Assessment FAQs

There will be academic readiness assessments held once a month from September through January. The Academy 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.

Writing is an important aspect of Academy curriculum because academic challenge is associated with the opportunity for students to present understanding in their own words. The readiness assessment has been designed to accurately reflect Academy curriculum, and thus, written expression is proportionately reflected.

Additionally, the assessment live sessions do include writing because this is the best way for the Academy to assess critical thinking and reading skills.

It has been extremely rare to find students who have received effective writing instruction in exposition or argument. Probably less than 2% of the Academy's total pool of applicants demonstrate prior access to this kind of instruction. This fact reflects trends in public and private education that value creative writing over expository writing, and it essentially places all of our applicants on a level playing field. Moreover, the Academy has normed assessment expectations based on the idea that most students have not had this type of instruction.

The majority of the materials used at assessment have come directly from Academy curriculum. In selecting the material from curriculum, the Academy uses the following guidelines:

• Raters look critically at potential assessment items to be sure that they were extremely effective when in DA classrooms.
• The Academy utilizes material that meets universal success when presented to current students so that expectations are crafted in a fair and consistent manner.
• The Academy opts for materials that will offer the maximum amount of accessibility to applicants who vary widely in terms of academic experience and maturity.

In preparing for applying to the Academy, we suggest that applicants focus on reading, writing, thinking, and mathematics skills rather than standardized test preparation. 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. The resources in the next two FAQs may be helpful in preparing for assessment. 

Seventh graders (and younger) must be ready for Alg I since that is our lowest math class. Eighth graders must be ready for Geometry—with good skills in Alg I. Ninth and tenth grade applicants must be ready for Alg II with total mastery of Alg I.

Note: if your child is in an “integrated math” class, be aware that these classes are usually Integrated I (half of Alg I and half of geometry) and Integrated II (where students finish Alg I and geometry).

Please refer to these resources for a comparison of online programs: Math Resources and Science Resources. You can also look for local tutoring or work with your child at home. Useful activities at home could include playing math games, watching and discussing quality science shows like NOVA, working with appropriate math and science books from publishers like the Critical Thinking Co. , using free online resources like the Crash Course series or Khan Academy, using an ACT test prep book for the science reasoning section, etc. If you’re interested in working with a tutor, this article may be useful to you: Finding an Advanced Tutor. This is not an exhaustive list of resources—it is just a starting point to give families some direction.  

Please refer to this resource for a comparison of online programs: Language Art Resources . You can also look for local tutoring or work with your child at home. Useful activities at home would include playing word games, working with appropriate reading, writing and critical thinking books from publishers like the Critical Thinking Co. , using free online resources like the the Crash Course series or Khan Academy, work through the book Best Short Stories, edited by Raymond Harris (a resource for reading, writing, discussing, and critical thinking). When you read with your child, talk with them about making a debatable claim about the story and supporting that claim with evidence from the text. They can also practice doing that in paragraph form: write out an inference, find at least two pieces of support (quoting or paraphrasing), show how that evidence supports their claim or inference, and write a concluding sentence. If you’re interested in working with a tutor, this article may be useful to you: Finding an Advanced Tutor. This is not an exhaustive list of resources—it is just a starting point to give families some direction.

There are readiness benchmarks for all Academy classes, so we compare students’ skills against the benchmarks they need to meet for their age group and for the time of year in which they are being assessed. In other words, a 6th grader would need to meet benchmarks for the Academy's lowest level course in each subject (they may well end up being placed higher than that, but for assessment purposes, we’re just looking at meeting a minimum level). An 8th grader would need to show readiness for DA's earliest high school credit courses in each subject. An 8th grader testing in September would be compared to current Academy 8th graders’ skills at that point in the school year; an 8th grader testing in March would be compared to current Academy 8th graders’ skills at that point in the school year. Students who are accepted show readiness that is on par with their current DA age/grade peers. This system ensures that incoming students are ready for DA classes that align with their graduation trajectories. It also ensures a fair evaluation of skills between early fall and late spring.