John Hopkins CTY

nomoney

nomoney

....
My oldest was sent home with a letter from his school saying that because he scored in the 95th percentile or higher on the MSA's last year he's been chosen by John Hopkins Center of Talented Youth to take the SCAT's and to be possibly chosen for special summer programs and online classes that are advanced, etc. I've googled the heck out of it and can't find any more then the info they sent home. I guess I'm just worried that because you have to pay close to $100 bucks just to take the test that its some sort of scam.

Has anyone else gone through this program? Any positives and negatives?
 
cattitude

cattitude

My Sweetest Boy
It's pretty much BS...check with Kwillia..I think her oldest got this letter and she researched it. My oldest son got the same letter years ago.
 
libertytyranny

libertytyranny

Dream Stealer
Well I took the test when I was younger. It was somewhere in Waldorf, and I don't really remember much about the test, it was pretty standard SAT type thing. I got a letter a month or two later inviting me to an award dinner because of my reading scores....I couldn't go, and every year after I got invitations to be in different academic summer programs..even one at Brown..(who could afford it though.) I also think that it may have contributed to the large amount of mail I got from colleges all throughout high school..so I would say it is worth it for that reason...they do try to get you to buy something..I will have to ask my mother if she remembers..but getting invited to spend the summer at Brown because of my scores was pretty cool, even if I couldn't actually go.

I don't think we had to pay to take the test though :confused:
 
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Dymphna

Dymphna

Loyalty, Friendship, Love
That's been around forever. Back in my day it was the SAT the wanted us to take. I noticed when I was preparing for college, the score was still showing up on my record and being reported to colleges.

I know a lot of people who took it and as far as I know only one person among my friends qualified for the program. His parents decided not to put him in the program, though. He was one of these genius-types who turns out to so over the top that they drop out of school to pursue their genius only to wind up in a mental hospital. There was a chapter on him in my "Abnormal Psychology" textbook.
 
Dymphna

Dymphna

Loyalty, Friendship, Love
libertytyranny said:
I don't think we had to pay to take the test though :confused:
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We had to pay for the SAT. A couple of years later, the same group of kids took the PSAT for admission to a county run accelerated program and the county (Charles) administered it and paid for it. Most of the gang DID end up in that program, but it was paid for by a grant.
 
Dymphna

Dymphna

Loyalty, Friendship, Love
Dymphna said:
That's been around forever. Back in my day it was the SAT the wanted us to take. I noticed when I was preparing for college, the score was still showing up on my record and being reported to colleges.

I know a lot of people who took it and as far as I know only one person among my friends qualified for the program. His parents decided not to put him in the program, though. He was one of these genius-types who turns out to so over the top that they drop out of school to pursue their genius only to wind up in a mental hospital. There was a chapter on him in my "Abnormal Psychology" textbook.
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I just re-read that. That sounded REALLY bad. Although, the description of my classmate and the fact that when I took my class on Abnormal Psychology, I kept thinking his picture should be there, and that fact that I lost track of which mental hospitals he'd been in, is entirely true, well....most of my other geeky friends who were with this group are living perfectly normal productive lives, mostly happily married with well adjusted children.

The program, or even just taking the test, may very well open doors for your child....but unless she scores well off the charts, there will be an admission charge.
 
bcp

bcp

In My Opinion
you can certainly tell this isnt a PG county forum.

all they get invited for over the summer is jail
 
kalmd

kalmd

Active Member
My son gets those letters. He took the test after getting it the 2nd year. We never did anything further. He sometimes gets mail and brochures from them for different programs but we don't participate.
 
