I mentioned in another post that nearly 25% of DD's new school is in Gifted Programs, but that they actually are smart, and probably all of them would be considered gifted. It just seems too weird, though, that 25% of the people at our school would be at where apparently only 2% of the general population are. The school has fairly strict criteria for entrance, which means getting at least at the 98th percentile on above grade level tests (ITBS, I believe, one year ahead), PLUS at least 130 on 2 sections of the CoGAT test and/or NNAT. I can believe that a "bright" person could get a good score on Achievement, or maybe the CoGATs, but both? It seems improbable that anyone at the 75th Percentile, or even the 90% would have solid 98% or 99% scores.
The 11-12 school she will go to when she gets to that age (in 9th grade now) is on the top 20 list of national merit scholar schools. It gets high scores on various state and national competitions. We live next to a few Engineering places, so one could assume that most engineers are either very bright or gifted, and they could have passed the genes on to children. About 75% (or more, she can't really estimate) of the kids in the gifted programs are Asian, but I can't really believe that any amount of "pressure" from parents would make them score in the gifted range, so I'm sure most of them are truly gifted. Does anyone have any input on if all of these students being gifted is feasible, statistically?
