Center for Talented Youth

The Center for Talented Youth (CTY) is a gifted education program for school-age children, founded in 1979 by Dr. Julian Stanley at Johns Hopkins University. It was initially a research study of the rate at which gifted children can learn new material and became the first program of its kind to identify academically talented youths and provide learning opportunities. CTY offers numerous programs around the world and online but is best known for its fast-paced Summer Programs, which are held on many university campuses throughout the United States and the world and serve over 9,000 students each year. [cite web | url=http://cty.jhu.edu/about/history.html | title=About CTY | publisher=Johns Hopkins University | year=2005] CTY is an accredited school for grades 5 to 12 by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

Other names

CTY has held several previous names. Dr. Stanley's research groups, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and the Program for Verbally Gifted Youth (PVGY), were combined in the early 1980s to form the Office of Talent Identification and Development (OTID). OTID was renamed Center for Talented Youth, which was expanded to Center for the Advancement of Academically Talented Youth (CAATY) for a brief period. Later, CTY became the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth (IAAY). However, most students, parents, schools, and staff members preferred to call it CTY, and the name was changed back in 1999. [cite web | url=http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0402web/wholly2.html#academese | title=Johns Hopkins Magazine | publisher=Johns Hopkins University | year=2004]

Talent search

Generally from October to February each year, CTY's Talent Search recruits highly-able elementary and middle school students (who have scored at or above the 95th percentile on in-grade standardized tests) to qualify for CTY's academic programs. [cite web | url=http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/ | title=Talent Search and Testing | publisher=Johns Hopkins University | year=2006 | accessdate=2006-09-11] Applicants then take a standardized test that is above their grade level, beyond the ability of most children their age.

*Students in the 2nd to 4th grades take the School and College Ability Test (SCAT) at the Elementary level, administered by either CTY or Prometric.
*Students in the 5th and 6th grades take the SCAT at the Intermediate and Secondary levels, respectively. Previously the PLUS test was used.
*Students in the 7th to 11th grades take the SAT or ACT, administered by The College Board.

To qualify for CTY Summer Programs, a 7th grade student must score at roughly the 50th percentile achieved by graduating high school seniors. Younger students must pass somewhat lower thresholds based on grade level; applicants above 7th grade face correspondingly higher cutoffs. Students in 5th grade and above may optionally take CTY's Spatial Test Battery; high scorers on the STB face slightly lower SCAT or SAT requirements. CTY has considered other entrance criteria several times over the years, but found that SAT (et al.) remained the best predictor of student success in CTY courses.

CTY has another summer program, the Center for Academic Advancement (CAA), for gifted students in grades 7 to 11 who are in the top 2% of their age group. CAA is similar to CTY in most respects, aside from lower SAT score requirements and slightly less rigorous curricula. CTY Distance Education courses have test score requirements similar (but not necessarily identical) to those of the summer programs.

CTY course eligibility is based on the math and/or verbal subscores, depending on the course's subject matter (e.g. science courses mainly require math, writing courses require verbal). Over 80000 students are tested each year, more than half of whom qualify for some portion of CTY's course offerings.

CTY Talent Search officially operates in Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York , Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Students from other states are officially served by sister programs such as Duke University's Talent Identification Program or Northwestern's Center for Talent Development; however, they do not offer as many programs or sites as CTY, so cross-registrations are allowed. Students from every state, and dozens of countries, participate in CTY programs each year.

ummer programs

The Summer Programs are CTY's hallmark and its most visible public face. Many people use the term "CTY" as a synonym for the 7th to 11th grade CTY summer program.

CTY sites typically host a few hundred students each, divided into a few dozen course sections, for one or two three-week sessions. Separate sites and courses are offered for each level of students (grades 2-4, grades 5-6, older students). Sites for the youngest group are commuter programs that students attend only in the daytime. All of the other sites are residential programs where most students live in college dormitories during the session, but a few in the local area may opt to commute.

Classes in CTY are small--usually 12 students, one instructor, and one teacher's assistant (TA) per class, making the ratio of students to teachers 6:1.

