Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment LAUSD says DS ineligible for GATE :(

Chana thank you I will look into that

Okay, I feel really really sick now. Something is very wrong. GATE office just told me his score is in low 80s percentile. They are going to send me a breakdown.

Is it possible to have two IQ tests be so completely different? I verbally confirmed with two separate people in GATE office so I don't think it's a mistake.

Also his OLSAT score was 81. Same percentile.

I'm sorry to keep bothering the people on this board - It's just an IQ test but I thought there was supposed to be something about IQ not changing that much..

In a group setting, was timing a factor? In looking back at his earlier results he has a really slow processing speed. That is the only thing that comes to mind.

I do think that if he seems okay in a regular classroom setting, maybe apply to Davidson and see what outside enrichment you can get for him-- maybe more/faster academics isn't what he needs in the first place, YK?

Two things come to mind. First - is it a "fill in the bubble' test? Maybe he somehow got "off" the correct row.

Secondly, maybe he was just having a really off day. One of my sons (age 7), who clearly demonstrated addition fluency during first grade with timed tests, completely blew off that section of the WIAT-III and received a very, very low score for that section. All of the other sections are in the high 90s for percentiles. There is no rational explanation, because he KNOWS his addition facts and passed 26 similar timed tests in school this year very easily. His only explanation is that he has been thinking about "subtraction" a lot lately. Luckily, this doesn't really matter as far as school goes, but I could see how horrible it would be if we were counting on this test to get into a gifted program.

HowlerKarma -

The test was timed but he said he finished about half way through. I was worried about that too, but he did finish it.

momoftwins -

He didn't seem to be having a bad day, in fact he came back saying how much he loved taking the test. It was a bubble test, but it was fill in bubble choice under each question which I would think would be hard to get confused about.

I don't think GATE is a good fit for him, whatever his gifts are they aren't going to be found in PS I guess. I'm starting to think if I can get him accepted to Davidson that would be better.

Thank you both for answering.

Have a look at the results. A workmate's child didn't get into y7/g6 extension (the first time anything is available) and you could see clearly in the tests that he had a weak area. It had been picked up at his IQ test a fee years earlier but the parents but only in a vague "get his eyes checked" kind of way.

At that point it wasn't enough to pull his score down too far but things change.

Will do Puffin. At this point it's not about GATE anymore it's about figuring out what he needs, so I appreciate your suggestion, I will let you know what it says.

This happened to my son when he applied for the GATE program at his school a few years ago. I too was shocked when he was denied with scores below 80%. Luckily when I brought it up with his teacher she recognized something was off since he was one of the top performing students in the class. Turns out it was a scantron error. My son had bubbled in his answers incorrectly. They allowed him to take the test again the following year and he was accepted. If I were you I would push the school to give him another chance. I can't believe they would ignore his IQ results as he is obviously highly gifted and deserves to be included. Good luck.

Thanks brandijocelyn-

I am hoping it is something like that. I guess I will see when I get the breakdown..it really doesn't make sense.

LAF - what was the test? Was it the LAUSD 2nd grade OLSAT? We were warned by our testing psychologist that our DD7, whose profile looks almost exactly like your son's, is unlikely to test well on the OLSAT.