[EsoteriEccentri]

I've only taken one IQ test... ever.
I took it a while ago, and I can't be bothered to take one again >< I don't really understand the point of IQ tests.
My test result from
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is 146.

[schwartzie]

	Originally Posted by EsoteriEccentri To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	< I don't really understand the point of IQ tests.

One benefit of IQ tests is that they give you hard data to use as a sword. High IQ is physiological condition. For individuals with high raw IQ, life gets hard and crazy when you are crushed into the "average" box. I knew a girl who tested out in the upper 180s at age 8. She's now 14 and 6 months or so from finishing her undergrad degree, and is a wicked cool person. Without the tool of the test, her mom would have had much less confidence that the choice she made to let her girl fly was the right one. 99 percent of education "experts" wrongly believe that one size fits all, and the best thing to do is to smash bright kids into an egg carton of age-group peers.

[thod]

You are so fortunate to know her. On a 15 SD scale (e.g. Wechsler) she is 1 in 671,455,130 and 16 SD (e.g. Stanford-Binet) scale she is 1 in 75,011,253.

Its not every day you get to meet the smartest person in the whole of North America.

Lets get real, even with a lowly 150 you are 1 in 2000, that makes you not just the smartest person in your year at high school, but the smartest in the whole school.

[schwartzie]

Those stats seem on the high side. She was tested on the SB-LM, which is pretty accurate for higher scoring white/mainstream kids.

[DrEast]

142, but I messed up one question because of the poor formatting on the computer screen. And the test probably wasn't that good, either.

[True Rune]

Either I haven't reached my full intellectual potential or I'm the dumbest man on this forum.. -_-; My score is so low. "Lowly 150", 120 must be retard. XD

[Noehelia]

	Originally Posted by Ishida To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Either I haven't reached my full intellectual potential or I'm the dumbest man on this forum.. -_-; My score is so low. "Lowly 150", 120 must be retard. XD

In which test are you referring? You can not compare any "iq test" with one another if you do not know if they measure the same thing, they have the same scale, etc.
Let's say I picked up some questions that I thought they were "intelligent", put them together in one form, assign whatever score I wanted for each one and publish my so called "test" on the internet with the label "IQ test". Would you compare it with an official standardized test which has been tested for years on a large sample of the population?

[Antares]

I took the CFNSE again, this time actually thinking about it (I took about 40 minutes this time, half the time the other time). I got 1 this time. I suppose, when I reach 16, would my IQ be higher? Why 16?

[zhandao]

	Originally Posted by Noehelia To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Oh, I am so happy, I scored 8 on the cnfse test in 2,5 hours. Very nice and challenging.

I'm surprised so little attention is paid to the F that totally owned all the Ts.
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[ssrprotege]

134 for me. Not high enough as an INTJ?

[MCR]

175 for me on that first test that was linked to.

I have taken lots of these before...most recent ones have been online, but in the past I have taken some of the more "formal" strictly timed tests (Wechsler, Stanford-Binet and one other less popular one which I don't remember the name of) I have almost always scored the same - between 165-170. The same thing happens to me on the online ones...I usually score slightly higher - between 170-178 but never higher than that. The ones I have seen online are mostly not timed tests though, so I think that jump is directly attributed to not having the pressure of the clock ticking.

As an aside, I had this same situation when I took the SATs. Most everyone I knew who took it got pretty different scores each time. I took it 4 times (twice in 11th grade and twice in 12th) and I received the same identical score twice; the other two were within a 10 point range lower or higher of the score I got the first time. Because I got such a high score the first time, I had pretty high expectations that my next couple would be a lot higher than that since I knew what to expect, but the number of times I took it really didn't make a difference. I know that they have changed the format and even the scoring on the SAT now, but back when I took it (1989-1990ish), I was told that everyone had the same basic test but it was numbered differently to discourage cheating. I tried to remember if I had seen some of the questions before when I took it the times following the first but they always seemed completely different to me.

