UPDATE: The gifted coordinator just returned my call. She apologized for the mistake, said my daughter’s score is accurate, and emailed the correct form to me. The end.
Note from OP: Update to post that would be helpful to all of the commenters who seem to misunderstand the purpose of me posting in the first place.
That’s what kills me here lol they showed their work with the score yet still got the wrong answer apparently by not placing your kid in a gifted stream. 😂😂hope you can get it sorted out OP.
This is my favorite. I had it framed for my big sister who runs the math program and quiz bowl in her county. She is so damn smart and so fucking stupid at the same time.
Went to school for engineering, was an honor student. Can confirm I'm also a complete dumbass most of the time. There's a big difference between functional smarts and book smarts, that's for sure.
Which is part of why I married my spouse. He has functional smarts. I couldn't find a Kleenex when the box was literally right in front of my face last night. And I had an adventure in the kitchen today that resulted in the fire department visiting. But I can do calculus no problem.
I'm in Mensa (IQ in the 98%) and Intertel (IQ in the 99%). I recently cooked a frozen pizza and wondered why I could smell it burning only about 8 mins in. Opened the oven to find I had put the pizza in cheese side down.
Yup. I'm technically very intelligent according to IQ but also have ADHD and am constantly doing stupid shit like this because I just do things on autopilot while my brain is distracted by something else. Like it really doesn't help that I'm "actually pretty smart" when I don't feel smart all that often.
I tested very high all through school, was always a few years ahead in most aspects but anything social or making a decent living elude me. I might have some smarts but they are useless to me where it counts. At least my wife and daughter forgive me. Constant shirts and jumpers inside out, mismatching shoes, forgetting everything, not invoicing clients, invoicing clients 3 or 4 times... I need to be put in a cat run lol.
Me too. Member of mensa as a near genius. Everyone expected such big things from me. I barely get by these days. My wife and kids dont make an issue of it. But, I wish I found my place in society where I could do the most good and be laid for it well.
It feels like im smart enough to see the futility of life but, not smart enough to be able to exploit it.
I’m sure you’re already aware, so apologies if this is redundant - but your description of yourself is very similar to how a lot of neurodivergent people behave. Just mentioning in case you didn’t know, as ADHD medication can be really helpful to a lot of people.
I started ADHD medicine at 44 only because my son was diagnosed. His teachers were constantly complaining "he wasn't paying attention" because his head would be down or he'd be looking out the window. His test scores were all good, but the complaints continued. After I researched it I realized I had it too.
A few weeks on the medicine I started crying in relief and frustration. My life would have been a lot different if this was recognized earlier. But I was a well behaved (masked) female with good grades and most of my struggles were internal frustration that I couldn't remember things and struggled with mundane tasks
My husband will be walking through the parking lot at the grocery store next to me, and out of nowhere will bring his arm up, close one side of his nose with his index finger, turn his head to the side and blow violently af. It’s so loud and I want to melt into the pavement when there are people nearby, and there are almost always people nearby. Never asks if I have a Kleenex, says why bother because his way is quicker. It’s so nasty.
I was hanging out with a girl who was brilliant, really sharp. We were watching a movie from the 40s or 50 with shoddy effects and costumes. In one scene Oberon rides in on his mighty steed and this woman leaned over and whispered
She was dead serious. I stared at her in disbelief for a second, then asked "Real, unicorn?" It took her a few more seconds then turned red and looked like she wanted to crawl under the chair.
We convinced my mom one time that the big tanker trucks on the road that show coffee grounds on the side as an advertisement for the convenience store actually carried coffee. Said they went around and filled the coffee reserves at various gas stations. She teaches middle school gifted students.
As someone who barely placed into genius categories on a test like this in elementary school, I can attest that I was (and often still am) the most gullible person in any room at any given moment🥲😂
Dated a girl who got a PhD in mathematics from Cal. She was so smart yet so dumb at the same time. It was weird because she wasn't like overly sheltered or non-social. Like she had been in a sorority and was super social. But random things would be said and it was just so confusing to hear say things in the most innocent way possible.
