Media Contact: Matt Bowden
Email: mtbowden1@jhu.edu
Phone: 410-735-6045
BALTIMORE September 18, 2006— CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta highlighted the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Sunday night in his primetime discussion of “Genius”, a one hour program exploring the many facets of giftedness in America. “Hopefully, we’ll shed some light on the meaning of genius and the way great ideas are born,” Gupta, the senior medical correspondent for the health and medical unit at CNN, said in a press release earlier in the week. During his segment featuring CTY, Dr. Gupta provided an “inside look at the prestigious Johns Hopkins summer camp for high-achieving teenagers” filmed this past summer on the Hopkins campus. “They want to be smarter” “It is just so much fun,” 13-year-old student Asha Lemmie said of the CTY program, “you don't think about the work anymore.” For two three-week sessions each summer, some of the brightest students from around the world gather on college campuses to take courses through CTY in subjects that range from bioengineering and data structures, to psychology and fiction writing. Like over 84,000 other gifted students last year, Lemmie qualified for this special program by participating in CTY’s academic Talent Search, which is currently accepting applications. Students in seventh and eighth grade take the SAT or ACT—the same tests taken by college-bound juniors and seniors. Students in second through sixth grades take the SCAT--similar to the SAT and ACT but scaled for younger students. “These teens are an academic elite,” says Gupta, “the top one percent based on the SAT. As smart as they are, they want to be smarter. So they come . . . to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, or CTY, with alumni like Sergey Brin, who went on to co-found Google.” Full transcripts of Dr. Gupta’s “Genius” program can be found at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/17/se.02.html # # # About The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) CTY conducts the nation's oldest and most extensive academic talent search and offers educational programming for students with exceptionally high academic ability. CTY parallels, and complements, a gifted child’s regular school experience. CTY’s programs and students have been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and other premier American publications. Other information: - CTY is a nonprofit center at The Johns Hopkins University.
- CTY draws students from 19 states and DC, as well as students from over 71 countries.
- 2005-2006 saw over 84,000 second- through eighth graders participate in CTY’s Talent Searches.
- CTY provided $5 million in financial aid to over 2,150 students in 2005-6.
- In the 2005-6 Talent Search, 19.8% of students in CTY’s Talent Search were identified as underrepresented.
- Gifted students qualifying for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program may join the Talent Search virtually for free.
More information is available at www.cty.jhu.edu, including a May 4 story that aired on NPR about middle schoolers and the SAT. # # # | 