Even with all of that though...I honestly just don't think I'm that smart. I think maybe I am just a really good guesser.
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[azelismia]

I've taken a number of them with a low of 134 and a high of 153. usually it's about 145-148
I've taken about 14 of them.

However, I don't think iq tests are a very useful tool. Intelligence isn't fully defined so how can they test it? What are they really testing? Your test taking abilities. There is a natural or creative aspect that is left out imho. You can train to take these tests and score well, if that's the case then it isn't really testing your native intellect imho.

1. intellect needs to be universally defined
2. a test needs to be created that tests to that definition and is done in such a format that absolutely everyone is on the same playing field.
Using things like math in these tests assumes a certain level of education. Education does not equal intelligence.

[ssrprotege]

Originally Posted by azelismia To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I've taken a number of them with a low of 134 and a high of 153. usually it's about 145-148 I've taken about 14 of them. However, I don't think iq tests are a very useful tool. Intelligence isn't fully defined so how can they test it? What are they really testing? Your test taking abilities. There is a natural or creative aspect that is left out imho. You can train to take these tests and score well, if that's the case then it isn't really testing your native intellect imho. 1. intellect needs to be universally defined 2. a test needs to be created that tests to that definition and is done in such a format that absolutely everyone is on the same playing field. Using things like math in these tests assumes a certain level of education. Education does not equal intelligence.

Good point. IQ test questions have certain patterns, so once you know how to do them fast, you can get higher IQ. And IQ depends on the type of questions too. These biases may prevent a really smart one from getting accurate results.

[schwartzie]

Originally Posted by MCR To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

175 for me on that first test that was linked to. but in the past I have taken some of the more "formal" strictly timed tests (Wechsler, Stanford-Binet and one other less popular one which I don't remember the name of) I have almost always scored the same - between 165-170. Even with all of that though...I honestly just don't think I'm that smart. I think maybe I am just a really good guesser. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

The Stanford Binet LM and Stanford Binet 5 are accurate to 225. So, chances are that you're good.

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has a nice history and comparison of tests.
or see,
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Davidson Instit. click resources and testing links.
Even if you took just the Weschler and Stanford Binet 4, guessing wouldn't get you to 170. Plus, it's clear from your posts that you love playing with language. You were so lucky to get to college.
Incidentally, IQ is on the X chromosome, so a smart boy had to have gotten his Y from dad and the X from mom...

[MCR]

Originally Posted by schwartzie To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

The Stanford Binet LM and Stanford Binet 5 are accurate to 225. So, chances are that you're good. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. has a nice history and comparison of tests. or see, To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Davidson Instit. click resources and testing links. Even if you took just the Weschler and Stanford Binet 4, guessing wouldn't get you to 170. Plus, it's clear from your posts that you love playing with language. You were so lucky to get to college. Incidentally, IQ is on the X chromosome, so a smart boy had to have gotten his Y from dad and the X from mom...

Thanks for the links. This is information I hadn't seen before.

I actually not sure which version of the Stanford-Binet I took. I took it in 1985, when I was in the sixth grade. I was a candidate for skipping a grade and there were a battery of tests required to do so at my school. At first it was something that my parents were comfortable with consenting to; but after the first couple of tests and other outside factors telling them it was a bad idea, they decided they didn't want to allow it. I really would have been fine with either option so I didn't try too hard to convince them. In retrospect, I'm somewhat glad that they didn't.

The Weschler I took as an adult...part of a requirement for a job. That was in the late 90s.

The chromosome and intelligence topic is one that is fascinating to me. (I am female by the way) I became really interested in it because I had a very close friend who came from a very intelligent family - both her parents are very smart and my friend (female) is also. Her younger brother, however, is about as smart as a box of nails. I always need to know the "why" in any situation so it led me to do a research on it. Complex topic but really key I think to understanding how your choice of mate can is going to affect whether or not your child makes the honor roll at school.
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[schwartzie]

Originally Posted by MCR To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Thanks for the links.... I actually not sure which version of the Stanford-Binet I took. I took it in 1985, when I was in the sixth grade. I was a candidate for skipping a grade and there were a battery of tests required to do so at my school. At first it was something that my parents were comfortable with consenting to; but after the first couple of tests and other outside factors telling them it was a bad idea, they decided they didn't want to allow it. The Weschler I took as an adult.... That was in the late 90s.