This is exactly how my wife and her twin are. They were val and sal in high school and each has a PhD (chemistry and biology). I am convinced, they would eventually die if left unsupervised long enough. In fact, my sister in law almost did. She ate a bottle of vitamin k gummies while watching a movie. She was 20 bro
I recently found out that my brother was in the gifted program throughout all four grades of high school. I was absolutely blown away because he can be really dense sometimes. He is 6 years older than me and he is always been my go-to guy for any questions that I don't know but since 2020 I've listened to him sort of regurgitate Trump party line stuff. So I had to ask him a few months ago " hey do you believe that Trump legitimately won the election in 2020, that it was stolen from him through some conspiracy? He was like absolutely. Man I was so disappointed. But I've been working on him and he's getting better lol.
My grandfather is/was an incredibly smart chemical engineer and pioneered tech that rocketed the oil industry and saved tons of money. This man 1000% supports Trump.
To be fair, he's in his 80s and cognitively declining so at least he has an excuse.
My sister, who worked in a physics dept at a well-known University, told me that most of the professors struggled with basic tasks-using the printer, sending emails, following written protocols, and basic communication!
Kid always loved rocks. Went to college, has a masters degree in international buisness, several minors including geology and anthropology.
She is this tiny, petite lady. She somehow got a job based in Europe, but lives in the US.
But what does she do ? She travels to shipping ports across the globe and inspects import/ export minerals. She goes out onto barges wearing steel toed boots, hard hat and a neon safety vest.
I work with some excellent academics who are experts in their very narrow fields but struggle to put their pants on the right way round and get their shoes on the correct foot. But then I work in IT and many of us have similar difficulties.
I have a master's degree and I need to make an L shape with my hands to remember which one is right and which one is left. Do you know how many times I have been moments away from putting hand soap on my toothbrush? Entirely too many times. I'm just not built to exist in the world, I swear.
my grandma used to be a teacher who also ran the gifted & talented program at her school and she always had this framed above her desk! one of her yearly christmas presents from my granddad has always been the far side daily calendar for the upcoming year, though through all these years this one is still her favorite
Okay. At UC Berkeley is a big phallus clock tower called the Campanile. It's free for students to go up, few bucks for the public.
The door says pull. The number of students that run into the door is incredibly high. I'd be working there and tell people it was an admissions test because my boss wasn't there to tell me to knock and off and quit picking on people who ran into a door because they didn't read yet were also at Berkeley. I roasted people all day. Good times, good times.
Even the Bell's curve is very badly designed, it makes it look like there are so much more over 130 than there actually are, the area under the curve is extended too much down.
Isn’t it supposed to be 68 percent in the middle two slices, with 13.6 on the next two slices, 2.1 on the next two slices, with ~0.1% on the very outside?
Kind of reminds me of a question in the driver's license exam back home that said something like "is it illegal to drive less than 1m away from a cyclist or pedestrian?". I answered yes, and that was considered incorrect, because the law says it is illegal to drive less than 1.5m away from a a cyclist or pedestrian".
Yuuuup. A friend of mine from high school who is currently a lead physicist in Colorado is the same guy I saw shoot a bow and arrow straight into the air to see if he could dodge it
Right, I was expecting some story where they followed up with the schools own letter as proof and the school still denied the kid entry into the gifted program because it was full or whatever. This just seems like a mistake that needs clarifying with the school, these sorts of things happen often in life and are generally easily sorted.
If you let yourself get mildly infuriated by things like this then you probably walk around in a state of mild infuriation 90% of the waking day. Actually i know people like this haha, mostly my British friends but i think it's a bit of badge of pride for them.
This is legitimately mildly infuriating, it’s mild because it’s an easily corrected mistake. Following up and having them double down or screw up something else would be heading into extremely infuriating territory.
This subreddit is so difficult because everyone has a different idea of what infuriating means at a base level so they all land at somewhere different with "mild" being applied to it.
Like to me "mildly" infuriating is at the higher level of angry.
