How Students Can Participate in the Johns Hopkins CTY Program

Do you think your student has the talent to attend the same summer camp that Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), Sergey Brin (founder of Google) or Lady Gaga went to?

This past weekend, my husband and I drove our daughter to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at Franklin & Marshall College in beautiful Lancaster, PA. This is a three-week program where students study one subject in depth. Students participate from all over the country and from various parts of the world. They are able to interact with other high-achieving students and to study in a way that prepares them for college and challenges them to learn new things. 

In the past, my daughter studied Data and Chance, Sensation and Perception (both at Mt. Holyoke) and Oceanography (in Hawaii). This year she is studying Introduction to Biomedical Sciences. While her focus has been math and science, many students participate in programs designed for reading, writing and the humanities.

The participants in the program are always supervised for safety reasons, but they also have the freedom of being independent of their parents for three weeks. It is a terrific way for them to learn to socialize and study on their own with no parental involvement and to learn what it’s like to live on a college campus.

This program is not currently offered through the Brewster school system but any student who scores well (90%+) on a national standardized test can apply to the program independently, and I want to share “the how” of getting into this program, because of the long-lasting impact it has had on my daughter.

Overview of the program

The Johns Hopkins University CTY offers unique educational opportunities for bright students throughout the United States and internationally. These programs are designed to advance knowledge in the subject areas of reading and writing, the humanities, math and science, for students from the 2^nd through 12^th grades.

These programs are offered in three unique ways: online/distance education programs, summer academic programs and family academic programs. There is financial aid and scholarships available for all of the programs offered through the CTY. As of June 2011, 1,891 students from New York have participated in the Talent Search process in order to gain access to our programs, according to Coordinator Jason Toraldo.

How the process works

In order for students to gain access to CTY programming, the student must first go through the Talent Search process. The Talent Search process can be accomplished in these three steps:

1. Fill out a Talent Search Application. This can be accomplished online by visiting this link, https://ctyjhu.org/tsonlineapp/introOnlineTSApp.cfm. Paper copies of the application can also be requested by contacting the New York Outreach Coordinator, Jason Toraldo, at jtorald1@jhu.edu.
2. Once the Center for Talented Youth has received your application and it has been processed, you will receive a packet in the mail concerning testing information. All students who apply for Talent Search are required to take an above-grade level test. Students in the 2^nd and 3^rd grade take a test known as the Elementary SCAT, students in the 4^th and 5^th grade will take the intermediate SCAT and students in the 6^th, 7^th or 8^th grade have the option of taking the Advanced SCAT, SAT or ACT.  Testing locations are offered at Prometric and College Board locations located throughout New York.  In special circumstances special testing options are arranged where the Outreach Coordinator will come to a specific location and administer the test.  Upon completion and scoring of the test students will be notified of their scores and qualification level for specific CTY programs.
3. Finally, the student can now register for the specific programs they wish to participate in online through the following website at http://cty.jhu.edu/