Eight Britton Middle School students have already taken a step
in the direction of a future college career.
Eight Britton Middle School students have already taken a step in the direction of a future college career. They’ve taken the SAT through a program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, My.
The Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at the university invites seventh- and eighth-grade students who have scored in the 97 percentile or above in math on the state standardized test to participate in the program.
While 60 students at Britton qualified for the program, three seventh-graders – Joshua Yip, Emily Mandel and Nicholas Hightower – and five eighth-graders – Adam Chiri, Sachin Nediyanchath, Steven Rick, Jared Thomas and Thomas Parker – actually took the test.
“It seemed like just another big test to me,” said Steven, who is considering studying engineering. “We spent some time getting ready for the test,” Thomas said. “I probably studied for a couple of weeks.”
All eight students achieved scores comparable to or better than the average college-bound high school senior, which earned them the Distinction Award, math teacher Kathy Hansell, who coordinated the program at Britton.
Emily, Sachin, Steven and Joshua earned an invitation to the state awards ceremony by scoring 550 or above on the math or verbal (seventh-graders) or 600 or above on math or verbal (eighth-graders).
“I’m very proud of all of these kids,” said Hansell. “To qualify for the program says a lot about the student in the beginning, and to perform so well on the test is certainly an achievement.”
The students appeared matter-of-fact about the experience, although Nicholas did say when he learned what his scores were, he “felt kind-of smart.”
CTY offers programs for kids who qualify during the summer at various locations around the nation. Several of the students said they might take advantage of the opportunity.
“I took one (of the mini-courses) last year,” Joshua said. “It was in cryptology, and I thought it was pretty interesting. I’m thinking about doing another one this year.”
Emily, who is into soccer as well as studying, said she thought the CTY was a good program.
“It’s sort-of interesting to see what you can do, and maybe what you can do in college,” she said.
