March 30, 2009

UW honors local 5-8th graders for outstanding academic abilities

Nearly 900 fifth through eighth grade students from around Washington were honored for their outstanding verbal and/or mathematical abilities by the University of Washington at an Award Recognition Ceremony on March 29, 2009.

The students’ academic achievements were discovered through the Washington Search for Young Scholars, a statewide talent search operated by the UW’s Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars. The students and their families were honored in a special recognition ceremony at Meany Hall on the UW campus on March 29, 2009. Debby Benzinger of the Bellevue School District’s PRISM Program was the keynote speaker.

To be eligible for the awards, fifth and sixth grade students had to score in the upper three percent in reading/verbal or math/quantitative sections on a recent standardized achievement or aptitude test that compared them to students in Washington or nationally by grade levels. Fifth and sixth grade students could also qualify through high scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). Seventh and eighth graders were required to take either the SAT I or ACT college entrance exams and score above the mean for college-bound high school students.

The Washington Search for Young Scholars is one of a number of programs operated by the Robinson Center to serve Washington’s most academically talented students. The talent search was created to make parents and gifted children more aware of challenging academic programs at the UW and throughout Washington.

For more information, contact the Robinson Center at (206) 543-4160 or wsys@uw.edu.