My son got a WISC IV GAI of 143 (age 8). He recently took the Explore, age 9 (4th grade). He got several decent scores, some in the top 20%, others in the top 40%. He didn't finish any of the sections. There is absolutely no way he could have gotten 23's or 24's. I doubt there are more than a handful of 9 or 10 year old's who could. So, there is zero chance he'd be admitted to the DA at this point.
If the DA doesn't want kids younger than 12 or 13, they should just come out and say so. I realize now that this was shadow boxing, and that I put my child through the stressful testing experience for absolutely nothing.
I'm upset with myself for not reading between the lines, but also with the DA for playing a game of three-card Monte with young would-be applicants. They simply can't win the Explore game.
Hi Adamhi:
I know that it is possible to join DA by taking Explore, because my DD met the score criteria last year (4th grade,9 year old at that time), even though she did not apply for DYS yet. But her score was not good enough to attend the NUMats ceremony, because there were other kids who got better score than my daughter's.
Update on March 31, 2012:
On Saturday morning, we got the Explore scores of my DD10 (5th grader). Her score makes her eligible for DA (25 for Math, 24 for Reading, and 23 for Composite). Obviously, we cannot send her to DA because we are living in Midwest.
