Tehachapi News

BALTIMORE, Spring 2008—Ethan Brill, a student from Tehachapi, has been accepted to attend the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth  academic programs for gifted second through twelfth graders this summer.  

Program draws bright students together
Brill joins several thousand other students this year from across the U.S. and 90 countries who, because of their outstanding academic abilities, qualified for the Hopkins program. 

Archaeology, Oceanography, Robotics, and Existentialism are just a few of the over one-hundred CTY courses available in two three-week sessions over the summer. This format permits students to work at a challenging pace, explore topics in depth, and study subjects not often available to students their age. 

Classes are offered at 26 domestic sites, from Johns Hopkins University in the east to Stanford University in the west, including a new Language Immersion program at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. CTY is also filling its international summer programs in China, Mexico, and Spain. Residential programs, available to students in grades 5-12, provide the opportunity to live, study, and socialize with other bright, motivated students. Day programs in Baltimore/DC and Los Angeles are open to students in grades 2-6.

“These teens are an academic elite,” said Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the 2006 CNN special, Genius: Quest for Extreme Brain Power. “As smart as they are, they want to be smarter. So they come . . . to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, or CTY, with alumni like Sergey Brin, who went on to co-found Google.” 

Academic “talent search” is program gateway
Like over 10,000 other gifted students last year, Brill qualified for this special program by participating in CTY’s academic Talent Search, which accepts applications from early September to late May. Students in seventh and eighth grade take the SAT or ACT—the same tests taken by college-bound juniors and seniors. Students in second through sixth grades take the SCAT--similar to the SAT and ACT but scaled for younger students.  

“CTY has an excellent academic program,” says 5-year CTY student Tom Flaherty. “But I cannot stress enough how awesome it is for the gifted to experience camaraderie. The social world is turned downside up and outside in, so much so that even the most radically gifted will find themselves among peers.”

Brill will be taking Writing the Expository Essay at California Lutheran State University.

#        #        #

About The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY)
CTY conducts the nation's oldest and most extensive academic talent search and offers educational programming for students with exceptionally high academic ability. CTY parallels, and complements, a gifted child’s regular school experience. CTY’s programs and students have been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and other premier American publications. Other information:

• CTY is a nonprofit center at The Johns Hopkins University.
• CTY draws students from 50 states and DC, as well as students from over 90 countries.
• 2006-07 saw over 73,000 second- through eighth graders participate in CTY’s Talent Searches.
• CTY provided $4.52 million in financial aid to over 1,700 students in 2006-07.
• In the 2006-07 Talent Search, 15.6% of students in CTY’s Talent Search were identified as underrepresented..
• Gifted students qualifying for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program may join the Talent Search virtually for free.

#        #        #