Gifted School-Age Children

Hi My name is Robin and posted this on the other gifted board, but I thought I might try to get input from you guys so here goes.

Today my friend asked me if my son was taking the SAT on 1/28 with the rest of the 7th graders that qualified. I said that my son must not have qualified, but I wondered if I could pay for him to take it anyway to get the experience. So I called the guidance office and his counselor said he could not take it if he did not qualify and his name was not on the list of qualified candidates that she had compiled in October. She also said all the deadlines to apply to take the test had passed anyway. I said thank you and hung up figuring "nothing lost he couldn't do it anyway." Then she called back an hour later saying "don't know how your son did not end up on the October list, he is eligible but we inadvertantly missed him." Now it is too late to take the test even though he should have had the opportunity.

Initially I thought "no big deal it is meaningless anyway and just something he would do for practice." But my husband is livid. He thinks ds lost a great opportunity, because ds really rocks on math tests like the SAT. So does anyone have experience with this? Did we miss a big opportunity? My husband wants to call the Principal and yell (very unlike dh.) I told him we need to pick our battles and while this is unfair it is not a big deal in the whole scheme of things. Any advice? What would you do?

Thanks for any advice,
Robin

He can take the SAT the next time it is offered or he could wait until next year. As I recall, you can sign up and take the SAT at any point in the year, but may not qualify for all the programs etc. if you don't do take the January SAT. Check the JHU CTY web page and get the application. The only issue may be that he would be whether he was eligible for recognition this year if he scores high enough or to get into the summer camp of his choice. He may still be able to take the SAT on a standby basis?

I would certainly complain to the counselor and the school. It would be easy enough to put the information out to ALL parents and the parents that were not on the list could follow up. But mistakes happen and as issues go this is really not huge and he still will have the opportunity to take the SAT in middle school.

Thanks, that is kind of my read on the whole thing. I think my husband has calmed down.

Robin

You can do it on your own - that is what we did - our school has no G&T program and we took him to do the test at our local Sylvan - I am not sure if we had a process to go through to get to do it - it was part of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth program.
In the bog scheme of things this is really not a big deal for your son - my oldest is in 10th grade now - whether he had taken it or not means relatively little to his education as a whole. Whether your son takes the SAT or not - does it mean he can get left out of classes? If not I would not worry about it - it essentially is just another number - we know and the schools know how bright these guys are.

Good Luck
Courtney