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In the News

June 8, 2009

Anything but standard

New Jersey middle-schoolers are changing the meaning of standardized testing as they earn top scores – and top rewards – on college entrance tests. Every year for 30 years, the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University has sought out the country’s brightest young scholars.

Students who earn top scores on specific standardized tests in second through tenth grade are offered summer courses, online classes, and family programs, in addition to being honored at ceremonies around the state and at Hopkins in Baltimore.

For three decades, Hopkins and Vanderbilt University have run a variety of research projects around the nation’s academic phenoms before they reach their thirteenth birthdays. These studies have found young students with exceptional math SAT scores tend to excel in careers in science, technology, engineering or math, while those showing remarkable abilities on verbal SAT tests pursued careers around languages, arts, literature, and the humanities.

Overall, research around young students who perform extraordinarily well on standardized tests indicates their enormous potential for subsequent achievements like earning doctoral degrees, publishing books, and earning patents.

For these young scholars, the university offers academic counseling and the chance to take part in online communities that are designed to encourage interaction with other kids like themselves. Hopkins’ research also suggests gifted students often stand out when exposed to other gifted peers in their group, where they continually raise the bar.

Source: The New Jersey Star-Ledger