I think I recall from an earlier post that you run a graphics design business. Are you personally an artist, or do you administer the business? It would be interesting if you did design--because of the implication that you have such strong competencies not only in the areas tested by an IQ test (analytic reasoning, language, memory, numbers, etc.) but that you are creative, esp. in visual arts. Someone in another post noted that IQ tests don't test everything; that's true. The work of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences
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is pretty widely accepted. You might find interesting, esp. the project zero research, on learning and thinking in creative arts.

The whole grade-skipping thing is really hard for parents. School administrators are unlikely to be intellectually gifted, or, really, to have a clue, so they almost always hand out a (chicken and egg-ish) recommendation to do nothing. My own parents followed that advice; in retrospect, it was probably a bad choice. I self-detonated, kinda (but I did loooove my motorcycle!) I too was the first to go to college; however, because of the detonation situation, there was a delay of some years between high school and college that weren't productive other than as clumsy attempts at self-administered therapy. I was well into adulthood before I came, somewhat by accident to my current work-- involving a mix of engineering, tech, economics, writing and legal analysis--which I love!

I have a family of cousins whose efforts to educate their kids is much more healthy. The family would make a good Gardner test case: Mom is probably an isxj, and dad an infp. She is an incredibly talented medical diagnostician, yet loves providing hands-on nurturing as a nurse. She also enjoys making visual art and music, and has a near-religious experience making and baking bread each week. Dad is a professional musician and runs his own "back office." Child 1 got a triple undergrad major in philosophy, physics and math, but attended less than a year of physics grad school before deciding he could not endure the dull OCD-ishness needed to work in academia, and now has a day job as the guy who cares for children in a battered women's shelter, and in his off-hours, started a band and writes his own music, travels a lot, and writes books, including children's stories. He's maybe an entx. Child 2 is finishing arts school with a degree in graphics design, sings in the band, is fluent in three languages (having completed two college-level language programs in high school because she liked languages.) She is an ixxx???? erm... can't tell.... All four members of the family are wonderfully funny, compassionate people. While the kids weren't formally grade-skipped, they were given the chance to work with material that provided opportunities to stretch and grow -- taking college classes in high school, independently teaching themselves bodies of knowledge in grade and high school (like computer programing, html and web design, singing and playing multiple musical instruments, geology, entomology, drawing, etc.) That access to challenge is probably the key to making an education plan work, however it is put together.

So why did staying in grade work for you? Do you have an outlet for your abilities beyond graphic design? As a business owner, how do you make your "I-ness" work?





schwartzie added to this post, 27 minutes and 7 seconds later...

[QUOTE=Franastan;30558]Yes, that is why I consider Mensans to be professional test-takers ... the idea amuses me.
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Um...just a small defence of Mensans. Mostly what they are is lonely. Mensa is a social club. People go for the pleasure of being among their own kind. Frankly, its a lot like this forum. True, some people probably pay their money for an ego stroke and do nothing more. Strong i types really have to push to walk into a room full of new people.... Those who come back are not looking for ego strokes. Just the opposite, really, because they are no different than anyone else for once, and instead may find easy companionship, conversation, social engagement, etc. A would guess that most are IxTx, but I've not seen stats on that.

[Santana28]

Originally Posted by MCR To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I actually not sure which version of the Stanford-Binet I took. I took it in 1985, when I was in the sixth grade. I was a candidate for skipping a grade and there were a battery of tests required to do so at my school. At first it was something that my parents were comfortable with consenting to; but after the first couple of tests and other outside factors telling them it was a bad idea, they decided they didn't want to allow it. I really would have been fine with either option so I didn't try too hard to convince them. In retrospect, I'm somewhat glad that they didn't.

same here. my school wanted to skip me a couple grades.... my parents, however - thought that would be too detrimental to my 'social life' - so they said no. They kept me in the same grade, and kept me out of gifted classes.. for the sake of (my non-existent) friends. And not only did they do this - they didn't tell me about any of it until AFTER graduation.

