Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Age norms for ACT

Does anyone know whether there are age norms available for the ACT? My son took the ACT as a 7th grader through Duke TIP, but he's already been skipped twice and is two years younger than most 7th graders, which leaves me wondering what to think of his scores. Shouldn't his relatively young age factor into this somehow?

I think it depends on why you are wondering. Are you hoping to have him win prizes at the Talent Search, evaluate how the skips are working, qualify for programming, or something else?

I just feel like if it's worth taking the test at this age, it's worth trying to understand the results. DS did very well and is doing great in school, so it's not really about the "prizes" (which he qualifies for) or the skips (which are already working). This is the first time DS has had any formal testing aside from end-of-grade standardized tests, so I was hoping to learn more about his LOG from it, and I can't help but think his age might be a confounding factor.

So he took the test as a 10 or 11-year old? If so, that is VERY young and you will probably not find norms for this age group for any talent search, as most students are still taking the EXPLORE or other tests. Still, it is not unheard of - but you are probably then having to talk to parents of PG kiddos!

I have seen 6th grade norms for a talent search for ACT, but not 5th grade norms. If you take a look at the 6th grade norms, as well as the DYS requirements, it sounds like your DS did extraordinarily well!

There was a recent discussion about using talent search results for a younger grade-skipped student. On one hand, it is more impressive when a child who is younger for grade does exceptionally well on ACT. On the flipside, though, is the issue of exposure; that is, a child who is grade skipped had access to material or teaching that a child the exact same age, but in a younger grade, does not. This is probably why grade is sometimes looked at, rather than age when evaluating results. Exposure does matter.

Either way, if he did exceptionally well on the ACT at a young age, it IS impressive!!!

BTW, quite a few here (including us) finally decided it was time to have our DC IQ tested after receiving talent search results.

While we eventually concluded that we couldn't actually make much use of the fact, given that DD was accelerated 3y, and therefore had formally seen some material that agemates had not--

DD was a kiddo that took the SAT and ACT at 11-13yo.

Her scores put her in the upper range for every national org that I could locate age-norming for. That is, she was in the top 1% for TIP, etc.

But it was never clear to us that this was useful with anyone, since she was accelerated. I mean, she was scoring in the top 1% with her academic cohort, too, so...

Not sure that this helps, but I get why you're asking. I just don't know that there are enough 2-3y accelerated children taking either test, so stats are going to be very tough to come by.

Thanks for the replies.

DS had just turned 11 a few weeks before the test and ought to be in 5th grade, so yes, he was very young (and looked it, walking off to the test room with a group of high schoolers!). I wasn't even sure he'd be able to sit still and focus for 4+ hours.

I guess the weirdest thing about this is feeling like a kind of anomaly even within the Duke TIP program. We don't have any plans to do IQ testing, so I guess we'll have to be content with knowing he's somewhere "up there."

Well, you're in the same boat with us, then. DD should have been in 6th grade chronologically (and has a summer birthday) when she took the PSAT. It, too, was out at the upper edge of the percentiles even for talent searches, and it was the first time she'd been tested like that at all. When she took the SAT/ACT, she should have been a 7th grader, I think.

We never really saw any need to have "the number" whatever it might be. It's... high. High enough that three accelerations were a done deal even without it. This meant that we didn't have much need for the evidence that they were needed, if that makes sense...because-- it-- was-- self-evident. To the school. (Even here, I sometimes feel like this is boastful or something-- not really the right term, I guess, but I don't have a better one). Seriously, though-- consider the struggles that most parents here have to get schools on board with ONE acceleration, even with a full IQ test in hand, etc. etc. We didn't. We asked for a +2 skip at entry, and they didn't even blink. Boom. Done. Then they did another skip, and would have done one more if we'd been okay with it-- we weren't, mostly because we wanted her college social experience to have SOME chance of being more-or-less normative if she wanted it that way. Anyway. I digress. Not only her virtual school felt this way-- our local district did, too-- they wanted to put her in dual enrollment courses at the CC when she was 12. Full-time, I mean. All without that IQ test. Just based on her (half-hearted, frankly) performance. (Which I never thought was all that exceptional, relative to what I know she is actually capable of).

Beyond that, I had the uneasy feeling that no matter what the number was, it was unlikely that much good could come of knowing it. I feel a little strange telling people she's PG without, you know-- proof-proof, but I guess she IS proof, and for most people who know anything about gifted people and high IQ in general, they don't question it for an instant. If anything they are a bit wary in discussing it with us initially-- because they aren't sure if WE know how bright she is. We know. As a whole human being, she is much more than such a snapshot would ever show, that's all.

Now that she is older, I'm glad that we've been open with her about the fact that she is an outlier among outliers-- and also that we have NOT over-emphasized this aspect of her develpomental arc by quantifying it all. She knows that most of her friends and peers have no idea how qualitatively different her developmental arc has been from theirs-- but it's something that SHE is aware of, and she can answer honestly that she has no idea what her IQ is when she is asked (and, whooooboy, have some of her college friends asked). Mostly, though, she is who and what she is, period, full-stop. She felt some pressure to be some sort of Wunderkind even without full quantitation-- but it would have been far worse with the number in hand (judging by experiences of other close family members).

Anyway-- just wanted to let you know that we've done fine without knowing the number, and that yes, DD is clearly PG, but really, knowing that and four dollars will get you a cup of coffee. We understand her learning profile and needs perfectly well without it.

But only a small cup of coffee.

Yeah, we are very lucky that DS shines bright enough that we haven't needed the numbers. With him, it's his maturity and clear love of learning that quickly tips teachers off. Within hours of meeting him, they WANT him in their class. Certainly makes things easier.

It is more impressive that your DS was an 11 year-old 7th grader. At the same time, Loy58 made a valid point regarding actual academics/exposure partly counterbalancing the difference, which may be another reason why there are no age norms. Anyhow, I second using the 6th grade norms as an approximate proxy since those norms include many 11 year-olds as the majority of 7th graders are 11 in the fall and many are still 11 in the spring. Obviously, your DS will still be at the young end of those norms but that will be relatively close data. The norms don't separate students who take the test in October versus those who take it in June also because ultimately there isn't a huge enough of a difference, especially at the top.

I am not familiar with Duke Tip or ACT but in examining NUMATS CTD and SAT, here's what I see when I look at the minimum award qualifying scores and higher scores: 7th graders need a minimum of 740 Math and 670 CR (verbal) to qualify for awards, which is 98.3 percentile Math and 99.1 percentile CR for 7th grade compared to 99.2 percentile Math and 99.7 percentile CR for 6th grade with these same scores. If you look at higher scores of 770 Math and 730 CR, the percentile differences between 7th and 6th graders shrink substantially: 99.3 percentile vs. 99.8 percentile for Math and 99.8 percentile vs. 99.9 percentile for CR (verbal). That's a long way of saying that at very high levels of achievement scores, small differences in age perhaps matters less?