CTY sites

CTY summer programs for the 7th grade and above are held at the following sites:

* Franklin & Marshall College - Lancaster, Pennsylvania
* Johns Hopkins University - Baltimore, Maryland
* Dickinson College - Carlisle, Pennsylvania
* Hawaii Pacific University - Kaneohe, Hawaii
* Loyola Marymount University - Los Angeles, California
* Princeton University - Princeton, New Jersey (Entering 10th-12th grades only)
* Siena College - Loudonville, New York
* Skidmore College - Saratoga Springs, New York

CTY summer programs for young students are available for students grades 2-4 in the daytime, and for those in 5th and 6th grades as residential or daytime programs. They are held at the following sites:

* Moravian College - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
* Washington College - Chestertown, Maryland
* Stanford University - Palo Alto, California
* Mount Holyoke College - South Hadley, Massachusetts
* California Lutheran University - Thousand Oaks, California
* St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School - Alexandria, Virginia
* The Windward School - Los Angeles, California
* Garrison Forest School - Owings Mills, Maryland
* Maranatha High School - Pasadena, California
* Sandy Spring Friends School - Sandy Spring, Maryland
* St. Paul's School - Brooklandville, Maryland

Other summer programs

CTY has recently begun to hold residential programs for students in 10th to 12th grade. Six advanced courses are offered at Princeton University. This site has the same entry requirements as CTY for 7th to 11th graders; some courses also have prerequisites. [ [http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/princeton/ CTY Summer Program at Princeton University] ] In addition, the Civic Leadership Institute (CLI) (grades 10-12) hosts 80 students a year. An alliance between Northwestern's Civic Education Project and CTY with the same academic requirements as the Center for Academic Advancement, the CLI service-learning program was hosted last year at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.

CAA

The Center for Academic Advancement (CAA) is a gifted education program, part of the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer programs. Students are accepted based on SAT and ACT standardized test scores with a threshold slightly lower than the more-competitive CTY programs. The only differences between this program and CTY is the course offerings.

CAA Sites

CAA programs for the 7th grades and above are held at the following sites:

* Moravian College - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
* Roger Williams University - Bristol, Rhode Island
* Lafayette College - Easton, Pennsylvania
* University of California at Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz, California
* California Lutheran University - Thousand Oaks, California
* Hawaii Pacific University - Kaneohe, Hawaii
* College of Notre Dame of Maryland - Baltimore, Maryland

CTY International

CTY partners with numerous educational institutions around the world. For the most part, their programs and summer sites are hosted independently of CTY. [cite web |url=http://cty.jhu.edu/about/ctyintl.html |title=CTY International |year=2007 ]

* CTY Bermuda is operated by Bermuda's Institute for Talented Students in affiliation with CTY. ctybermuda.org
* CTY China is a CTY sub-unit at the University of Nanjing, exclusively available to high school students. [ [http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/china/index.html CTY China] ]
* CTY España (CTYS) is an accredited center of Instituto Cervantes. [ [http://www.ctys.net CTY Spain] ]
* CTY Ireland (CTYI) is operated by Dublin City University. [ [http://www.dcu.ie/ctyi/ CTY Ireland] ]
* CTY Mexico is a CTY sub-unit at the Universidad de las Américas, in the city of Puebla, available to grades 7-10. [cite web |url=http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/mexico/ |title=CTY Summer Program for 7th - 10th Graders at the University of the Americas Puebla, Mexico |year=2007 ]
* CTY Thailand is operated by Mae Fah Luang University.
* The United Kingdom's National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) was founded on CTY's program model. Each year approximately three students from the United States and three students from the UK switch places; however, in 2007 it was 7 students.

tudent evaluations

In general, CTY students are not given traditional letter grades. Instead, they are given page-long written evaluations composed by the instructor with input from the teaching assistant. The evaluations are signed by the instructor and sometimes by the teaching assistant and must be approved individually by the Site Director. The "CTY Instructor's Handbook" suggests writing three types of evaluations which correspond roughly to grades of "high pass," "pass," and "low pass."

These specific terms are not used, since they suggest traditional grading, but instructors generally follow the suggestions of the Handbook and write three boilerplate evaluations. Students are ranked into three groups and receive a corresponding evaluation to which personalized remarks specific to the student are added, i.e. "Your story, "Motel Saturday Night" showed both biting satire and keen understanding of U.S. oil policy." The difference between the three types of evaluations may be subtle.

The specific exception to this rule is in the case of courses designed specifically to enable students to skip classes in their high schools, such as Individually Paced Mathematics Sequence or the three Fast Paced High School science courses. Students in these courses do receive letter grades so that their schools can gauge their performances; however, they also receive individualized comments from their instructors.

