My ds10 will be taking the COGAT (school switched last year) next fall for middle school gifted placement and I have to admit, I'm nervous. He's always done well on the OLSATs, but I have no idea about the COGAT and I've heard bad things.
Anyone have any feedback on why this isn't the best test? I hope that after years of evidence they won't rely on just this one test, but....
I don't have much experience, but from what I read I think if he does well on the OLSAT he should be fine on the CogAT. Our school district gave the OLSAT up until last year and switched to the CogAT this year supposedly because it provides a more detailed profile and meshes better with the ITBS which they give for the achievement portion of the id process. This is what I was told, but part of me kind of wonders if maybe the CogAT was cheaper! Personally, I think one of the drawbacks to the test DS took (2nd grade) was that the questions were read to them by the teacher. It makes sense in order to take out the influence of reading level, but on the other hand, if you space out for a few minutes (which DS totally does at home!) you are pretty much out of luck! And it has to be incredibly dull to listen to the teacher read every question, so DS would have been easily distracted! I can also see him thinking excessively about question 1 and totally missing questions 2-4 or something like that!
Anyway, I can only imagine (after my own experience) how sweet that phone call must have been and how vindicated you must have felt. YAY!!!!!!
She emailed me Thursday night to set up the phone time and I was certain that she was just calling to kindly tell me he didn't get in, since we had had a few discussions over the last few months. LOL They are sending home the written recommendations tomorrow so I wasn't expecting her to call me at all. I had prepared myself for that awkward conversation and so was really happy that it turned out much better than I could have anticipated!
momtofour, I am sure your DS will do fine! If he has done well with standardized testing previously then he knows the ropes!
