Kritson,
I have struggled with the Davidson question for my DS, who I think is a level 4 on a good day and a high 3 on a bad day. I would have thought that he would qualify based what he is able to do and when he has been able to do it, but he has never had the scores to prove it, due to various issues with the testing (mostly ceiling stuff and boredom with certain subscales of the WISC, but also someone who gave him the wrong subtests!). I haven't wanted to apply through portfolio because I figured that they would probably follow-up asking for more testing, which I didn't want to do for a while. So that all leaves me, like you, wondering if he "should" be in Davidson or if I am overperceiving my child's abilities.

The truth is that Davidson has a hard job in deciding who to accept and who not to. They get many applications each month. The tests are not anywhere close to perfect at discrimiting between children at the higher levels of gifted. I like to think that kids who are at the highest levels will easily meet the criteria, but kids with lower-highs (probably the medium 3's to lowish 4's) are going to be a difficult call. Some will meet their criteria and others may not. It isn't like there really can be a firm line that is drawn; everyone above is a DYS and everyone below isn't. Kids are all different from each other and they have different results based on the test, the day, the tester etc. There is just a continuum and a few somewhat inaccurate tools for measuring it. And there are more kids around the cut-off scores than there are at the highest levels. And they make the decisions based on paper applications, not from meeting the kids (which would be impossible to do). As I said, I think they have a hard job.

What we have decided is to have DS take those tests which will help us with other issues and if we finally get the score that meets DYS criteria, we will apply. But if we don't, as you say, he's still our kid and we love him just the way he is.

For us, in the end, our son's personality and interests have probably guided us more than the test scores.


Last edited by acs; 11/04/07 08:54 PM.