Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment General Talent Search Questions

I have tried to read about the Talent Search opportunities, but I somehow find it a bit overwhelming and still have a few questions that I'm having trouble figuring out. Would someone mind helping me out?

When a child takes a talent search test, do they take it according to the grade they are actually in or according to the grade they should be in based on their school district (or some other) deadline?

Do you have to be invited to take a TS test or meet some sort of qualifying criteria? Are the tests only administered in big city university locations?

IS it valuable to take the tests if you don't live near a major city that has course opportunities? Does the experience taking standardized tests make it worth it no matter what? Are there online courses that are valuable?

Thanks for your help!

http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10260.aspx

also search the database for Talent Search

I thought all the talent search possibilites were overwhelming too. Here some ideas to narrow it down to start. Look into Northwestern University, Standford University and John Hopkins. These are three places that have been reccommended to me. Each situation can vary. Some require IOWA (Or similiar) testing with qualifying scores. Others require different tests like the SCAT or EXPLORE. Testing locations vary and can be done at Highschool and testing centers. If a student qualifies they may enroll in an online course. Some of the fees are very expensive ($400). There are some scholarships available. My DS9, last summer took an online course and did very well. I would suggest to start with Northwestern University and try to understand what they offer. Call them if you have questions. Once you understand one place well then you can compare. There are people here with more experience than I that may add more.

Do you have a goal inmind? Are you just wanting testing experience or want online learning?

Thanks. Really, I'm just trying to see if this is something we should pursue. We live about an hour from the testing sites in our state and thus would be similarly far away from any classes and institutes. But online courses would be doable. And, I was recently thinking that experience taking standardized tests is never a bad thing. But, I can't tell if in our situation it would be worth it or not.

My HG DD8 is in 4th and doing well and she's definitely on the tail end of the curve of her age-mates, but will she be compared with her grade-mates (to whom she also compares well but not quite as highly)? Would she even qualify for the classes?

And, also, are the classes mostly for interest or do they get credit in some way for the courses? At this point we've been okay with the academics she's getting, but it would be nice for her to take a fun but challenging course online in the summer. In a few years, though, academic credit would be nice if it were available, since our local schools don't have a lot of AP or CIS classes.

Too, if your child takes the SAT/ACT as part of a talent search, do future colleges see those scores good or bad?

Hi,

Your DD would take the test as a 4th grader regardless of age (that is at least the case with the Explore test) and the results will be compared to both general 8th grade population and other 4th grade GT kids. If they take the SAT/ACT, it would not show up for college since I believe that only HS year tests will be kept. Either way, I wouldn't think a college would look down on a 11 year old that did ok on the test and aced it later:)

Explore test was a wonderful tool to advocate for DD in our current school district. She is in 6th grade but does 8th grade math (she should be in 5th by age). She participated in a weekend program on creative writing. While she didn't get official credit for it, her writing did get a nice boost.

Also, if your DD has not had achievement testing above grade level, you might be surprised about the results. Combined with IQ testing, it has helped us understand our child's special talents and weaknesses. Testing has been a positive experience and DD looked forward to it each time.

Jen

I am not totally sure about the ACT, as my D took the SAT twice as part of the Northwestern program (and we also registered her with Johns Hopkins CTY). But for the SAT, the scores are wiped out at the end of their eighth grade year so they are not reported to colleges. This was actually a problem for us, as we did not recieve an official score report for D's excellent scores (3rd place in Northwestern search for one of her scores last year). Then the scores were wiped out. So just a word of advice, request an official score report from the College Board for your kid's SAT scores before they are deleted!

Regarding benefits, one of the best benefits for us was D's invitation to join the Cogito online community that Johns Hopkins sponsors. It gives her a chance to link up with gifted kids from all over the country.

My D was not invited to take part in the talent searches. A local professor who did some IQ testing on her when she was small had suggested that we look into this eventually, so we just signed her up directly.

D has not yet attended any classes from the talent searches. She has applied to THINK at Davidson this summer. But she will likely do 1 or 2 CTY courses in the next couple of years. The course listings for Northwestern are a mixture of AP and non-AP courses. The CTY courses do not show any AP designations, but they have a lot of interesting topics.

I also live in MN (in the cities) and my 3rd grader took the SCAT this fall. Next year we will probably do the Explore. We didn't do at all for the talent search possibilities at all (at least now), but to give him the opportunity to do a timed, standardized, test that really might be difficult for him. It was informative and since we never have given DS a full assessment it continues to fill in the holes for us and helps us realize we are on the right path with him.

The other thing is that it has the potential to cover our testing requirement for homeschooling. I actually don't feel like the SCAT does, even though it might count. But the EXPLORE is more comprehensive and I would feel comfortable going with that as our sole test for the year. We'll probably do further oral testing at the end of the spring for him. Also, if we do return to school at some point it might be useful info to have to help advocate.

The application for the 2009-2010 CTY Talent Search specifically asks the enrolled grade as of Sep 2009. I called for clarification because our son was advanced to 5th in Oct/Nov. The rep said, "As of Sep 2009."

CTD's application asks for "currently enrolled grade." A similar call to CTD yielded, "What grade is your child in today?"

I didn't check with any others.

Thank you, everybody. You have answered my questions. I think it looks like something we'll look into in a year or two. I can definitely see where it would come in handy for DD (and DS) to get more challenging courses than they have here in our small SD. It looks like they have a lot of interesting choices for non-credit, too. And I think it would be great practice for taking other standardized tests. I'm lucky in that, for now, we have good solid achievement data for my DD and her needs are being mostly met at school. Thanks for the help!