Trying to remember where I heard this, but I believe that there was some recognition that the HG+ 2e population was being underserved by the YS program, which was one likely reason for the change?
This may have been conjecture read from the thread
DYS qualification criteria. Other conjecture included expanding access to families for whom encountering fewer test fees may be a significant budgetary factor.
I'm curious as to what informs your view that the DYS mission is to serve
HG+, rather than
Profoundly Gifted?
The Davidson Young Scholars program provides FREE services designed to nurture the intellectual, social, emotional, and academic development of profoundly intelligent young people
The Davidson Young Scholars Program is designed to provide parents of profoundly gifted young people with individualized assistance in the areas of educational advocacy and planning, social/emotional, and talent development.
I also know that Davidson has maintained that they look at the whole child, indicated by the fact that the application process asks for complete assessment results (including writeups) and will not accept scores by themselves.
The Davidson Young Scholar program qualification criteria webpages plainly states (in context):
The scores listed below represent the minimum eligibility requirements for consideration of admission into the Young Scholars program. Testing information is evaluated in the context of the rest of the application and supporting materials to determine admission eligibility. The Davidson Institute is unable to determine whether or not an applicant will qualify for the Young Scholars program outside the context of a complete application.
...
The Davidson Young Scholars Qualification Criteria was developed to identify students at the extreme end of the gifted continuum, which is the population served by the Young Scholars program. The criteria for individually administered tests typically represent scores in the 99.9th percentile.
...
Must meet or exceed the score guidelines listed...
Other eligibility criteria include factors such as:
age, citizenship/residency,
extreme precocity, student’s ability to learn and process complex information rapidly.
Backpedaling statements which retreat or withdraw from the minimum requirements as expressed on the website include: Information included here will not add substantially to the review committee’s decision, nor override test scores that fall significantly below the Minimum Score Guidelines listed above.
This would seem to indicate that scores just missing the cutoff (and within the standard error's confidence interval to include the cutoff score for eligibility) may be considered, depending upon the strength of other portions of the application...
andExtenuating circumstances, as determined by the applicant and family...
andHowever, we recognize that testing is only a small snapshot of a whole child and we take the entire application into consideration when determining eligibility. If the tester feels there were extraneous circumstances preventing a child from meeting the minimum criteria, a letter from the tester included with the application to explain the test scores will be considered in the review process.
There is good and bad in everything... inclusion is great, so long as new populations do not supplant the profoundly gifted kiddos which Davidson set out to serve.