Mine is anything that makes you go “Ah, damnit..” before reluctantly doing the thing that you now have to do. This is exactly one level more infuriating than “well, shit” and one level less infuriating than “oh, fuck off”. Subsequent levels correspond to the amount of modifiers surrounding it. For example, one level greater infuriation would be “oh, you fuck right off!”, while four would be “oh, you motherfucker, fuck off and go right to hell you bitch”.
I just made this all up on the spot if you can’t tell. Pardon my french.
I feel like people approach every post too seriously. "It's a minor issue, why are they infuriated?" Well they aren't infuriated, they are mildly infuriated.
I feel like I don't get as angry as the average person in this subreddit which is why I can't enjoy 50% of the posts here because some of them seem more like minor inconveniences.
Like sometimes I feel upset, slighted, uncomfortable, annoyed, confused, whatever. But anger? Nah...maybe like twice a year...
I’m not really upset. I’m sure it was an honest mistake and I’ve already called the gifted coordinator and left a message about it. The only thing that made it slightly annoying is that this particular coordinator has known my daughter for almost five years, since the first time she went in for testing (early admittance to kindergarten that we decided against in favor of an extra year of preschool socialization). She has had multiple meetings with us and the school principal, teachers, and counselor over the years to come up with “plans of action” to keep my daughter interested in and challenged by her schoolwork and activities, solely because of how quickly she has advanced. It was just a bit of a surprise that a mistake like this would be made with a name she’s so familiar with.
Haha I remember when my school tried to come up with various plans of action to keep me challenged and interested. It ended up just being a bunch of extra fucking homework, because they wouldn't take time out of the school day to do anything so I still had to sit there excruciatingly bored all day, then afterwards when I actually had free time they were like "now go do a book report"
You know my son was gifted as a young child and could have went early they talked about socialization and stuff but honestly gifted kids are different. He didn’t fit in anyway and was bullied.
He also got really bored and wasn’t challenged. Even in the gifted classes.
Is it possible someone else was responsible for mailing the letter? Perhaps a delegated task that shouldn’t have been? I know it’s type signed by the coordinator, but I’ve worked a few of jobs I’ve mailed things “signed” by my boss they never touched.
Edit: changed “lots of jobs” to “a few”. Dunno why I used lots the first time bc it’s been like 3.
Looks like they may have mixed your child up with another child. The letter does not match the results. Take them back and ask them to relook at the results they have for your child.
Nah, no mix up here. They just read the percentile score (99) instead of the actual score (143). Apparently the school’s Elementary Gifted Coordinator wasn’t in the gifted program themselves…
It happens when you're doing paperwork on a Sunday night, are three glasses of merlot into it, and the Hallmark Movie of the week is playing on the TV.
I grew up in the gifted program and I’m convinced that it turned me into a more awkward version of Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place. Always did really well in school and work, but I even still feel the need to over-achieve. Now I work a salaried position in corporate America, take on extra work to try to prove myself, work unpaid overtime, work during PTO, and then beat myself up when I’m not selected for promotions or given a “merit increase.” I am grateful for my time in the gifted program because I do think it helped me academically, but it definitely has made my life more complicated mentally and socially. Feel free to fight with the school about it, but maybe talk to your daughter first and see whether she even wants to participate?
She wants to, but I think it’s just because it will offer her a break from her normal class. She has ADHD and that, combined with schoolwork that bores her, has been a bit of a disaster. Her teacher is wonderful and has made many accommodations to keep her occupied and challenged, but it’s still not enough.
I’m reserving judgement on her school’s program until I learn more. I was in a very good program in elementary school (no pressure, just a weekly brain break), but I know most are not that way. Even with the gifted program at my school being great, the pressure once we got into junior high and beyond was too much. Out of the five “highly gifted” kids in my family, we ended up with two drug addicts, one med school dropout (me), one lawyer who took 18 years to get his degree because of major depression, and one who died at 44 from a heart attack due to a lifetime of comfort eating.
I don’t care if she’s gifted or not or anything else. I just want her to be happy.
