Also, the Johns Hopkins talent search has a cutoff of above a 550 on math & critical reading for the "basic" awards ceremony for 7th graders, and a cutoff of 700 for the "grand ceremony". Only Duke seems to publish the percentiles for 7th graders (don't see it for Johns Hopkins), and it looks like a 550 is equivalent to 92nd percentile of talent search participants, and the 700 is well into the 99th percentile. Remembering that you are at least "supposed" to have scored in the 95th percentile or above on a nationally normed test to be a talent search participant (I'm sure some really aren't that high, but still), being in the top 8% or 1% of that already talented group seems reasonably stringent, no? But perhaps there are different talent searches that are more lenient with their awards?

Here is the Duke 7th grade data:
http://www.mckinneyisd.net/Docs/7GTSResultsSummary.pdf

Hope that helps!