Gifted & Talented in NYC – What You May Not Know

Here is a list of 10 Essential things you may not know about the NYC Gifted & Talented Program. It comes from The Kindergarten Shuffle Movie website, a movie I’ve written about in earlier posts. The movie premiers tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. at Anthology Film Archives at 8:00 p.m. Click HERE if you are interested in attending. I’d love to go but I won’t be in NYC tomorrow!

ESSENTIAL LISTS
Ten things you might not know about the Gifted and Talented Program

1. The DOE has G&T testing and placement over the summer for people who move to the city later in the year. There are no waitlists for the G&T program.

2. You must rank all schools to be guaranteed a spot at a district G&T program if your child scores above the 90th percentile. A seat at a citywide program is not guaranteed no matter how high the score.

3. There are only enough citywide G&T spots to accommodate about 1/3rd of children who score in the 99th percentile, even though the official policy is to take children who score in the 97th and above. Citywide G&T spots very rarely open up after Kindergarten. (It’s still worth a shot though). Siblings will get a spot with a score of 97 and above.

4. Citywide G&T programs accelerate the curriculum by about a year. The local G&T programs do not accelerate. (They are ‘enriched’)

5. G&T scores are normed by age in three-month intervals.

6. The difference between a score of 98 and a 99 is perhaps one question.

7. Anecdotally, girls are scoring better than boys.

8. The G&T test currently uses a combination of a ‘readiness’ test and an ‘abilities’ test.

9. For child with exceptional musical talent, parents should consider the Special Music School http://kaufman-center.org/special-music-school/admissions. [Note from Karen: This is a wonderful school and you should take your child to apply there even if you can't tell if your child has musical talent. They have a special test to determine which kids have musical potential and which don't. It's unclear to parents what they are doing when they test the kids, but obviously they have it figured out. My friends who have sent their kids to this school love it.]

10. If there is a problem with the OLSAT testing conditions (such as a child getting sick), parents must alert the DOE within 48 hours of the test.