I would love to get my grand daughter involved with the Davidson Young Scholars Program.
She was tested by the public school system and identified as gifted. She is 6 now and she has scored 99% in the star test. I need to have her tested again in order to qualify for the Davidson program. I wonder if private testing at $600+ is my only option. Unfortunately, this is not a viable option for us. Are there any other, less costly ways to get the proper testing
done?
Can u please send me the other procedures to know and apply for Davidson Young Scholars Program.[For your kind information we are in Los Angeles]

Welcome!

Information on the Davidson Young Scholars program is found here. Qualifications listed here.

There are lists of testers on Hoagies Gifted Education Page, that is one place to start. Some families find that the Psychology Department at their local University may also offer testing.

Other recent posts about testing include this, and a post comparing
Yermish article on test prep, and Webb article on testing here

Thank you indigo, this is very helpful.

Keep in mind you don't have to do both the IQ and achievement tests in one sitting. You might do one, wait and make sure the results are what you'd hoped, then decide when you can afford to do the other. University testing is probably a good start, because $600 isn't a bad cost for private testing.

If you want cognitive and achievement to be interpretable together (in a learning disability or neuropsychological context), though, don't wait more than six months between their administrations, as that will affect the reliability of between-test comparisons.

If private testing is prohibitive, then you can use an achievement test like the SAT and a portfolio.

I would begin with the school. Some public schools will do iq testing when there is reasonable consideration that a student is well beyond age peers in ability.

She is 6 and the low cost test like ACT/SAT or EXPLORE will not be a good fit right now :-).


I guess that she is in 1st grade now. How's her reading and Math level? Is she doing at least > 2 grades above (3rd or 4th, etc)? What's her interest? Is the school not being challenged enough?

If the school is a good fit, I would wait until she gets a little older to be able to take like EXPLORE (that costs <$40) through talent search. (EXPLORE may go away for good in a few years but hopefully there will be a new test (for 3rd to 6th grade level) before the kids are old enough to take SAT/ACT).

If she is reading at middle school level and doing multiple digit multiplication, I would encourage for you to talk to the school and the school district to see if they can give IQ test or achievement test for your grand daughter.

And you can submit it along with a portfolio (the video of her talking/explaining something she is passionate about whether it be a book or scince stuff, her math work sample (at least 2 grades above her age peers, etc....).

Good luck!

I notice that she was tested already by the school system. What tests was she administered? Besides STAR.

Link to ACT's current webpage on the Explore test: http://www.act.org/products/k-12-act-explore/. Looks like the replacement test will be Aspire, a longitudinal test for students in grade 3 through grade 8.

I have not seen Aspire to be a component of any Talent search (CTY, TIP, NUMAT) yet and not on DYS list.

Well, this is the 1st year of implementing and it may be something like SCAT for CTY. 2nd grader taking 4th grade Aspire, etc....Hopefully, it will work out and give us low cost option for achievement testing.

Aufilia - that is a good idea. We will go with IQ only first. Aeh thank you, very good information.

Makes perfect sense. We will take IQ first.

Very good point, we will remember this.

Thank you

She is in first grade, SAT would be tough for her. Is a low score for a early age is good score? She is just 6 and I think she will be able to answer a few questions on SAT. She will do good with reading comprehension, she reads faster than me. But I don't think she can get more than 30% correct answers on SAT

We had a talk with her teacher and principle at school, they are all against of any kind of tests. They think these tests are just for boosting parent ego and they do not recommend taking one. Although they think that she is gifted.

Very informative thank you so much peter.

Yes she is 6 and she just started her first grade. She is very good with reading. So far she read over 1000 books. Currently she is reading between 3.4 through 5.5 grade level books. According to STAR test she is in 99 percentile nationwide (this is the highest percentile that STAR awards)


She is not bad with Math, she can do multiplications. She has started doing double digit multiplications, but she is not perfect yet.

She was tested on STAR When she entered first grade she was test for her English and she is between 3.4 to 5.5 grade level and she is in 99 percentile. She was not testing on formally anything else.

Thank you for the link, looks like they have started offering this. I checked a sample paper, sample paper looks a little tough, it may take another 6 months to a year for her to be there.

Very informative again.Thank you. Can you please tell me more about CTY, TIP NUMAT, what are these?

Better than just giving you links to these three, here is the link to the Davidson Database. Using their search feature, you may find links to virtually anything and everything about gifted.

For your convenience, here is the link to Hoagies Gifted Education Page which is also a great repository of information.

Thank You Indigo!