An Academic Model for Educating the Mathematically Talented

A usually unrecognized aspect of the "school reform" movement during the past two decades has been the huge increase in extracurricular academic efforts on behalf of intellectually exceptionally able boys and girls. Whereas in 1971 few students less than 14 years old took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), by 1990 more than 100,000 did. Those who score well are offered special, supplemental educational opportunities. The movement began at Johns Hopkins University in 1971 with the creation of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and spread within a dozen years to other private universities, i.e., Duke, Northwestern, and the University of Denver. Also, many public universities have begun such talent searching and educational facilitating. This article traces the origin and development of the network of independent centers and projects based on the SMPY model.