Young, Gifted and Skipping High School
Young, Gifted and Skipping High School
washingtonpost.com 12/3/2007
As Jackie Robson rushed off to Japanese 101, a pink sign on the main door of her college dorm reminded her to sign out. There were more rules: an 11 p.m. curfew, mandatory study hours, round-the-clock adult supervision and no boys allowed in the rooms.
Jackie is 14. She never spent a day in high school.
Like the other super-bright girls in her dorm, the Fairfax County teen bypassed a traditional education and countless teenage rites, such as the senior prom and graduation, to attend the all-female Mary Baldwin College in the Shenandoah Valley.
The school offers students as young as 12 a jump-start on college in one of the leading programs of its kind. It also gives brainy girls a chance to be with others like them. By all accounts, they are ready for the leap socially and emotionally, and they crave it academically.
Last spring, Jackie finished eighth grade at Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston. This fall, she’s taking Psychology 101, Japanese 101, English 101, Folk Dance and U.S. History 1815-1877: Democracy and Crisis.
About 57 percent of those who enter the fast-track program graduate from Mary Baldwin, and some transfer to other colleges, officials said. Many go to graduate school; others travel or volunteer. Alumnae are lawyers, teachers and professors.
Nicholas Colangelo, director of the University of Iowa’s Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, said that acceleration makes sense for some of the brightest students.
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