I agree with Dottie's wise advice
I would venture to guess that a top 3rd grader's writing is probably superior to an average 5th grader's writing.
I honestly haven't seen this to be true in our schools (but again, that may be a function of school district and curriculum and emphasis etc - there is a heavy emphasis on written communication in our local schools). There is a *lot* of writing development (in all areas - genre, paragraph formation and development, vocabulary, spelling etc) that happens between 3rd and 5th grade - even for an average non-gifted student.
When DS/DD started 3rd grade, the teacher on Back to School night showed the parents samples of work from the previous year's top students and they were pretty impressive - well-developed paragraphs with strong vocabulary and correct grammar/spelling.
Students in our regular (non-gifted) 5th grade classrooms are expected to be producing writing samples as described above. The samples of work I've seen from the "top" 5th graders are generally much longer in content and stand out in terms of depth of thought.
It's also a good idea when comparing writing samples to have an idea of what work process went into producing it - our elementary and middle school teachers don't typically assign a writing assignment, have the student complete it and turn it in in one fell swoop and call it good. The assignments go through a full process of brainstorming, rough draft, peer edit, final draft etc.
polarbear
eta to add a huge disclaimer - I have no idea what Davidson would expect to see in a writing sample for a portfolio - there are clearly no PG authors living under my roof!
