor sport intensely through high school (travel team, coed team and high school team) and yet when I got to college, I found myself not interested in that sport anymore. Instead I switched to a totally unrelated sport (which I did for many years after college, including placing in top 4 a few times at national team trials).

I agree with everything sallymom's said about sports but also I'm not sure how grade skipping takes away from what sports teach re hard work/etc? The OP's child will still be swimming (at least for the near future, and as long as she's interested in it).

I suppose one flip side to sallysmom's advice is that it's also easy for a kid who is uber-focused on a competitive sport (this is taken straight from my competitive and talented athletic dd, not a hypothetical situation)... can be so focused on that sport that they aren't prioritizing school above sport, and hence they are very happy to skate by with easy academics so they can spend all their free hours working at their sport. I suspect my dd would not ask to grade skip if she thought there was any chance it would mean more homework - she already would like to homeschool to give herself more time for her sport. I would not, as a parent, let her choose an academic path that was too easy for her just to let her focus on her sport - I believe she needs to work at both.

polarbear

ITA -

pb

A little off topic but I remember years ago when the 2 top QB prospects in the NFL draft where Rick Mirer and Drew Bledsoe. The Patriots took Bledsoe because Bledsoe was much younger.

"One of the main criteria was the disparity in age," [Parcells] said. "One player (Mirer) was 23, the other player (Bledsoe) was 20. So I had to look at that and say, OK, where could this player who's 20 potentially be when he's 23? And what do I have as opposed to the other player, who will be 26?"

So good coaches do take age and its impact on the developmental arc into account when selecting athletes.

In reading between the lines of your post, I can't help but get the feeling that not skipping is the overall better choice in your DD's specific situation. There are social and resource considerations here as well as lack of track record for the 5th grade STEM program versus awesome teacher for the 4th grade GT class.

As you move into middle and high school, there are just so many opportunities for kids to challenge themselves in math and science, whether through tons of competitions or independent research or internships or dual programs with college courses as early as 9th grade.

Throwing sports into the mix just tilts the scale a bit more. I don't have an especially talented athlete but it has been pretty obvious that a couple of years can matter during the tween/early teen years after seeing DD compete (just regionally) against kids who are two grades higher, a foot taller and 50% heavier.

I think everything matters: social, emotional, music, art, sports. After all, it is not uncommon for many top students to get their academic challenge outside their standard classrooms. No matter how many years you skip, it will be difficult to find enough true academic peers in a single school (except for a select few across the country). If you look at the distribution of scores on tests like MAP or SAT, you can see what I am talking about. For example, on MAP math, a 99 percentile 6th grader outscores a 90 percentile 10th grader. When you have a kid who is considerably more rare than top 1%, even skipping her those 4 grades will net considerably fewer peers.

I'm on my phone and can't reply to everyone in detail at the moment, but I did want to clarify that we haven't refused to grade skip her for 2 years because of swimming. She only recently joined the swim team. When she first asked to skip in 1st grade she had just received entrance to the gt program for 2nd grade and were anticipating that that would be sufficient for her. It was for 2nd grade but not this year.

I consider that an argument *for* skipping a a grade in elementary school. For example, our eldest son enjoyed being on the middle school math team starting at age 10, and he was able to do so at that age because he was accelerated one year.

I am not anti-skip in every situation; rather, to me the OP's set of facts weighs in favor of sticking with the awesome teacher and giving the STEM school a chance to get their 5th grade program together. The OP's DD only has one more year of elementary school (and with an awesome teacher) since her middle school apparently starts with 5th grade.

You don't need to be in middle school to compete in middle school competitions or in high school to compete in high school competitions. DS, with one exception, has always competed on mixed school teams for math competitions. One of DS' teammates on a couple of his mixed school teams is a 5th grader who has excelled in many math competitions, including scoring decently on AIME.

All of the above can still be done by a grade skipped student. In fact, skipping my daughter ahead allowed her to encounter the need for good time management at an earlier age. She also knows that being the youngest (next year she'll just be AMONG the youngest) on her swim team means she has to work harder than others to get a spot to compete on meet days.



Depending on the kid, you might be taking her out of a socially awkward situation and into a better one. Most of my DDs friends and teachers have no idea she's younger until she is outed for some (often odd and/or humorous) reason.

--S.F.

Yes! Deciding to skip isn't just about swimming/sports, there are other things to take into consideration besides the swimming.

We went to the school yesterday and they determined dd to be a good candidate for a grade skip and would accept her. However, we decided it would be too many transitions for her in one year... transitioning to a new school, new friends, new homework expectations, new grade, etc.... if it was a skip within her school it wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Also, we took into consideration that this is their first year having a 5th grade and they didn't have too many answers as to how it would run/look. I'd like to give them a year to work the kinks out and let dd have the awesome 4th grade teacher she is set to have next year at her current school. In addition to this, dd has really come out of her shell the past 2 years and I'd hate it if this skip caused her to 'retreat' and be less outgoing in the classroom (sharing thoughts/answers/ideas). And lastly, I feel that this STEM school would be able to meet her needs academically even without a grade skip since they ability group and allow kids to go to higher grades for subjects (goes up to 12th grade). It's a school that attracts a great number of GT kids so I feel that it is possible to challenge her there.

It sounds like you've made a good decision mountainmom2011! I'm sure it feels good to get the decision over and done with and behind you

Good luck to your dd in the coming school year!

polarbear

What pb said! Glad that you found a solution that you're happy about and looking forward to.

Not addressing the OP anymore, but reading the following article, the idea of pursuing a sports scholarship with a time commitment that could interfere with one's studies seems odd to me, unless there is a real prospect of becoming a professional football or basketball player or other well-paid athlete. I won't expect my children to work during the school year unless they can find jobs that are related to their intended careers.