Not only did my father sabotage any chance i had at going to college, they HELD ME BACK intentionally. And being held back was a very very baaaaaad thing for me. I learned to hate school with a fiery passion soon afterwards, and am very lucky to have even graduated from high school.

I have forgiven people for a lot of things, but i don't think it is a weakness to admit that i think i'll never be able to forgive them for this. But its in the past, so oh well. Back to not dwelling on it.

[INTJCanuck]

I don't care for IQ tests, and especially don't believe they correlate well to academic abilities, because I am not nearly as smart as many people at school, yet I do better than them grades-wise.

For what it's worth, I've tested anywhere between 120-150 on internet IQ tests.
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is a site I believe I've played around on in the past.

[vad1981]

It kind of strange how many people here have IQ's of at least 130-140+

Theoreticall it should put us in the top +2/+2.5SD (top 2.5-1%)

Actually I took only one formal IQ test at age 10 and I scored 143 and I remember the psychologist who gave me the test told my mom it was the highest of the kids he has tested. I guess that says something fo rthe neighborhood I grew up in...

But I took some online test also scoring anywhere from 130-155. I notice I have to really "Focus" to score decently otherwise when I don't try my score goes down.

However I nreal life I rarely as focused as when I'm taking a test.

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By comparison my SAT's in 1997 were 1540/1600, however my high school gpa was 86%.

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[the human iPod]

I'm sorry that I have to interrupt, but something struck me.

Lowly 150.

Do you have any idea of what a 150 actually means? To give you a better idea, ~100 is *supposed* to be the average I.Q. Therefore, 150 is NOT low at all, neither is 123 or 140. This is also one of the major reasons that I do not approve of the I.Q. Test - it's a tool of intellectual bigotry. "Oh, well I'm about 30 points above yours in I.Q., therefore I know exactly what I'm talking about..." How I wish I could punch every bigot right in the mouth. It's a load of bullshit, IMO.

[schwartzie]

	Originally Posted by INTJCanuck To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I don't care for IQ tests, and especially don't believe they correlate well to academic abilities, because I am not nearly as smart as many people at school, yet I do better than them grades-wise.

I agree, they don't. We're more complex than that, I think.

[MCR]

Originally Posted by Santana28 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

same here. my school wanted to skip me a couple grades.... my parents, however - thought that would be too detrimental to my 'social life' - so they said no. They kept me in the same grade, and kept me out of gifted classes.. for the sake of (my non-existent) friends. And not only did they do this - they didn't tell me about any of it until AFTER graduation. Not only did my father sabotage any chance i had at going to college, they HELD ME BACK intentionally. And being held back was a very very baaaaaad thing for me. I learned to hate school with a fiery passion soon afterwards, and am very lucky to have even graduated from high school. I have forgiven people for a lot of things, but i don't think it is a weakness to admit that i think i'll never be able to forgive them for this. But its in the past, so oh well. Back to not dwelling on it.

Wow. That's really too bad. I can't blame you for not forgiving them for this...I don't think I would either. I can almost see reasons for not letting your child skip grades-though the reasons would not be the same for every child, of course. But not letting you take advanced classes doesn't make sense to me...that's purposeful harm. It really sucks that this happened to you.





MCR added to this post, 106 minutes and 1 seconds later...

Originally Posted by schwartzie To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think I recall from an earlier post that you run a graphics design business. Are you personally an artist, or do you administer the business? It would be interesting if you did design--because of the implication that you have such strong competencies not only in the areas tested by an IQ test (analytic reasoning, language, memory, numbers, etc.) but that you are creative, esp. in visual arts. Someone in another post noted that IQ tests don't test everything; that's true.