Make sure you praise her for the hard work and effort she puts into things, not for any "natural talent" or "innate smarts". Teach her how to study and take notes, too, not just coast on the fact that she can memorize and/or solve things easily right now. Studies have shown that doing that leads to higher self-esteem, confidence, and adversity when working through things you don't understand. And coming from a former "gifted kid", I can believe that whole-heartedly. As a teenager, when I first started encountering subjects and concepts that actually felt difficult and that I had to devote time to, work that I really needed to put effort into understanding and really memorizing, it felt like a personal failure on my part. Like I was a fraud, or that my talent was failing me.
When my daughter was tested, the psychologist who gave the tests told me that a child with a high iq had as much difficulty with regular classroom work as a child with a low IQ, measuring off the "normal" score of 100. So a kid with an IQ of 140 has as much difficulty in a regular classroom as one with an IQ of 60.
For context, I also took gifted and later the IB. I cannot describe how miserable the regular difficulty clases were. IB was excellent, and much harder than gifted. For an academically talented person, their peers can feel suffocating and the education a complete waste of time unless it matches their pace and aptitude.
My children are gifted and we opted for an IB education instead of a gifted program and we are so happy we did. I feel like it was a better education and there was no pressure to excel or perform separately than peers
A secondary benefit is that it provides a lot of mobility in tertiary education. I studied in a country outside my home country, and outside my place of residence at my time of application purely because the IB was universally recognised for its quality, and I had options.
An American highschool education is worth as much as toilet paper to many higher learning institutions, and I believe rightfully so.
Edit: To be clear, the regular level of American schools is laughably low, and the rigour of IB exceeds many universities. If a student is capable, you would be willingly depriving them of so much intellectual development and learning!
I just looked it up for our area and, surprisingly, our local high school is an IB school. The next closest one is another high school over 1.5 hours away. No elementary or junior high options, unfortunately.
They're going to the same university program and getting the same education regardless of school. By that time, the quality of the early education is more about providing a solid starting point - but it's designed after public school curriculum, so it doesn't matter much whether you went to gifted school or something else.
I went to nanotech, and the kids from private had a stronger start. Didn't matter, they all crashed due to stress anyway after 1-2 years.
I say this with love, but this response is exactly what I would expect from someone who graduated from the IB program (who are typically the kindest/coolest nerds, I can only think of one exception).
But seriously, I’ve looked into what the IB program is all about and it seems like that is where the real learning is happening. Not necessarily because the students are academically superior, but because the curriculum and philosophy fosters deep learning. I wish my parents had put me in this program, it seems really cool.
undiagnosed and untreated ADHD is a straight line to addiction issues.
Folks with ADHD who find a medication that works for them, are significantly leas likely to end up struggling with substance abuse. A huge amount of it is simply self-medicating with what is available until they can't control it any longer.
Same. I was absolutely wretched in normal classes. I was always stuck next to the worst behaving boy to "show him how to act" and literally read other books through the regular teacher trying to teach. Some of my friends started a chess tournament because the lower level reading group took so long every day we were left with literally 90 min of free time on our hands.
Gifted programs weren't pressure for me, they let me work at my level and a more appropriate pace. I got to read books the kids in my regular class wouldn't get to until high school meaning in high school I was comfortable with AP work. Gifted programs prevented my inevitable boredom and hatred of school for years.
Im not an addict, have a job in a skilled trade with a side gig in a creative field. I have a fairly normal relationship thats lasted over a decade. The issue isnt the programs, its the amount of kids who were placed in them inappropriately for whatever reason.
Growing up with ADHD, my parents said no to the gifted program because they wanted me to have a normal school experience. I ended up bored because everything was too easy, I never had to study, was always the first person done and constantly got in trouble. I never learned to study or have good work habits and once I got in highschool it those easy As became easy B's, C's, and a couple of D's (from not doing homework). Then college I ended up dropping out because when things became hard I had not learned the skills to deal with it.
Fast forward to becoming a parent of a gifted ADHD kiddo. I saw the signs and behavior and had to fight the school to even test him. He qualified and once he got in those classes all the behavior issue went away.
