We Read the Largest Districts' Gifted Pages. Most Don't Say Which Test.
A parent whose child has been referred for gifted screening wants one fact before anything else: which test will my child actually sit? It decides whether they should be looking at verbal analogies, at figure matrices, or at nothing at all. So we went and looked for it — reading the gifted-programme pages of 260 of the largest US school districts, in their own words, on their own websites.
Key findings
- Only 8.8% named the test. Of 260 districts checked, 23 said on their own site which cognitive screener they use.
- Having a gifted page is not the problem — saying what's on the test is. 98 districts publish a findable gifted page, but only 23.5% of those name an instrument on it. 75 describe the programme, the referral window and the appeals process — and never mention what the child will be given.
- 26 districts name more than one. Pairing an ability test with an achievement test is common, and it matters: a family preparing only for the ability half has prepared for half the decision.
- Among districts that do say, the CogAT is named most often, ahead of the NNAT.
Which tests districts name
Counts of districts naming each instrument. A district naming two appears in both rows.
What clarity looks like
These districts answer the question outright. Every quote below is from the district's own gifted page, and every one is a link you can check.
“What is automatic eligibility? After system-wide testing (CogAT in grades 1, 3, and 6, STAR in K-12), has been completed in the fall semester, the gifted specialist or gifted coordinator will review current standardized test scores on file to identify students who are automatically eligible for the ”
“Eligibility Requirements for participating in Saturday Enrichment (Grades 3-5) Grade 3 Scored in at least the 90th percentile on a second grade NWEA test or CogAT test Identified as High Ability Grades 4 – 5 Scored an above proficiency on the Spring 2025 Language Arts or Math ILEARN Identified”
“ccountability Performance Classification Hopkins Elementary School - Blue Meece Middle School - Green Somerset High School - Blue Formative Assessments Students in KG - 8th grades will participate in Measures of Academic Progress® or MAP ® an online test in math and reading three times per y”
“TIMELINE Grades 4 and 5: September - October Initial screening of new students in grades 4 and 5 (Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, third edition) Additional assessments in reading and mathematics are administered for students who need further screening Identification letters are sent home to new stu”
“ents who seek opportunities for advanced academic achievement: Staff development to support differentiation (tailoring instruction to meet a student's individual needs) Assessments, including the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) and portfolios Grades K-5 advanced learner identification and suppo”
“dent be re-evaluated or referred? Can my student be tested for Gifted Identification? How are CPS students identified as being eligible to receive services through the elementary EEE program? How Are NNAT3 Scores Calculated? What about new Columbia Public School students? What are the criteria for e”
Why this matters
The tests are not interchangeable. The NNAT and Raven's are entirely nonverbal — a child sees patterns and figures, and language never enters. The CogAT and OLSAT test verbal reasoning heavily. A family that prepares for the wrong one has spent weeks on the wrong skill, and a family that cannot find out often does not prepare at all.
That gap does not fall evenly. Parents who already know the system phone the gifted coordinator and ask. Families new to it — the ones the programme is meant to reach — read the page, find no answer, and stop. The cheapest equity fix in gifted admissions may simply be a sentence on a webpage naming the instrument.
It is also why every district page on this site tells you to confirm with the district, and why we quote the district's own words when they have said it. If your district is in the majority that hasn't, ask the gifted coordinator directly — it is a fair question and they will answer it.
Methodology
This study is not computed from our question bank. Between August 2026and the date shown above, we visited the official website of each of the largest US school districts by enrolment, confirmed we had the right district, and followed that site's own links to its gifted-programme pages. A district counts as “naming a test” only when a specific instrument (CogAT, NNAT, OLSAT, Raven's, CCAT, WISC-V, Iowa Assessments or MAP Growth) appears on a page about gifted identification, closer to gifted language than to any other programme's — so an Iowa Assessments mention on an English-learner page does not count. We record the URL and the sentence for every district counted, which is why the examples above are all clickable. Districts whose site we could not reach or identify are reported separately and excluded from the percentages. We did not extract dates or cut scores: those change yearly and go stale silently. You're welcome to cite this study with a link.
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