Hi all. I finally decided to get my son tested and his results are just under the scores needed to qualify for the Davidson Young Scholars Program. For the WISC-IV Verbal Comprehension, he's at 144 (95% confidence interval 135-148). For the WJ-III, he's at 143 (141-145) for Total Achievement and 142 (140-144) for Broad Reading.

My question: is it worth applying anyway? Would he have a chance? I appreciate your honesty. :-)

My daughter's highest subtest score was 142 so I emailed and asked them if it was worth applying, and I was still encouraged to do so. This was just a week or two ago, so I have no news to report either way, but if DYS says to go for it, I say it can't hurt

Might your son have a GAI that's 145 or greater on the WISC-IV? Regardless, you should definitely apply.

Unfortunately, no. Perhaps of interest, there's a big discrepancy between his Verbal Comprehension (144) and his Perceptual Reasoning (115). Thoughts on this also welcome.

McSweeney, my daughter had a gap in VCI (142) vs PRI (121) too, though her biggest discrepancy was with WMI (116). I posted in these forums prior to receiving her full written report from the psychologist. Perhaps you might find some of the insight from aeh and polarbear helpful on that thread: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/229967/1.html

Are you awaiting your son's full written report still? I found that to be most helpful after testing, and only had a few additional questions for the psychologist then that she was happy to answer.

That's a relatively large discrepancy between VCI (144) and PRI (115). Did the evaluator share any thoughts re why there was a large gap - i.e. did he/she think the gap is real or did he/she think your ds was off-task or unfocused or tired during a PRI subtest and got a score that might not be representative of his true strengths? Have you noticed any issues or challenges with academics? What were his math scores and writing scores like on the WJ-III? And did the subtest scores on the WJ-III vary or were they consistent?

If his WJ-III scores are consistent and the evaluator thinks your ds was just not engaged and that negatively impacted the PRI score, I'd consider that if/when he tests again in the future he could get qualifying scores.

Also remember that you have to send the entire report in with the scores (I think... if I remember correctly!)... so if there's a note about the reason for the PRI dip that might help (I'm not speaking for Davidson... just thinking out loud... so take that with a huge grain of salt!).

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks all. This is very helpful. I contacted his tester to ask some of these questions. I may contact Davidson directly as well. Many thanks!