Application + Admissions FAQs

The Davidson Academy is a middle and high school level school. It is recommended that applicants at minimum have 5th grade in progress at the time of application. Applicants need to meet the minimum eligibility criteria. Any student who is under the age of 18 and currently enrolled in the 4th grade or higher, meets eligibility criteria, and who can perform at an academic level of advanced middle school or higher in all subjects may apply to the Davidson Academy.

We look for strong applications that, as a whole, demonstrate an overall readiness for a rigorous academic environment. If your child had to retake a test multiple times to get a qualifying test score, or if one score meets, but the others do not, please consider delaying the application for a year. Please refer to the rest of the FAQs for resources to be used for math, science, reading, writing, and critical thinking. 

We encourage applicants to apply earlier rather than later. There are multiple cutoff dates for each assessment period and only a limited number of applicants are reviewed and assessed each month with the remainder being waitlisted.

The 2025-2026 application deadline has passed. The 2026-2027 application will open in late summer of 2025.

Yes, we accept applications at any time during the open application period.

That’s great! It’s important to note that each sibling will be evaluated and considered on their own merits. We encourage parents to submit their children's applications at the same time because we will invite siblings to the same assessment. This way, you’ll learn of their acceptance status at the same time and can plan for your family accordingly.

There are many testing options available to applicants. Please refer to the testing criteria for information.

Intelligence test information is addressed in the Davidson Gifted article, Gifted Testing and Assessment.   

In addition to meeting the eligibility criteria, strong applicants will meet, or be relatively close to, the published criteria in all subjects. If scores in one subject area are well below the criteria for that grade-level, applicants should access resources in that subject in order to apply as a stronger candidate the following year. Please refer to the rest of the FAQs for resources to be used for math, science, reading, writing, and critical thinking.  

The Davidson Institute has partnered with Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development (CTD) to offer Davidson-specific eligibility assessment opportunities for students in grades 3-5, as well as students in grades 6-10. Learn more about these testing options.

Additionally, local testing options are generally available. These may be located by contacting the appropriate academic talent search, your school counselor or registering directly with the respective testing agency. Intelligence tests are typically administered by licensed psychologists. You may wish to contact your state or local gifted and talented organization for information on appropriate testers in your area, or contact info@davidsongifted.org and the Davidson Institute staff may be able to assist.

For young applicants, this decision may be based on minimally qualified test scores or on other aspects of the application (grades, LORs, previous assessments, etc.); we may determine that an applicant needs another year’s growth to put them in a better position to be successful in the curriculum-based assessment. The reasons for declining older applicants may be the same as those listed above, or the issue might be an inability to place a student in our curriculum based on their current coursework.

For example, current 8th graders should be progressing in Alg I, and current 9th graders must be on track to complete Alg I by the end of the current school year. 

There will be academic readiness assessments held once a month from September through January. We may offer more assessment dates after January depending on the amount of qualified applications received. However, it is important to apply earlier rather than later as there are now cutoff dates for each assessment and only a limited number of applicants will be reviewed and assessed each month.

In preparing for applying to the Academy, we suggest that applicants focus on reading, writing, thinking, and mathematics skills rather than standardized test preparation. The standardized test scores (SAT, ACT, PSAT) are part of our application, but applicants who focus exclusively on those tend to be frustrated with our curriculum-based assessment because it is not multiple choice and it does not assess the same skills as the standardized tests. Our assessment is designed to emulate much of what students do during a typical day at the Academy in order to help us determine whether or not this school will be a good fit for each applicant. In addition, some families whose children have applied to the Academy more than once before being accepted have found that some online course work through the Talent Searches or other strong online supplementary schooling options have helped prepare their children for the Academy.

Many factors go into considering an applicant for admission to the Davidson Academy, including test scores, transcripts, recommendation forms, interviews and the academic readiness assessment. Test score guidelines will be evaluated in the context of all other materials submitted.

Because of our learning environment and small class sizes, we limit our in-person campus tours to applicants and families participating in scheduled monthly readiness assessments and interviews. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to offer individual touring opportunities outside of the admissions review process. 

Yes. Prospective Davidson Academy students may apply with the plan to move to Nevada following admission to the Academy. Living with a parent or guardian in Nevada results in access to the Academy as a free public school. For those who cannot move, there is the Davidson Academy's online campus.

Once a student is accepted to the Davidson Academy's Reno school and moves to Nevada with a parent or guardian, she or he meets all residency requirements of the State of Nevada as a student in a public school. A student from outside of Nevada who lives within driving distance of the Academy cannot be considered a resident.

Should your child not be accepted to Davidson Academy, they are still eligible to re-apply for the next academic year or future years. We also encourage you to check out the other programs and resources available through Davidson Institute and Davison Academy Online.

It is important to note that the Davidson Academy will not reconsider an admissions decision during the year in which the applicant was declined admission.

Davidson Academy and Davidson Academy Online are two different and independent schools. While much of the application process and eligibility requirements are similar, admissions are not interchangeable and acceptance to one does not carry over to the other. We encourage students to apply to both individually if both are of interest.