Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment All Correct On BSRA yet gets a score of 92 how???

Hi Dehe,
Wow that is something, only 300 seats crazy!
I have been joking my DS will be placed in the same shitty school he was last time he tested and seems that will be the case. We got 2 choices, one of them is better and packed the other one is bad and that is what he will get for a 2nd time lol.

Hi Dottie,

I never knew they could score tests like taht, just seems so unfair. So is life I guess.
Thanks to all for all the answers. You guys are smarter than anyone I know. I knew I could get some answers on here : )
I knew I would never get any answers from teh city.

Wouldn't it be great if my DS scored everything perfect and still did not make citywide. Now that would be some news story.
He got 7 wrong on the entire test. I wonder if he did get them all right what would the score be.

WOW those scores look so unfair. Just 2 wrong and you end up in the 56th percentile. Shouldn't these tests be harder?

I understand your frustration, but actually the percentiles are not unfair.

Think of it this way: if 10% of the kids get a perfect score on a test, is it accurate for all of these kids to think that they are in the 99th percentile? Of course not. They're all in the top 10%, and since it's impossible from that test to tell where they fall, then all that you can say is that they are at the 90th percentile or above. That may sound unreasonably low, but remember that NONE of the other kids of the same age has a higher percentile. I'm sure that the schools understand this (and they probably even get the raw scores and know when a kid got a perfect score). In those cases, if they need to distinguish between all of the kids with scores in the 90th percentile, then they would look at other factors.

It seems to me that what is unfair is giving too much weight to a test that is clearly too easy for the student population being tested.

I hope it all works out for you and your DS.

I read elsewhere that it was a contractual thing - they made a deal for the test for LDs and then did something else but was stuck with the contract through this year and so had to use it for something so why not gifted! Not sure if that's just rumor or not. But the other rumor supports it - apparently next year will be a different test - upgraded OLSAT or just a new vendor entirely

The whole thing has made me quite a conspiracy theorist - I am convinced that they are actually ranking within this so called lottery system because the lottery isn't public. I am not sure if my DS or tracey's would benefit from that, but it has to be better than the lunacy of qualifying but not getting a seat!

DeHe

Just confirms my feeling that anything run by the city is just a disaster.

All those parents with kids who do qualify for the citywide and do not get a seat must really be upset.

Yep but the city will never spend the money on screeing and then testing again. Didn't they used to use the standford binet though?

Anderson used the SB when they controlled their admissions. So when you took the test for Hunter, you could submit it for Anderson. But there was too much room for parents to manipulate and didn't open up the process for kids who couldn't afford the SB or parents who were not connected.

A threatening law suit from the AG in NY told them to change the system. Hence the DOE moved to the OLSAT which was cheap to administer to the whole city.

But they should have made it harder so the curve didn't top out the way it does for kids entering 2nd grade. It is ridiculous for DD to get 98th for perfect score and your son to get 92nd for perfect score. On the OLSAT portion, DD got one wrong and a 99th percentile, with her Sept birthday. I do not know how many she could get wrong. I was sure she totally screwed up because it took her 25 minutes and it was supposed to take over an hour. When she walked in after the test, my heart sank, I was totally sure she couldn't have done well in 25 minutes.

She showed me. But what a stupid test. And even now, I have to see if there are any spots for 2nd grade and if she gets lucky in the lottery for any spots.

Ren