[withdavidli]

Had the same reaction when I read that line. It's the same as saying scoring in the top 1% percentile is within your control. And how are kids even suppose to know about these schools at a young age? I would assume it's the parents that needs to be knowledgeable and push their children to those admission exams.

The author certainly seems to have a tormented school career. It's to be reminded that when in that situation, survival and escapism often takes priority than figuring out the best high school to go to.

[csande17]

I did some "gifted student" programs in middle school and high school, although not the specific one discussed in the article. This was my experience:

> And how are kids even suppose to know about these schools at a young age? I would assume it's the parents that needs to be knowledgeable and push their children to those admission exams.

Middle schools want to feed as many of their students to these programs as possible. When Johns Hopkins held an SAT for eighth graders, the teachers distributed flyers home and I heard about it on the morning announcements every day for two weeks. (If Virginia's middle schools aren't making students aware of their high school opportunities, that is very easy to fix.)

> It's the same as saying scoring in the top 1% percentile is within your control.

A topic of active debate within educational circles is whether we should tell students that intelligence is innate or that hard work/"grit" is the most important thing. There's some evidence that the "grit" story leads to better outcomes, so that's what educational establishments prefer to tell students.

It's likely, then, that "you can score in the top percentile with enough hard work and determination" is the official position of the school district. And who knows, it might even be true!

[jcranmer]

At my middle school, you could enroll in an afterschool prep class for TJHSST, run by the school. (And a large fraction of the GT students did!)

If you live in Fairfax County [where the school is located], it would be almost impossible to not have heard about TJHSST if you were in middle school.

[scudd]

I think the exam for TJ was relatively well known; but one thing I'd be interested in seeing is how much of kids attending TJ also attended a GT middle school, and how many also attended a GT elementary school. I have no numbers, but having gone through these systems myself, it seems like a lot to maybe even most. It become like a conveyer belt, and parents who understand the long term ramifications of these programs try to get their children on as early as possible.

Here is an interesting page I found on the history of the GT program for Fairfax Country Public Schools at elementary and middle school level: http://www.fcag.org/gtfcps.html

These are the names of some of the previous tests:

- Gifted Behaviors Rating Scale form

- Naglieri Non-Verbal Abilities Test

- OLSAT

Obviously we can't go back in time, but it would be interesting to know what kids at the testing eligible age thoughts/knowledge/understanding where around these tests.