Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education John Hopkins CTY Program

Has anyone done the CTY AP summer intensives? What did you think? We are considering Bio and US History.

Just wanted to update the kids have taken a few more classes and mostly enjoyed them. My daughter jumped another math level and completed the very challenging pre-algebra course. I may have made a mistake and signed up for a shorter, and cheaper, time frame than was reasonable. Son just finished Crafting the Essay which we found helpful and well designed. And the Visual Literacy class has been a great process. He was very interested in the LIVE course offerings this summer so we’ll try that. He doesn’t want to spend all summer staring at the wall.

One interesting side effect is that it has made them pretty sophisticated users of online content. I feel a little sorry for my daughter’s disorganized COVID school schedule because she gave her teachers many, many suggestions for improvement.

Our DD is 3 weeks into their Physics AP 12 week class.

She could not get this into her school schedule (junior year) next year, so after conferring with her we elected to take the CTY online version. I did not want her getting an extra 15-20 hours of homework during the school year so DD is doing this now so it will be over by the time school resumes.

She enjoys the class and likes the pace which she thinks is about 3 times the pace that she had with AP Bio and AP Chem over the past school year.

YMMV

Greetings! Did anyone do the online from home SCAT test? Would love to hear any experiences, if so...

DS10 just completed the test and had a pretty bad experience. The test was unresponsive and he had to wait a few seconds after selecting an answer before moving between questions. He didn't even guess/put in an answer for 1/4th to 1/5th of the questions on the two sections.

He just did well this year in AoPS Algebra (which is 4-5 years ahead of his school grade) and he got a perfect score in the correct amount of time for the paper and pencil sample SCAT test I had him do...

It seems like an issue with the test itself more than the content. I'm not sure if I want to pay for him to take it again if I don't know why it went so wrong though. DD7 was watching netflix at the same time (oops) but he was running it on a powerful enough computer. His battery was totally drained after an hour and he didn't have it plugged in, my spouse thinks maybe the computer went into power save type behavior.

I dunno. I guess I'll contact them. Finishing the test in time is part of the test though so it's hard to know what to do. He always does well on standardized testing, but his gifted testing showed VERY slow processing speed as well, so time is an actual issue for him sometimes. But this feels like it wasn't just him.

Yes, DD8 did it online on May 29. I was terrified that we would be invalidated, because she stood up to yell that she was done with the sample questions and didn't know what to do next. So I had to yell back to keep going! JHU CTY is so inundated with emails that they took like a week to get back to me, saying it would take 7 business days to process the scores. It took us 8 business days actually, something like 12 days of waiting. Don't expect them to respond to your email at all. I heard there's only one lady Brenda working to respond to emails! I feel sorry for her:(

Thanks slmw! They wrote me back and said the test timer pauses while the pages reload, so if the test is sluggish it shouldn't impact you. Knowing that is helpful, maybe my son will be less distracted/frustrated knowing that next time.

He got the scores he needed, actually, to qualify for Advanced CTY for both verbal and math, so I suppose that's all we really needed to do anyway.

He still thinks he didn't do well and wants to retake it. I should have reminded him he has to hurry on the test... we did a sample test months ago in which he handled the time better but I'd really drilled it into his head beforehand.

For him speed based tests are always going to be a challenge, so he needs to do his best in his approach to time management.

My DS took an online math course and an online math club w/CTY during the pandemic. He enjoyed the experience greatly, but would have probably preferred in-person. Overall, it is a high quality program but can be on the pricey side.

Welcome, Vansh!

Thanks for weighing in on this. Hope you stick around as a member and become a regular contributor on the forums.