Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment appeal or not to appeal

My DD got her cogat scores yesterday
Quantative -99%
non-verbal- 97%
verbal 79%

she was clearly disappointed with her verbal scores. School district combines the percentile of fall map test(reading & math) and cogat test for placement in to gifted program. the combined scores should be above 475.

DD map test score were
Reading 96%
Math 97%
language -98%

DD score put together is 468. she did not get placed in to gifted program. she is disappointed as all her friends are going to gifted program. We are not sure what to do next. Appeal verbal scores?

It appears that the gifted program in your school district does not separate LA and Math, which is odd to me. Our school district have separate advanced classes for LA and Math. You can qualify either or both, based on MAP and CogAt scores.

I would appeal for both subjects as your DD's reading/language MAP scores are high. In my opinion, at least she should be placed for the Math portion.

Good luck!

Welcome, 23pret!

You've received great advice already.

I'll just add some questions to ask yourself:
- What do your State Laws say about gifted education?
- What do your school policies say about qualifying for the gifted program?
... about an appeal process?
... about alternative criteria (portfolio, recommendation, etc)?
- What does your local gifted program consist of?
- What specifically makes the gifted program a good "fit" for your child?
- How does it match/meet your child's needs?
- How would your child benefit from being in the program?
- How might she be harmed if not included?
- Are the friends in the gifted program her closest academic/intellectual peers?
- Is there any type of disability involved?

Here's a link to help you read more about advocacy approaches and resources.

If you think that the verbal CogAT score isn't representative of her abilities and that what is *actually offered* in the school's gifted program will be a good fit for her, then, yes, I would appeal.

It is possible that she didn't understand the directions for one of the subtests. For example, as a kid for years I didn't understand what I was supposed to do for the analogies sections of standardized tests, and from what I remember, they were on all of the tests I ever took growing up. It wasn't until the SAT when my aunt who was helping me prepare finally explained it to me.

If it was a paper and pencil test (I don't know how the CogAT is administered these days), she might have also gotten off on the bubbles. I think the computer doing the scoring is supposed to be able to pick up on that and flag the score, but I could be wrong, and I don't know if the school would tell you if it happened.

I think I would appeal. That verbal score is a real outlier. It's worth looking at more closely to try to figure out why, especially when her reading and language scores are much higher.

Thanks everyone for input. We have decided to appeal. Hoping they will accept our request. Cogat test was administered orally. Not sure why. most of the surrounding school district use computer based test but our school district administers the test orally.

My DD took some online verbal battery and she scored 99 and 98% which matches her map test scores.