I have limited experience with both Duke TIP & CTY - that's why I'm here!! My dd13 (7th grade) took the SAT in January through Duke TIP. We did it mostly because her public middle school kept giving her high school math placement tests and she kept getting perfect scores, so I signed her up for the SAT through Duke. She wanted to do it for "fun" - I wanted her to do it just so I would have a better idea as to how advanced she was.
Without doing any studying for the test, she scored over 700 on both math and critical reading. She was very proud and could finally say "I told you so". For the past two years she was very depressed and bored in school. With these results she feels like she has finally been vindicated.
She is excited about the possibilities that Duke and CTY open up for her. We are a bit overwhelmed with the options and don't really know where to go from here (the Duke & CTY programs are expensive!). Her school principal didn't even know that SAT testing for 7th graders was an option (!) - and although the school doesn't deny that dd is "advanced" - they can't offer much beyond subject and/or grade advancement (she is already taking high school math - but is still bored).
We are in California (the SF Bay Area), but our public schools provide minimal gifted programming... in fact, our District's policy is that ALL kids can take the advanced classes, even if they don't have the ability. It's very frustrating for the kids who do have the ability.
Back to your original question, so far, our Duke/CTY involvement has been very limited, but my dd's excitement and "relief" at knowing that she is a part of a group of kids who are "different" has been well worth it. Even though we haven't actually met any of these other kids yet - just knowing that they exist seems to have really energized her. I would love to know more about other's experiences with these programs too, because we just don't know where to go from here.
