SEARCH FOR TALENT

Teens strive for spot in summer program by scoring well on early SATs.

Seventh grade is a little early to be taking the Scholastic Assessment Test. Most students don't take the SAT until 11th grade.

But through a program called the Midwest Talent Search, the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University identifies gifted and talented students in junior highs and middle schools and encourages them to take the SAT or ACT (American College Testing program assessment).

For the students, it gives them the experience of taking the standardized tests that will help them get into colleges. They also may learn where their academic strengths lie and what their schools may need to do to challenge them.

If they do well on the tests, they're invited to attend one of the three-week summer programs at Northwestern and other colleges.

There, they can live on campus and immerse themselves in a subject area of their choice, from advanced mathematics to chemistry to literature. They also will meet other gifted and talented students and get a taste of college life.

Last year, about 27,000 students were invited by the Midwest Talent Search to take the SAT or ACT early. Of the 600 kids, attending the summer program at Northwestern, 72 percent were there because of the talent search.

Challenging the students

Children's Express recently traveled to the Northwestern campus in Evanston, Ill., to talk with talent search officials and with former students of the program.

Barry Grant, associate director of the Center for Talent Development, said Midwest Talent Search offers students opportunities that may not be available in their classrooms or schools.

"The way things are, there's lots of students in classes who aren't being taught at the pace and the level that they can really work at," he said. "They're not being appropriately challenged, and participating in the Midwest Talent Search gives you the information you need to see that - hey, you're talented."

While taking the SAT early can be a challenging experience, Northwestern freshman Alan Heyman, who went through three summer programs at Northwestern, said he'd do it again.

Heyman took the SAT in seventh grade and then again in ninth, 10th and 11th grades. He also started attending the summer program at Northwestern after his freshman year in high school.

"That was a bit bewildering because that was the first time I was outside of the house for an extended period of time," he said.

He thinks that sending kids off to college at such an early age is a good experience. According to Heyman, it teaches students how to deal with people and responsibilities in ways that they don't usually get in junior high or high school.

"I made some pretty good friends. I learned a lot through the course that I took," he summarized. "And then in 10th grade, and then after in 11th grade, it just kept getting better."

A learning experience

Northwestern junior Catherine Sorte agrees. Starting in the eighth grade, she participated in the summer program at Northwestern four years in a row.

"It was a really good opportunity for me to explore my abilities and learn, let me learn about other students in the area that had the same interests and goals that I did, which was really nice because I went to a very small junior high and high school and sometimes it felt a little lonely."

Salvador DelRosario, A Filipino-American, remembers feeling the same way. Now a junior at Northwestern, he participated in the Midwest Talent Search in eighth grade.

"I went to a school where I was pretty much the only Asian- American kid," he said. But that wasn't the case at the summer program he attended.

"There were a lot of Asian-American kids there," he recalled. "It was the first time I got together and met more people like myself."

If not for the Midwest Talent Search, 18-year-old Carlwil James would be just graduating from high school rather than wrapping up his sophomore year at Northwestern.

James first took the SAT in sixth grade and spent four summers in the Northwestern program. "It turned out that I had an incredible experience. (I) did a substantial part of my growing up there in three weeks a year as opposed to 49 weeks a year in Cleveland," he explained.

All four former Midwest Talent Search participants saw their test scores rise from the time they first took the SAT or ACT.

Sorte took her first SAT in eighth grade. "I actually got an award from the Midwest Talent Search for having one of the highest verbal scores out of the kids that they surveyed," she said, adding that her score improved later when she took the SAT her junior year.

Heyman also noticed increases in his SAT and ACT scores from the first time he took them in seventh grade. As a junior, "you're obviously going to have better skills with the vocabulary and the type of math that they have you do," he explained.

Midwest Talent Search

For more information and application forms, contact: Center for Talent Development - Midwest Talent Search, Northwestern University, 617 Dartmouth Place, Evanston, Ill. 60208-4175, or call (708) 491-3711.

For questions about the process and benefits, call Leslie Rebhorn, the Indiana Midwest Talent Search liaison, at (317) 447- 8337.

EDITED BY: Mike Pothast, 14