Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education A Modest Proposal

Sorry this happened to you. I suspect this is somewhat what it's like to get into the "top" colleges. You can have what seems like top scores & grades still get rejected from them. Because they are all looking for something "more" or something "special".

Have you tried looking around some more at other options? The Bay Area seems to be filled with a lot more than where I live. I have a relative in the Bay Area who has gone the small quirky school route. One of the biggest drawbacks for this has been neither the junior high have required annoying commutes.

I hope you can find something that will work out.

Have you read Susan Cain's book "Quiet" yet? She also has a TEDTalk (maybe more than one) and a website (I think it is Quiet Revolution). It might be very helpful support for you and for your daughter.

I echo bluemagic in the notion that finding a less intense middle school environment that allows for learning at her pace with less pressure and drama might be a good thing in the long run.

Let me say at the outset that certainly DD has room for improvement, in terms of manners and being outgoing and extroverted.

It’s important though that I put forward a conspiracy theory here. See for example The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Blacks, women, Jews, were historically discriminated against. And now, Asians. (DD is half Asian, which is probably an even worse sin).

So the theory is simply that these schools are of, by, and for the 1%. I’m just the 5%, just upper-middle-class, not upper-class. The last thing they’d want is some outsider taking over the debate team… bumping one of “their” kids out of their allocation of 12 slots at Stanford.

At the college level, there is more public scrutiny, more release of statistics. At the prep-school level there is more room for bias. But still there is a bit of chicanery. They say they select on test score. Certainly the 1% have full scope to pay for tutoring and courses. But even then, Stanford rejects 71% of applicants with perfect scores. They fall back to saying, they want applicants who are “well-rounded”. Who did community service. Certainly, at an elite boarding school, the children are offered easy access to practically a resort with a smorgasbord of extracurriculars. And this is extended to hand holding them into service projects.

One counselor at DYS warned me off of Ivy League schools. I think it is not implausible that the gifted are suffering some discrimination in private school, prep school, and Ivy League admissions. The goalposts are always moving, with some plausibly deniable excuse: extroversion, "fit", test score, legacy, service, or "well-rounded". In the end, its the golden rule: the people with the gold make the rules.

Its probably a separate thread, and I apologize if I broke any rules or scandalized anyone, but I did want to bring this to your attention for the sake of parents and children alike "Researchers have found that those with high childhood IQs are more prone to illegal drug use as adults." https://www.thefix.com/content/iq-and-drug-use

Thx1138, what exactly are you looking for in a school? There are many options in the Bay Area. If you wanted a prep school with a brand name, you're out of luck for now, but you can try again for 9th grade. That said, it's a horrible process around here, with acceptance rates around those for the Ivies.

Alternatively, your daughter may wish to consider Middle College (MC) for high school. MC is a dual enrollment program at a local community college. As far as I know, all the districts around here have a MC program: De Anza, Mission, Foothill, San Jose, etc. The programs are free and a student can end up with an Associate's degree at the end of it. I can provide more information in this thread if anyone is interested. MC has been a wonderful thing for my DYS.

I have information on other private schools; PM me if you're interested.

Val, my logic was as conventional as, middle school leads to high school leads to university. Combines with this handy if dated chart http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html

I don’t want a prep school with a brand name per se. I want my kid at one of the top 5 or 10 colleges in the USA. Again not for the brand name per se. More because, it will give him a better view of the world order. More because, kids are influenced by peers. I figure those universities will have smart peers with good study habits.

That said, if my child knew who he was and what he wanted from life, I’d take that over Yale. However, the odds of that may be just as low.

I wouldn’t mind a school that actually nurtures the kids some and helps them with SEL, rather than expecting perfect specimens walking in the door to kindergarten or grade 5 or 9, but maybe that’s asking too much. Ditto for some understanding of gifted.

I know you're focused on this at the moment, but there's a school of thought that the future success stories will be the people who can think independently, function with all sorts of people and make decisions that may not be on the typical paths. I'm not convinced that the only people like this are going to come out of Ivy league schools, because they surely do not today.

Yes to the peers having good study habits, but will they have good life habits? Or will they by then be standardized creatures, largely as the result of a forced march to making high grades (which does not meaning learning beyond the assignment/test) and for-show projects? That's if they don't crash and burn first.

Colleges don't know what junior high a kid attends. Yes it might help a child get into a top prep school. And ideally a top prep school will help a kid get into a "top" university. But I think that is a bit of a myth.

If your one goal in entrance into an elite university I suggest you think outside the box. One thing I've found with 'top' university selection is they are often looking for a geographically diversity as well as as those extra's. Everyone is the Bay Area want their kids to go to an elite university, it's why the stress for the kids is so high. But for example only 2-4 students from my son's H.S. (not in Bay Area but a school/area that might as well be) get into Stanford every year, same with most of the Ivy's. You can look at the number of students accepted and for most of these schools it's only a handful. Yet many many more kids apply and most of these meet minimum requirements.

bluemagic, I agree the specific correlations are not rock solid, there are a lot of variables, but this chart http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html seems like there's some relationship.

You make an excellent point about geographic diversity. Maybe I could move to a state that takes gifted seriously.

These prep schools are often just aristocracies posing as meritocracies. What you get is, one such school, after all these years, their most notable graduate is Patty Hearst...

Meanwhile the Ivy League schools are just hedge funds posing as public good. Disbursing 5% to the faculty is cheaper than paying taxes.