My role in my business is kind of on the complicated side. A lot of creative professionals run their studios as sole proprietors - they do it all, including take out the trash. If you only have a few clients who don't demand much, you could probably do it and do it well. I tried that approach and it doesn't work for me. Part of the reason is that I started this business as a part time freelance gig and started picking up a client here and a client there...while I was working a full time job at an advertising agency. It got to be overwhelming to say the least and the point came that I was having to turn down work because I simply did not have the time. I started getting irritated at my full time job because of it. That sounds a little strange perhaps so I will explain why. My position at that company had evolved a great deal during the 7 years I had worked there. I started working there in a tiny office with the creative department consisting of 2 people...my boss and myself. The whole company had maybe 25 employees, tops. In those 7 years, we grew at an unbelievable rate to where we made the Inc 500 list and now employed over 200 people company wide. I went from graphic designer to senior designer to assistant art director along the way. In the position I had when I left, I basically told people what to do and assigned work. I checked over the work of other people and spent my days correcting them, correcting mistakes for clients, handling all the "special" customers (in other words, all the high maintenance pain in the arses) and doing a bunch of administrative duties. Interaction with people was non stop and I just don't work well that way at all. I don't mind managing - as long as it's things or projects. I hate managing people with a passion. So needless to say, a job that I walked into and loved from day 1 turned into a complete chore. I longed for the days where I would sit at a desk with my iPod on and just work on my projects. Sometimes my shift would be over and I hardly noticed. I worked hard and diligently, and it won me the respect of my peers, my bosses and the company's clients. We had a client visit the office one day and he asked my boss to meet the person who had designed his advertising materials. I was sweating...wondering what I could have possibly done wrong when the guy came over and hugged me, thanked me, and explained how the advertising campaign we had produced for him made him over a million dollars in new business in 6 months. I was completely speechless. It was sort of a life changing event...because it wasn't until then that I had even considered what happens when a few pictures I put on a canvas and some advertising copy I wrote left my office. It gave me a fresh mindset to alter my goals to - the goal was not just to finish my work for the day but finish it with the intent that it was going to be successful. I became even more of a perfectionist. The company started to grow so I began to get tasked with training people. Having done training for a living before, I somewhat enjoyed that. It was a short process, and I got rid of them within a day. That let me get back to work on my creative stuff.

When I was offered the middle management job, I refused it three times. Ultimately they put a monetary offer on the table that I couldn't turn down because I knew it would likely never be made again, so I took it...and I regretted it ever after. Then they started to send me people to work for me who were not nearly as talented as I had hoped. We hired someone to do a job that was critical to my department's success that was the daughter of my boss's best friend. You can see where I'm headed with this, right? Nice girl...but had no idea how to do the job she was hired into. This is a creative position that requires a lot of writing...and saying her writing was atrocious was being too kind. I ended up having to do a lot of her work over and she being a very sensitive person on top of it, would complain to my boss all the time. My boss never reprimanded me for it - I had a bullet proof track record of making the company money so it was obvious that I knew what I was doing. Instead of moving her to another area which is what I hoped for every day, she encouraged me to train her. Ugh. I don't think you can train someone to do a job that clearly takes talent to do. It would be like training a person who has never played a piano in their life to sit an tackle the most difficult Bach invention without making any mistakes. She had no experience in life because she was young, and she had no real work experience either so we had no foundation to use for conceptualizing. It was an exercise in futility. After months of back and forth, I finally had enough and formed a plan to exit. At that point I already had a flourishing freelance business. I had just incorporated and was ready to go.

Then...I got one of those middle of the night nirvanas...the "solution for everything", if you will. To make what is already a very long story short, we worked out an arrangement where I would still work for the company but not in the office and completely independently. It's a win-win. We've been doing it for a while now and so far, so good.

So, back to the original question...my function is primarily that of creative. I do a lot of the work myself, or better put, the work I want to do. I get in a lot of different jobs that might pay well or might be for a prestigious client but it is not something I particularly enjoy doing. I have 3 freelancers who I contract that work out to. My significant other of 13 years helps me tremendously, especially because they are far more organized that I am and excels at administrative stuff...while I just plain stink at it.
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So to summarize all of that, I do a little of everything, but my primary function is the creative product. I'd like to get to the point where I find someone who shares the style that my clients want to see and my vision...and I hire them to take on some work so I don't have to work quite so much.

