Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Johns Hopkins CTY v. giftedstudy.org

I'm sorry if this is a redundant topic. I did search and I didn't see a comparable topic before.

A few weeks back, my son's teacher (5th grade) recommended that he sit for the Johns Hopkins Talent Search. We had never even heard of the program. So he took the SCAT test and qualified for statewide "high honors" in both verbal and math, and was eligible for the program's summer residential camps.

We were proud of his accomplishments and began evaluating the Johns Hopkins' programs, including its summer program. My wife and I were ready to proceed with a course of action, including enrolling him in certain on-line courses for the next year -- followed by the summer residential camp next year, in 2014.

Last week, though, we were thrown for a loop when his teachers sent home information on the "Summer Institute for the Gifted." It is apparently a comparable program and his SCAT scores would immediately qualify him for the program.

The kid is a sponge and he seems to soak up whatever he's given. We feel obligated to provide him with these enrichment experiences.

As anyone here ever weighed/compared these programs against each other? We would greatly appreciate any feedback you can provide. As you can imagine, this isn't the kind of thing you can speak to your neighbors about without coming across as massive braggarts. And there does not seem to be much information on the internet on this subject.

We would greatly appreciate any information you can provide (through the comfortable anonymity of the internet ).

Bumping this one - I'm interested too

JoltinJoe - our ds hasn't attended either the CTY or SIG summer camps yet - he's interested but they are all a significant out-of-state trip for us, and ds isn't quite ready yet to commit to a residential camp yet - maybe next year lol!

He has, however, taken courses through CTY Online and totally soaks them up. They are quite pricey, and I wouldn't use CTY for computer programming, for instance, that he can take elsewhere for a lot less money, but we've found the science courses to be worth it (for him and for us) because the teachers he's had have been really wonderful, and CTY is the talent search group that our school district recognizes and refers students to.. hence we think it holds a (hopefully) reasonable chance that he may be able to use his CTY credit for accelerated placement in science once he's in high school.

My 10 yo dd takes online classes through CTY, and we are considering a SIG camp this summer, so I have done some of this research. Frankly, SIG doesn't always get high marks. I read all over the Internet, and there are some pretty bad stories out there. It seems to really vary from site to site though, so you might want to do your own research. I think I googled "SIG review" or something.

Most people seem to really like the CTY summer programs. I will say that SIG Bryn Mawr gets consistently strong reviews. This is the one we are looking at, and I think it likely we will try it. We are close enough that we can use the day program option, which works for us. We are not ready for three weeks of sleep away yet.

We've done a few gifted summer programs with my kids like Yunasa and a summer camp through our local talent search, but not JH's CTY camps or SIG. I will say, though, that we looked at SIG and it has been discussed here before just maybe not in comparison to CTY. When I've seen people discuss CTY here, the reviews all or mostly seem to be pretty positive. I've seen a bit more mixed reviews on SIG.

I can't recall, but doesn't SIG have a more open admission policy than CTY camps? In general, when dealing with kids who are more than "garden level gifted" (i.e. beyond say the top 5% or so of age or grade peers), I tend to find that the more restrictive or higher the admissions standards, the more likely the program is to be a fit for the child. It really sounds like you have a child who is beyond my definition of garden level giftedness.

Yes, CTY you have to qualify to take the SCAT AND then qualify with scores. My understanding is that for SIG, all you need to show is that you qualified to participate in a talent search, ie, have gotten 95% or above on a nationally norms test.

Nothing to add but I like the term "garden level gifted".

I guess I should have searched "SIG" but being a newbie, I didn't know the abbreviation.

Some great points here. I guess I should check with the school district about CTY credit being accepted.

Also, while I'm at it, I assume the abbreviation "DS" refers to "Dear Son."

Polar Bear, thanks for the insight on not using CTY for computer programming courses. We were actually going to do that, since he loves programming with Scratch and he wants to learn other, more advanced languages. After I posted, I checked out a website, code.org, which was recommended to us. He's already up and running there. And to think we were going to pay for what is out there for free! So thanks for the head's up.

Gabalyn & Cricket, thanks for the head up's on the spotty reviews for SIG. I'm going to look them up. We were actually leaning toward CTY at Lafayette next year, because it is only an hour and a half away, and I have a cousin who lives nearby (in a pinch, nice to have family there if someone needs to get there ASAP). We might do Sweet Briar, though, because the class offerings there appear to be more numerous.

We share your concerns about residential camp at this age, but we think he'll be ready for it next year, after a year of a middle school.

Great feedback. I really appreciate your help.