Dmmetler Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 I notice Scripps lists exams like the ACT/SAT as "Stating a grade level"-how does that affect Talent Search participation? I know I took the SAT in middle school for JHU, and that was back in the dark ages! DD wants to do National spelling bee, and has set that as a goal consistently for the last couple of years. I haven't pushed her ahead of what our local homeschool association does-she's been in 1-3 the last two years (and easily won both years), and I haven't asked to have her moved up because I think she'd be better off being middle school aged and good at spelling rather than being primary aged and good at spelling, so it doesn't really bother me that our homeschool association doesn't send kids to regionals before middle school. But I admit I'm concerned about the high school courses and out of level testing. I've used out of level testing for purposes of actually finding gaps, and planned to start talent search testing with EXPLORE this year if at all possible. DD is already using some high school level textbooks, and actually, Athenaze is, I believe, considered a college level textbook, but I wouldn't consider what she's DOING with it college level, or even high school level. It's simply that it was the only whole-part Greek I was able to find, and she's enjoying it more than the other options. I'm really wondering how to balance her need for higher level content and my need for information for planning purposes while still retaining her eligibility. Maybe it's because I'm on homeschool and GT boards, but she doesn't seem particularly unusual for a gifted child who is homeschooled and isn't being held back to one grade level a year academically-and I'd imagine that this is pretty typical for kids seriously involved in competitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
higginszoo Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 No matter what level they're working at, I keep them with their age-grade for talent searches. The reasoning behind it being that those programs are for the kids like them. Even my oldest, who scores in the top 10% of the talent search group, has found that when he has participated in activities that he qualified for from the talent search, age-grade is most appropriate, and the fact that it is talent search kids levels things appropriately (they're ALL academically several years ahead). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanM Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 We're keeping our dc at age grade level for most stuff outside the home. DH and I were just talking about this yesterday, since we're planning to consider older ds to be in "high school" this fall, but he'll still be doing National History Day & other competitions as an 8th grader. He took the SAT this year for CTY talent search, and we used his age-based grade level for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 I notice Scripps lists exams like the ACT/SAT as "Stating a grade level"-how does that affect Talent Search participation? I know I took the SAT in middle school for JHU, and that was back in the dark ages! Shouldn't affect talent search participation -- the way I read it it's only if you said she was a ninth grader when you register for the SAT (or something). There's no point where you have to say she's a ninth grader -- younger kids can take the exams too -- so it shouldn't be a problem to register for talent search tests at younger grades. But I admit I'm concerned about the high school courses and out of level testing. I've used out of level testing for purposes of actually finding gaps, and planned to start talent search testing with EXPLORE this year if at all possible. DD is already using some high school level textbooks, and actually, Athenaze is, I believe, considered a college level textbook, but I wouldn't consider what she's DOING with it college level, or even high school level. It's simply that it was the only whole-part Greek I was able to find, and she's enjoying it more than the other options. I'm really wondering how to balance her need for higher level content and my need for information for planning purposes while still retaining her eligibility. Maybe it's because I'm on homeschool and GT boards, but she doesn't seem particularly unusual for a gifted child who is homeschooled and isn't being held back to one grade level a year academically-and I'd imagine that this is pretty typical for kids seriously involved in competitions. I think of all of that, the Greek is your biggest risk. Taking an uncommon foreign language at a very high level is probably exactly what they're trying to weed out. I think what I would suggest is that you keep very good records... so for instance if we could assume that any language can be learned at any level, one year of college learning might be equivalent to two years of high school... and one year of high school might be two years of middle school. So if she gets through less than half of the book in a year, you could make an excellent case for it not being high school or college level. More than half in a year and I think you'd be in "high school course" territory. In our situation, there was no question of avoiding high school courses. It wouldn't have worked. There were other reasons the spelling bee wasn't going to happen, too, so we never had to actually make that decision, but we would have had to forego eligibility if it came down to that. We did start Mathcounts a year early (having grade skipped before that), but honestly, by the time he would be an eighth grader by age it would have been an exercise in getting a perfect score rather than in learning anything new. So while our year early might have kept him from advancing as far as he might have, I don't think I would have wanted him to put that kind of effort into developing his perfectionist side, iykwim. It was a perfect competition for him when he was in 6th and 7th (5th and 6th by age), and it was not so perfect when he was in 8th (7th). Another year would not have been better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 No matter what level they're working at, I keep them with their age-grade for talent searches. The reasoning behind it being that those programs are for the kids like them. Even my oldest, who scores in the top 10% of the talent search group, has found that when he has participated in activities that he qualified for from the talent search, age-grade is most appropriate, and the fact that it is talent search kids levels things appropriately (they're ALL academically several years ahead). :iagree: We've stayed at grade level to this point too for these reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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