The whole grade-skipping thing is really hard for parents. School administrators are unlikely to be intellectually gifted, or, really, to have a clue, so they almost always hand out a (chicken and egg-ish) recommendation to do nothing. My own parents followed that advice; in retrospect, it was probably a bad choice. I self-detonated, kinda (but I did loooove my motorcycle!) I too was the first to go to college; however, because of the detonation situation, there was a delay of some years between high school and college that weren't productive other than as clumsy attempts at self-administered therapy. I was well into adulthood before I came, somewhat by accident to my current work-- involving a mix of engineering, tech, economics, writing and legal analysis--which I love! So why did staying in grade work for you? Do you have an outlet for your abilities beyond graphic design? As a business owner, how do you make your "I-ness" work?

Well...here's my story. I'll warn you. It's another long one.
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I should probably preface that I went to Catholic school my entire life...we had very small classes and a lot of personal attention. When I arrived at Kindergarten, I already knew how to read and knew my numbers, etc and there was nobody else in my class that did. Of course these are staples in the Kindergarten curriculum so I was yep...bored to tears. That was largely ignored by the teachers I had...I was usually told to just color or find something to keep myself busy with when I finished assignments early.

What is interesting about the skill set I had when I got to Kindergarten is that my parents swear on a stack of Bibles that I learned all of it from watching Sesame Street and a few other PBS shows they had on back in the 70s. It sounds absurd to me but honestly, I don't know where else I would have gotten it. My parents are both immigrants. My father speaks pretty fluent English but is not as good at reading or writing it. My mother's language skills are not as good, but you can carry a conversation with her and she will understand you perfectly. You can also understand most of what she says. So my first language really was Spanish because this was easier for both of them to use to communicate. I grew up in a place with a HUGE Hispanic population so I spoke Spanish outside of the home as well. Everyone else around me was in pretty much the same boat. I can't tell you how many kids I knew growing up who had 2 parents that did not speak English at all or very poorly, despite the fact that many had been in this country 10 years or more. (I have never agreed with this, by the way...despite my own personal situation, I feel that you must learn English to live here as a productive member of society.)

I cannot remember a single time where either parent read with me or tried to teach me anything in English. I would sometimes ask my dad to read something in English to me and sometimes he got it right...sometimes he didn't. I always knew when he had no idea what he was reading and that made me ask him less and less until I stopped doing it altogether. So the more I thought about it as I got older, the more the "learning English from TV" scenario started to make perfect sense. I have always had an excellent memory and my retention is pretty high for things I hear or see. The only tricky part is...my long term memory is usually the one that works the best. I can remember facts, places, faces, & names in vivid detail. I can remember minutiae contained in books I read 20 years ago even if it wasn't a significant plot point. I have been called the "World's Most Annoying Person to Play Trivial Pursuit With" on many occasions.

Now ask me if I locked the front door, or mailed the electric bill yesterday and I have no clue - I've got to really, really think about it. When I go to a shopping center/mall I almost ALWAYS forget where the car is if I haven't been there an hour or more. I'm not talking about just wandering down the wrong aisle and realizing you are one over to the left. I'm talking about truly having no clue.

In the last couple of years it has gotten a little better and I'm not really sure what I attribute that to. I've had a lot of major physical "changes" - complete change in diet, sleeping habits etc. I also take a lot of vitamin supplements that I did not before. (I was on a high protein, low fat diet with some intense cardio exercises that required certain supplements) One of those is B12 and that is supposed to have a memory improving effect from what I have read.