CTY"Online"

CTY also offers distance education courses through CTY"Online", with similar eligibility standards to the Summer Programs. CTY's distance courses began in 1983 with the "Writing Tutorials" through postal mail; this course migrated to email in the 1990s, and now uses Moodle. CTY"Online"'s course offerings have expanded from math and writing into many subject areas, including economics, foreign language, programming, and the physical sciences. CTY"Online" now serves over 8000 students per year, and is expected to surpass the Summer Program's head count in the near future. Additional distance students can be enrolled by adding an instructor and a computer or two, whereas expanding a summer site requires a great deal of staffing and logistics.

Students usually receive assignments through the Internet and turn in their work the same way. The most common examples are by email and through a website, although many also use CD-ROMs and/or downloaded files. Some courses, such as writing, require students to complete an assignment by a deadline before receiving a new assignment. Other courses, such as accelerated math, are individually paced; each student may complete as much material as they can within the given enrollment period. [cite web | url=http://cty.jhu.edu/cde/ | title=CTY Distance Education | publisher=Johns Hopkins University | year=2006 | accessdate=2006-09-11]

Other CTY programs

*Family Academic Programs, also known as Conferences, are collections of seminars and hands-on activities in various locations around the world.
*The Study of Exceptional Talent is a longitudinal study of Talent Search participants who scored 700 or above on the math or verbal section of the SAT before age 13, such as Terence Tao.
*Imagine is an educational magazine aimed at middle and high school students.
*Center for Academic Advancement is a program nearly identical to CTY's summer programs, but with a lower minimum SAT score requirement.
*Cogito is a website where students recognized by the CTY can join a community to discuss a wide variety of topics with other students and leading academic figures. [http://cty.jhu.edu/gifted/cogito.html CTY Description of Cogito]

Publicity

*CTY was featured in a July 2004 article in The New Yorker magazine entitled "Nerd Camp" [Burkhard Bilger, Annals of Childhood, "Nerd Camp," The New Yorker, July 26, 2004, p. 64]
*Nickelodeon is producing an entire movie about CTY, also entitled Nerd Camp, The movie is being written by Adam Stzykiel [McNary, Dave. "'Nerd' herd camps out with a scibe." Variety. 25 Sep. 2005. Variety. 19 Aug. 2008 . ]
*CTY was also shown in an hour long CNN special on gifted children in 2006. ["CTY Featured on CNN." JHU Center for Talented Youth. 2006. JHU Center for Talented Youth. 19 Aug. 2008 . ]

CTY alumni and students

CTY is home to many students of great academic ability. Achievements and recognitions for CTY students include:

* 6 of 32 American Recipients of the 2006 Rhodes Scholarship. [cite web |title=Press Release: Center for Talented Youth Alumni Net Top Academic Honors |url=http://cty.jhu.edu/alumni/news.html |year=2006 ]
* 32 Rhodes Scholarship winners since the year 2000.
* numerous top finishers in the Intel Science Talent Search, including the first-place winner in 2005.
* numerous award winners in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, including a grand prize winner in 2007.
* 2 winners of the Siemens Westinghouse Competition.
* 2 contestants in the 2006 National Geographic Bee national-level competition.
* At least one participant in Scripps National Spelling Bee.
* numerous participants in the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, including winners Graham Gilmer, David Walter, and Meryl Federman.
* George Hotz, who became famous as the first person to hack the iPhone [http://www.cellphonedigest.net/news/2007/08/17_year_old_unlocks_the_apple.php]
* 1 contestant in the 2006 National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) national-level competition.

Many CTY alumni go on to attend Ivy League and top tier universities: MIT, [ [http://www.mattababy.org/CTY/ MIT CTY Alumni Association] ] Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, the California Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, and Stanford University. [ [http://stanford.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200071677 Stanford CTY Alumni Facebook group.] ]

ee also

* Johns Hopkins University
* Dr. Julian C. Stanley
* Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland
* Rocky Mountain Talent Search, University of Denver
* Talent Identification Program, Duke University

References

reflist

External links

* [http://cty.jhu.edu/ CTY Official Website]
* [http://www.realcty.org/ RealCTY (Wiki CTY site)]
* [http://www.postctydepression.com/ Post-CTY Depression: Alumni site]
* [http://www.cogito.org/ Cogito]