P

pscarnes

New Member
CTY is DEFINITELY not a scam

In 1972 educators at Johns Hopkins University realized we in the United States were under serving and not developing our intellectually gifted students. CTY was born with the mission to develop the intellect, encourage achievement, and nurture social development in this population. First, there was no mechanism to identify extremely talented students. They began offering high achieving students an opportunity to take the SAT early as a standard measurement to recognize those students who scored well beyond their grade level and could benefit from coursework more appropriate for their true academic level. My daughter did this and scored much higher than her grade level so was invited to participate in courses at Johns Hopkins over the summer. We debated whether to spend the money, but now know it was well worth it. At 13 and 14 she took Paleobiology and then Archaeology which led to her later choice of college major. By age 22 she had an advanced degree and a career at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I credit all of that to her experiences attending CTY. She loved the academic stimulation and social interaction with her true intellectual peers and is even roommates with someone she met there 12 years ago. So many of the kids she met at CTY stayed in touch and encourage each other and have ended up doing amazing things. I whole heartedly endorse the program.
 
stars24

stars24

New Member
pscarnes said:
In 1972 educators at Johns Hopkins University realized we in the United States were under serving and not developing our intellectually gifted students. CTY was born with the mission to develop the intellect, encourage achievement, and nurture social development in this population. First, there was no mechanism to identify extremely talented students. They began offering high achieving students an opportunity to take the SAT early as a standard measurement to recognize those students who scored well beyond their grade level and could benefit from coursework more appropriate for their true academic level. My daughter did this and scored much higher than her grade level so was invited to participate in courses at Johns Hopkins over the summer. We debated whether to spend the money, but now know it was well worth it. At 13 and 14 she took Paleobiology and then Archaeology which led to her later choice of college major. By age 22 she had an advanced degree and a career at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I credit all of that to her experiences attending CTY. She loved the academic stimulation and social interaction with her true intellectual peers and is even roommates with someone she met there 12 years ago. So many of the kids she met at CTY stayed in touch and encourage each other and have ended up doing amazing things. I whole heartedly endorse the program.
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Agreed. I've heard really good things about it from friends of mine that have worked there during the summers.

Website has more information: Talent Search and Testing
 
B

Bean

Guest
pscarnes said:
In 1972 educators at Johns Hopkins University realized we in the United States were under serving and not developing our intellectually gifted students. CTY was born with the mission to develop the intellect, encourage achievement, and nurture social development in this population. First, there was no mechanism to identify extremely talented students. They began offering high achieving students an opportunity to take the SAT early as a standard measurement to recognize those students who scored well beyond their grade level and could benefit from coursework more appropriate for their true academic level. My daughter did this and scored much higher than her grade level so was invited to participate in courses at Johns Hopkins over the summer. We debated whether to spend the money, but now know it was well worth it. At 13 and 14 she took Paleobiology and then Archaeology which led to her later choice of college major. By age 22 she had an advanced degree and a career at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I credit all of that to her experiences attending CTY. She loved the academic stimulation and social interaction with her true intellectual peers and is even roommates with someone she met there 12 years ago. So many of the kids she met at CTY stayed in touch and encourage each other and have ended up doing amazing things. I whole heartedly endorse the program.
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Thank You! I was shocked to see the responses that called the program BS. This is exactly why the internet is so dangerous. A bunch of uninformed people spouting trash.
 
kwillia

kwillia

n/a
I researched it and never considered it to be bogus, but I found it to be both big monetary and time investment.... not really conducive for travel from the lower part of Southern Maryland.
 
cattitude

cattitude

My Sweetest Boy
kwillia said:
I researched it and never considered it to be bogus, but I found it to be both big monetary and time investment.... not really conducive for travel from the lower part of Southern Maryland.
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That was MY experience. When it's it first presented, the money part of it isn't mentioned, more as if your child gets to do this because of their good grades. It's like an expensive "camp." Not saying it doesn't benefit the kids.
 
Lugnut

Lugnut

I'm Rick James #####!
I found it to be a an expensive program for creating social contacts. Two levels of networking were encouraged, the first was between parents of the younger participants. The second was between the participants (students) themselves if they were a little older.

if you didn't have the financial means to get your student to the various functions, or if you did not do the RESIDENTIAL summer programs your child was treated differently.

Severe elitist attitudes...

"Chauncey my darling child, stay away from those little day camp urchins, you might catch something!"
 
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