Wow! I simply don't see it being that big a deal one way or the other. However, it would not be my decision to make. It will be up to DS whether he chooses to include the DYS designation on his college applications.

I would suspect that his decision many years down the road (he is only a 4th grader) would depend on how much involvement he has with the Davidson Institute over the next eight years. If he participates (as we anticipate) in THINK and/or its younger cousin, then it would make sense to mention it on the application. It would not be a brag or necessarily under the "Honors" section but as an organization with which he was involved. I admit that my college application experience is severely limited as I only applied to the Ivies (really too stupid to realize that I should have had a back up school) and those applications (as far as I remember and if they haven't changed) do solicit a sense of the type of organizations with which you are involved.

I don't believe you need an elite school. It's just a nice experience to have. There are also some elite employers who almost never hire anyone at a professional level unless they graduated from top tier schools or once hired, tend to treat those employees lacking the proper pedigree like second class citizens.