Anyway, back to the grade skipping situation. It actually came up twice. The first time, I was in first grade so my participation in that process was obviously minimal and I don't remember a lot of the details. Right around the time I was going to start testing, I got a horrible case of the chicken pox where I was out for 3 weeks. I had an exceptional teacher in this grade -a nun who was younger (a rarity) and a lot more aggressive about learning. She had me working ahead and on a lot of different school work than my classmates so the absence didn't cause me any academic detriment. Despite that, the board which governed school affairs/administration thought it would be best to just do it the following school year instead because it would be too "disruptive" at this point.

At the beginning of that school year, my parents were notified that it was my turn in line on the waiting list to the school they originally wanted to send me to...also Catholic. This school was by far considered the best in the county as far as academics back then and the waiting list was huge. A good way to get yourself moved up was, sad to say, be a regular contributor to the attached parish church (Yes, I guess you could call that a bribe) and if you knew someone of importance who sent their children there then you were a lot more likely to get in. My mom got one of these such people to do that for me and also made the contributions every week for almost 2 years to help my chances. So it was now my turn...but...I wouldn't be able to start until the following year. That left me at my original school for that grade for whatever reason my parents informed the administration that this would be my final year here when the topic of grade advancement came back up. Immediately following, the discussion ceased all together as the school said they wanted to "wait and see." Whatever that means.

So the following year I went to the new school and I enjoyed it 100% more than the previous one. The curriculum was completely different - and definitely more advanced. So I dove right in and really excelled academically because I felt like I was getting somewhere. Kind of profound for a 3rd grader, I know.

The topic of grade skipping came up again in the 7th grade. At that point, I was 13 years old and was one of the older kids in my class. I liked that for some reason, though I am not really sure why. Along the way I had made huge social strides...it had been a rough transition at first. One of the major differences between my old school and this one was the snootiness factor of my classmates. We weren't poor by any means...my dad owned a successful restaurant business in town (my mom stayed at home from the moment I was born) and I had everything I needed and wanted. But a large percentage of my classmates' families were far more affluent than mine and at 8-9 years old, many were already terribly conscious of it. Take that and add it with the stigma of being the only "new girl" in that grade and it made me feel very socially awkward. I was very shy when I was young, and I was also very sensitive. I had a hard time making friends. It never affected my grades but it did affect other things. So just when I had finally felt like I had overcome that, the grade skipping issue came. And it was going to be what felt like a HUGE skip - I would finish the 7th grade, skip 8th, and start my first year of high school instead. (The high school was on the school grounds but in a completely different corner of campus where I had never even visited.)

At first it sounded good and I was gung-ho to take the tests. My parents were skeptical but let me do it - they were far from perfect parents but education was the one area where they were supportive and almost just plain pushy. (That's a whole other story though...) So I went through the tests etc and while they were having their doubts, I was starting to have mine. I would have to leave behind my friends that I worked so hard for. Two of the kids who gave me the hardest time in the earlier years had moved out of state the year before, so I no longer had to see them every day and have that stigmata of how mean they were when we were younger.

My parents got out the big guns so to speak and took me to a psychologist at the advice of one of my aunts, who was always revered as the most intelligent person in the family. I saw him a few times and he recommended that I not be skipped...and that was pretty much all she wrote.

So in retrospect, it might have been perfectly fine to have gone through with it and skipped the grade anyway. The reason that I say I am somewhat thankful they didn't do it, though, was because in finishing the 8th grade with that class, I felt a huge sense of social accomplishment. When I got to high school just 3 months later, I felt as though I was a much different person...I started taking more social chances and academically, I hit the ground running. I was incredibly excited about learning. In the beginning of my sophomore year, I was inducted into the National Honor Society. I had the distinction of being the first sophomore in over 45 years to be inducted...it was an honor they usually reserved only for juniors and seniors. This was a huge boon for my self confidence. In the last two years of high school I took a large chunk of AP classes and that kept me very challenged. (And it also made me very thankful when I got to college that I was able to skip through the first year's worth of History, English and Math) Because I was an English major I jumped right into what I thought was the "good stuff" and I finished college in 3 years.

That allowed me to jump into the "real world" where I proceeded to make a mess of things.