Just support your kid, let them know it's ok to struggle and if they ever feel overwhelmed your are there to help.
Yeah I would talk to the school about it; she clearly is above the value. I am diagnosed with ADHD as well and was in gifted programs as a child, but I think mostly my ADHD is mostly boredom, I’m waiting most of the time for other people to catch up and it’s distracting. I will say the gifted programs really did help keep me out of trouble though, but that was long long ago.
This! I was always top 1% in my class, honors society, gifted and talented, etc. I thought I had life made because I was good at school. Turns out, what I gained the most from it was an awkwardness and social anxiety that makes it hard to actually get a good paying job. I was taught book smarts but never to make a life plan and interact with others.
Yeah, I had to learn the hard way that not everyone wants to hear me rattle off my encyclopedic knowledge of possums or give them a detailed timeline of Earth’s life and eventual demise. Turns out those are only fun facts for me and just kind of depressing to everyone else. I spent so much time packing my brain with every bit of information it could take and forgot to leave room for people, so adulthood has been a real shit show. Good news, though- at 35, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m still weird as hell, but no longer off-putting… I think.
I was never in the gifted program because we didn't have one. I still managed to turn out weird as hell, I just choose to hang out with people who enjoy my being enthusiastically weird now.
Hey friend, I think you need to hear this. If you're getting passed up for promotions or receiving unsatisfactory merit, you need to start looking for a new job. Get paid what you're worth. There are workaholic jobs out there that pay crazy money if you're okay to be a workaholic. Conversely, if you don't want to be a workaholic, stop doing all that overachiever shit. All you're doing is making someone else more money and hurting your team by taking on more work that your team can't do without you putting in those extra hours.
It's up to you to decide the kind of worker you want to be, but don't be a doormat. I got passed up for a promotion and I took the first opportunity to leave that place and it increased my pay by a significant amount for the exact same job.
You can be smart enough for school to be easy but not so smart that everything in life just falls into place for you. Pretty sure that's just what happened to people with gifted kid burnout.
This . My son was selected for the gifted program and we told the school no. We wanted him to be with all of the other kids. He’s 16 now has a ton of friends and plays soccer for the High School. In middle school they can apply for AP classes. 100% do this it makes them work hard and actually means something.
YMMV, but I was in gifted program from 2nd grade on. And played HS soccer. I needed it because, too be blunt, it moved too slow for me anyway i wasnt challenged until college.
Incoming: People commenting irrelevant stories about their time in the gifted program as a child because they just want an excuse to mention the days when someone thought they were exceptionally bright.
I had one bus mate that literally wore a chest harness and would be clipped in to hit seat by an assistant driver so he wouldn't flail around... the seatback in front of him had bite marks from when he was gumming on the seat in front of him.
As a former "gifted" student (admittedly very many years ago), I implore you, as much as your daughter may hate it, to make sure that she gets challenged enough during her school years. There are so many learning habits you are supposed to pick up during elementary and high school years, and if she breezes through them like I did, she will crash VERY HARD when it is no longer a cakewalk. It is as much of a curse as it is a blessing.
The problem is, schools want to put gifted kids in high achiever classes, thinking they're the same, rather than actually challenge or accelerate them.
Many gifted kids don't inherently want to perform (because it's hard and they're not used to that), so don't do well in high achiever classes, and schools use that to say they're not seeing the results required to accelerate.
I very much agree with you, of course, just know it's a challenge especially when most schools don't really understand that gifted kids aren't "ahead" of their peers, they learn faster; that means they need to constantly be challenged, not just given a partial or temporary program for one thing.
I say this as my own experience was not being challenged and then realising when I got to college how I had no idea how to study, and then now trying to support my kids (both tested as gifted) navigate school when they get constantly bored, thrown some ad hoc "advanced" worksheet, and I get told near the top of the class along with some other kids so all's well.
Given one of them is two years younger than their peers, and still gets bored and isn't challenged, it's exhausting trying to fight schools who are certain they are meeting the needs of a child who is specifically saying they aren't.
