Scottsdale Unified School District gifted and CogAT guide.

Scottsdale Unified School District identifies gifted students using the CogAT, the Cognitive Abilities Test, a reasoning assessment covering verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal batteries.

This guide is written for SUSD parents who want the exact testing window, the opt-out process, and the district's published qualifying score, since SUSD is unusually specific about the number a 2nd grader needs to hit.

What SUSD says about gifted testing

Every 2nd grader in SUSD is automatically registered for CogAT testing; families do not need to sign up. The 2025-26 testing window ran December 1 through December 19, 2025, and families who wanted to decline had an opt-out window of November 3 through November 14, 2025. Results arrive within 30 days of the close of the testing window, and testing is free of charge.

SUSD publishes an actual qualifying threshold, which is unusual: a score at or above the 97th percentile in verbal, quantitative, and/or nonverbal areas, or a Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) of 128 or higher. The district also uses the Naglieri General Ability Tests in its broader evaluation toolkit alongside the CogAT. A student may only test once per school year.

The CogAT's Nonverbal battery is the closest in format to the NNAT®: visual pattern and spatial reasoning without reading demands. The Verbal and Quantitative batteries test word relationships and number reasoning instead, so a 2nd grader taking the full CogAT is doing meaningfully different work across the three sections, not the same task three times.

Why the November opt-out window is the date to actually track

Because SUSD automatically registers every 2nd grader, most families do not have a sign-up deadline to remember, they have an opt-out deadline instead, and it is easy to miss precisely because there is nothing to do by default. The opt-out window in 2025-26 closed a full two weeks before testing began, on November 14.

For families who do want their child tested, which is the default, the useful date to track is the start of the testing window itself, so a 2nd grader has a general sense of what is coming rather than encountering it cold in December.

Questions SUSD parents should ask

1. What is this year's exact CogAT testing window and opt-out deadline?
2. Is 97th percentile or FSIQ 128 still the current qualifying threshold?
3. How will our family be notified of results, and within what timeframe?
4. What gifted services are available at our school for an identified student?
5. If my child does not qualify this year, is there a later testing opportunity?
6. Does SUSD use the Naglieri General Ability Tests for any students, and if so, when?

Our broader questions to ask your school guide can help you turn those into one clear conversation with the office or program contact.