Sorry for the incredibly loooong post.

[Santana28]

i can understand why my parents didnt want me to skip grades - i have always been an introvert, from my earliest memories - and i'm sure they were concerned about it. My mother is a very clingy ISFP and she was always more concerned with my social life (or lack thereof) than anything else, because she knew she didn't even have to worry about the academic or behavioral issues. In fact, later on in my school years i became quite depressive and the issues in my life were becoming quite overwhelming for me. But so long as i aced those test scores and showed up for class, no one seem concerned. I was quite jaded by that attitude...

Actually, my parents discouraged me in a lot of other areas as well. I always had the music bug... every year i would beg my parents for a musical instrument. "Its too expensive" or "It's too loud" etc etc etc. How many 5 year olds BEG for piano or guitar lessons? Nope... never got those either. I'm an only child and it's not like they couldn't afford these things. So i took up drawing instead. I signed up for percussion in the school band. When i got there they handed me a clarinet - my parents didnt tell me they had decided that clarinet would be more "appropriate" for me until i showed up to class expecting to play drums.

Actually - here's an even better example. When i was 16 i was accepted into a vocational high school. I applied for either Architecture or Aircraft Maintenance... on the first day of school i get my papers and look at them and it shows that i am in the Mechanical Engineering class. There was no problem getting into the Architecture course so i was confused... i go to the office. Turns out my parents had called them after my initial acceptance and CHANGED MY MAJOR because they thought mechanical engineering was a better career choice for me. Needless to say, i was soon after living on my own, working at night, and taking Architecture courses during the day.

Be thankful for what you have accomplished, because there will always be someone out there who will try to take it away from you.

Back on topic now
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[schwartzie]

MCR,

Thank you for sharing your story. It's interesting that your grade school and high school experiences worked out well for you, and that, it sounds like, your parents did a lot of things right in their advocacy for you. ("got out the big guns!") Pretty cool for immigrants for whom English is a second language. One or both of your parents must also be highly gifted...

There are so many things in your post that I enjoyed...., I can't respond to them all. One small part: it helps to try always to park in the same place--or in a public lot, in the same relative proximity to the door--like always to the right of the entry, and some spaces away from the building. (and, yes...this is the voice of experience....I esp. hate wandering about in ramps on car hunts....)
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[MCR]

Originally Posted by schwartzie To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

MCR, Thank you for sharing your story. It's interesting that your grade school and high school experiences worked out well for you, and that, it sounds like, your parents did a lot of things right in their advocacy for you. ("got out the big guns!") Pretty cool for immigrants for whom English is a second language. One or both of your parents must also be highly gifted... There are so many things in your post that I enjoyed...., I can't respond to them all. One small part: it helps to try always to park in the same place--or in a public lot, in the same relative proximity to the door--like always to the right of the entry, and some spaces away from the building. (and, yes...this is the voice of experience....I esp. hate wandering about in ramps on car hunts....) To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Ha ha...that is excellent advice indeed!!!
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I will have to try that! Most of the time, I laugh at myself about stuff like losing the car but when you are in a hurry to get somewhere, or when you are wheeling a cart filled with groceries...

Glad you enjoyed the story...it's been a while since I've shared that. As far as my parents are concerned I would say that it would probably be my dad that was the more gifted of the two. He was a man who was always trying to push you to do better because he was an "underachiever" or so he thought. I think he had serious regrets about jumping into a business that he really didn't enjoy that much instead of continuing on to college. Part of it wasn't his fault - he is from Cuba and right when he was ready to go to their equivalent of college, Castro took over and things changed radically. After that, he left the country literally in the middle of the night, with nothing except for a few personal effects. Though he wasn't a "troublemaker", several of my uncles were and that made it difficult on the whole family to stick around and live in peace, so to speak. He and his brothers started the business right when they arrived in the US so there was no time for much of anything else.

It was not until I was much older that I realized my dad was actually a lot smarter than I gave him credit for...he just always seemed to be in the right neighborhood, but at the wrong house if you know what I mean
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