What Off-Season?
By Jake New
Insider Higher Education
May 8, 2015

I couldn't agree more.

My son will probably continue to swim on a club team in college for fun. The workouts for swimming center him. Being part of a club team will provide a social group. But the demands of being on a club team are different. Paper due? Missing practice is no problem. Need to grab an extra workout after you finish the paper? No problem if there are open swim hours. He has never set his sights on the Olympics or swimming in college. He is really happy swimming club year round and having some fun on the high school team. College will be for college with activities on the side.

I could.

Assuming my child could devote the same number of hours each week, to reap the same amount of financial reward, I'd much prefer my DD spend the time outside of school work doing the sport she loves. School and related employment both involve the same kind of pressure, and doubling down on that, absent necessity, is a recipe for disaster. College sports are high stakes, so there's pressure there, but it's a different kind of pressure, and outside of competitions, there's the usual fitness and camaraderie benefits that work as an effective stress safety valve.

Working students drop out at a high rate for a reason.

College athletes who are experiencing academic issues get a very different kind of support from the institution than those who work.

Also, college scholarships are generally offered to incoming freshmen. Paid internships are usually not offered to them.

Students working long hours at jobs unrelated to their studies may have a high drop out rate, but I doubt this is true for students working part-time in a job related to their academic work. My eldest son likes math and programming. If he got a job writing code for a professor, that probably would not interfere with his classes. I've seen articles about CS majors dropping out to take jobs with tech companies. That may not be a bad thing, but the Tiger Mother would be more skeptical.

For freshmen and sophomores, there isn't much work related to their academic work, since they're mostly still doing general studies at this point.

Unless you want to be bored with the details, just trust me that if your DS was employed to write code for a big enterprise (public or private) project, it would be very easy to become a major commitment that interferes with his studies. These opportunities represent a far larger share of the pie than the chance to write code for a professor (who might be an adjunct being paid less than minimum wage).

Tech interns taking tech jobs are somewhat of a special case, because IT is one industry where the BS degree is still declared as required, but turns out to be optional in practice, if you can show an aptitude. This doesn't happen nearly as often in other fields, AFAIK. And it makes perfect sense to dump the degree program once you're offered a permanent job, because that was why you were pursuing the degree in the first place. So, while it's a fairly solid strategy in IT, I wouldn't recommend it to people pursuing other fields.

I have friends/co-workers that did that years ago. Left university because they had a great professional job coding that paid well. It came back to bite them when our company went under and they had a hard time finding a new job. While they had 15 years experience under their belt many businesses wouldn't even look at their resume since they had no degree.

The Clash had a song in which it was sung

"The men at the factory are old and cunning,
You don't owe nothing, boy get running
It's the best years of your life they want to steal"


I sometimes see whole grade acceleration in this same light, as we're pushing kids to get to the drudgery of the adult world far sooner than they need to. Trust me when I say that I wholly understand the frustrations of a child who is not being challenged at school and who does not even have any *prospects* of being challenged for the foreseeable future in school. I am not advocating for that at all.

But why would we want to compact their childhood? Yes, I've seen the studies of the potential for additional income per year of work life. They'll get there soon enough.

Please do not think I agree with the Gift of Time school of thought, because there is a very big difference between those teachers/administrators and me. They have no problem with a child being unchallenged in school for years on end, so long as they stay entirely with age peers.

I, on the other hand, have no problem with a child/person staying in school and *continuously learning* for years on end. More of the Platonic school of thought, if you will. The only area of agreement I have with the Gift of Time group is that childhood is fleeting, brief, and there to be savored- all while soaking up as much knowledge and information as possible.

I am not judging anyone's choices, though. I know and understand that whole grade acceleration is the only option for some children/families, the only way in which the child can get anywhere near the appropriate level of education for them. I know that we are fortunate enough to be able to afford private school which, although not ideal, is still much better than the public school options available to us. It's just unfortunate that the system doesn't work better and that families are forced to make this kind of decision.


To the OP- Good luck next year and I hope the STEM school works out after that.

Few gifted children will be getting jobs on assembly lines. The white collar jobs that most will get may not involve more drudgery than being in school.

High schools are warehouses for teenagers. When I went to school, you would be docked a letter grade for skipping a single class. Attendance was taken even for study hall. In my current job in the investment business, I do need to be watching the markets at certain times of the day. But otherwise, if I need to step out to run an errand, I just do it. High school graduation is a day of emancipation, and I am pleased that two of my three children will be emancipated a year early.

Money is freedom. My wife and I spend a lot on our children, providing them everything we think they need and some of the things they want. But those are still our decisions. When my children start earning their own money, they will get to decide what their needs and wants are. Good for them.

Or we could look at it as opening up the world of post-secondary education, travel, and life experience sooner. Graduating (or just leaving, for some of us) high school earlier does not necessarily mean moving into the adult world of work earlier.

But to your main point: I agree that childhood is precious and evanescent, and should be preserved as long as reasonable and practical, all other things being equal.

Maybe we're working from different ideas of "freedom."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

Yeah...my salaried husband had a job years ago where he was the general manager and made less per hour than the people he managed. He finally couldn't take it.

Not necessarily, my older brother whom I feel is very like my DS worked in blue color jobs for a number of years. I'm can't for sure say he is gifted is but I'm fairly certain he fits the criteria. He could do anything he set his mind to do the problem was figuring out what he wanted to do. He spent quite a few years "finding himself". University didn't work out for him. So to keep himself fed & housed he worked blue colors jobs, while playing in a band and other hobbies that kept himself intellectually stimulated. Eventually, at one of these jobs the boss noticed him, quickly promoted him to manager and eventually head manager. A few years later when the boss wanted to sell my brother figured out how to get loans and bought out the business.