Hi all! Thanks for all the support and help.
We're back...and we don't know a whole lot more than we did before the test.
It turns out that despite DS's unbelievable pattern-identifying ability, he's apparently not really a visual-spatial learner. (So, I guess we did learn THAT from the test! But I don't think that bit of knowledge was worth the testing fee. LOL!) DS had significant trouble with one part of the SB-V that our tester--who is a top expert in GT testing--said tends to trip up non-VS kids. DS just couldn't see the forest for the trees, so the score in that subtest was lower (probably significantly lower, according to the tester) than would be accurate for DS.
Furthermore, the tester thought that having this trouble so early in the test threw DS off his game from then on. These factors, combined with not-PG-level scores on both memory subtests meant that the total test score was nearly 2 full standard deviations below his achievement test scores. The tester said he's confident that DS is "definitely" HG (he tested as such, bad subtest score and all), is probably EG (as he scores if you drop the one bad subtest score), and is possibly PG...but the SB-V wasn't the one to show it. The tester then recommended that we re-test in 2-6 months with the WISC and see if that suits DS better.
Oh, and without sounding like I'm making excuses, DS couldn't go to sleep until 2 hours past his normal bedtime and had to get up an hour before his usual waking time, and he was on the verge of a fever that manifested 36 hours after the test. So all-in-all, Tuesday was not a great test day for DS!
Still, I'm loathe to chase a number, so we're debating about whether or not to bother testing again. I'd love some advice. Here's our thinking:
The one really vital piece of info we got was that unless we grade skip (or else require 4-6 special accomodations that the school wouldn't want to do), the tester felt that public school probably won't work for DS. (We concur.) Since the biggest benefit to our particular DS that public school has over the homeschooling is participation in sports, grade acceleration isn't something we're excited about. (Though I am a big believer that it's a great solution in many situations...) So public school is probably out for now, barring some ingenious solution we (and our not-remotely-creative school system!) have yet to think of, though we're not ruling out sending him for high school. We have much time before we have to worry about that!
The other educational option for us now besides homeschooling would be one of the private gifted academies in town, but they are prohibitively expensive. If we're going to go that route, we'd probably have to have the test scores to get him into YSP so that we might have the chance for some tuition help.
So here's the $64,000 question: do we have him take the WISC and keep our fingers crossed that he gets the 145, or keep homeschooling as we're doing now, and not bother to re-test? I'm not sure it's worth the hassle, cost, etc. to find out for sure if he's PG, particularly if we're going to continue to homeschool. Those of you in YSP: is it worth our while to chase the score that would get DS into YSP if we're not 100% sure that he's PG? Any help would be appreciated!
So, to summarize: We still don't know if he's elegible for YSP or not. We still don't know if he's level 3, 4 or 5 gifted. We still don't really have enough info to decide what educational path to take for next year. And now we have a new decision to make: re-test or no?
You called it, Trinity! Apparently my expectations were, indeed, too high. I was REALLY hoping to get SOME sort of useful info out of this test! But no, 'twas not to be.
*sigh*