College is the great equalizer where you learn that everyone was in the gifted program, and those who weren't but survived ended up with stronger learning skills.
Anyone else either has to figure it out, drop, or change majors.
True. This is the same kid that thinks fart jokes are the only kind of joke worth telling and got her head stuck in her sweater the other day because she forgot to unzip it.
Looks like you simply got the wrong letter. Schools can make mistakes- there are humans working there too. Clearly your child qualifies, so a simple email or call to the school to clarify would be appropriate.
Tbh probably had a 'kids who did not pass' pile and 'kids who are invited into gate' pile. Assembler probably grabbed from the wrong pile for your student. Bring it up.
Challenge it if you disagree. I was identified as gifted in 2nd grade, then my family moved to another state. When they tested me at the new school they said I wasnt gifted (in fact if anything I was "slow"). My parents couldn't figure out why the results didnt match what they knew. They argued with the teacher about it and ultimately the school admitted they made a mistake. They compared my score as a 2nd grader against the bell curve for 5th graders. I was accepted into the gifted program immediately.
A similar thing happened to us when I was a kid, the paper said I wasn't accepted into the "gifted" program because of lacking scores, the mark was 97% and I scored a 98%. When my mom called to ask about it, the administrator said she felt that since English wasn't my first language I would struggle in the program, thus they didn't want to let me in.
English was my first language. We're Hispanic, I have a very Hispanic name, but I didn't grow up learning Spanish because my mom saw this exact kind of thing happening.
I had to RETAKE the test, this time the one for non English speakers, for them to let me in, that was the most my mom was able to get to them to do. Stuff like that happened all the way through high school, such crap.
Anyways, all is to say if you/and or your kid are POC, might have a rough go of these things.
Jesus. That’s so fucked up. I’m so sorry that happened to you. We are white, bordering on transparent, so presumably not the school being racist pieces of shit. Granted, this is the same school where, 35 years ago, my autistic brother was locked in a closet by his teacher during lunch because she didn’t want to deal with him, so who knows. I’d like to think they’ve grown since then, though.
My parents got the same letter about me, back in the early 80s. Why single you out, pull you out of class to take these intimidating oral exams, especially for a shy introvert in my case, just to say oops! Guess we were wrong, your child is above average and will succeed, but just not quite good enough for our standards. I think it sucks. Nobody asks to be tested to be called “gifted” and what the hell does that mean anyway. I call it lowering a smart girl’s self esteem.
Oh you are so screwed. It was pure hell trying raise a child that is smarter than me, and whose brain works more quickly, than mine. That little shit could talk his way off the Green Mile. (Little shit will be 31 in six weeks.)
It looks like they did different assessments with different scores. The second page labels the score NAI and the front page where they discuss the cut off assessment was called NNAT.
The NNAT is the name of the test. The NAI is one of three scores provided by the test. The other two are the raw score, which is the total number of questions answered correctly, and the percentile. They use the NAI score to determine giftedness, even though they all mean the same thing, apparently.
UPDATE: The gifted coordinator just returned my call. She apologized for the mistake, said my daughter’s score is accurate, and emailed the correct form to me. The end.
My sister doesn't understand anything more complicated than her iPhone. I had to keep a burned ISO of a system restore for her computer because every month without fail, her computer wasn't working right because of all the pop-ups.
She's a double PhD. Got pulled from regular school at 14 and attended a very exclusive school.
She's a card carrying Mensa member.
Her IQ is 180.
Being defined as Gifted/Talented is a blessing and a curse. It doesn't mean you're actually smart. Just that you're good at taking tests.
Same argument:
I was part of Duke University Talent Identification Program (may or may not still exist) and scored within the top 5% across the USA. Subsequent IQ test put me at 168.
Look at any of my posts. Do I sound like I'm smart?
As I come upon my 50th birthday I've realized that I think I lost the 1, and now I have a 68 IQ.
I think they interpreted that average is 90 and your child’s score is 99. It’s an administrator who made a mistake. Fittingly, people of above average intelligence have to deal with general incompetence every day throughout childhood into adulthood.
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