My 8 year old just took the WISC-V. When I went to get her, the psychologist briefly mentioned that she thinks she should have no problems getting into a certain gifted school in our area that uses FSIQ >= 130, but she still needs to enter the raw scores and calculate everything exactly. How accurate are psychologists in general in estimating based on raw scores? Should I keep my hopes up or be conservative?

When a psychologist told me this, her "estimate" was that my son's GAI was 160+. I was stunned, since I thought it would be around 140. It turns out that she was looking at the wrong page in the book (actually at more than one wrong page), so the scores were for a kid who was around 1-2 years younger (or maybe more). His actual GAI was 140.

That said, I think this particular psychologist had some issues. For all other evaluations my kids have gone through, the numbers the evaluators gave before entering everything into the software were right on.

I would be patient and wait for the actual scores. Use the time to prepare questions so that the scores help you understand your child better (and your child to understand herself better), in terms of strengths, any potential areas of relative weakness, strategies for compensating, and anything else you can think of that may be of interest based on what you observe day-to-day in real life.

I have found psychologists mostly to be vaguer than that straight after testing, but also found what they have said did line up with results. So much so with the vagueness that I have never been able to be as prepared as Indigo suggests.

Tester told me that our DD was a very bright little girl right after the test. She told me that she would have to run the results through the mill but she had no doubt that our DD was ‘gifted’. She was right because our DD was accepted by the DYS program based on those results 7 or so years ago.

DD was tested at 2 for a gifted preschool that required it, then again for CTY and again when we moved to Canada. It was always in the same range, within 5 points. I was curious what happens after final brain development.

I would wait for the formal scores and interpretive narrative, even if the evaluator seemed confident. While an experienced assessor can get a pretty clear picture during and immediately on completion of the testing itself, you will likely receive a more thoughtful and comprehensive understanding of her results when the scores are explained in context.

I would guess that she probably was not estimating based on the raw scores, but looking up scaled scores for subtests during the testing process (easy enough to do since they're in the same manual used to administer the test, and there are a few moments where the examiner just waits for the student to complete a task independently). That isn't the full process for calculating IQ scores, and, of course, a conscientious evaluator might like to go back and make sure everything is scored and recorded accurately, which is why she might be cautious giving more specifics.

OP here, back again!

DD8 took the WISC-V and DS5 just took the WPPSI-IV. With DD8 the same psych was pretty sure right after the test that her FSIQ would be >130 and it was true. With DS5 she said he scored really high on some subtests but she hadn't had a chance to look carefully at the rest yet and she'd have to score it all to determine FSIQ. Does that mean DS5 is probably not > 130 or is the WPPSI just not as clear to determine by a psych right* after testing? Thanks! (130 is used as the cut off by a gifted school near where we are, hence I'm using that threshold).

I expect she probably was being cautious about score estimates, likely because several of the WPPSI subtests involve a little bit of work scoring. Mainly the nonverbal subtests, and possibly double-checking some of the verbal responses. Also, the subtests he scored really high on might not all contribute to the FSIQ, depending on which subtests she administered. It has a lot of analogs to the WISC, but it's still a different test.

Thank you aeh! What would we do without you...

Did you mean that several of the WPPSI subtests involve more* work scoring as compared to the WISC ones? Hmm why would that be? Pardon my ignorance:)

Something like that, though it's not exactly that they are lots more work scoring, but more like they're not as easy to score on the fly. For instance, if you have to add up a lot of items with a wide range of possible points, it's a little slower than when the possible item scores are only 0 and 1. Also, littles usually take closer attention during test administration, so she was probably more occupied keeping your DC engaged.