A top university
in the United States has judged an 11-year-old girl as one of the brightest
students in the world on the basis of her performances in the SAT and ACT standardised
tests. Natasha Peri, a student at New Jersey’s Thelma L Sandmeier Elementary
School, had taken SAT, ACT or similar assessment tests as part of the Johns
Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent (CTY) Search, a statement said on
Monday.

Peri was
among the nearly 19,000 students from 84 countries who took part in the CTY in the 2020-21
Talent Search year, news agency PTI reported. CTY uses above-grade-level testing to identify advanced
students from around the world and assess the potential of their academic
abilities.

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Peri took
the Johns Hopkins Talent Search test in Spring 2021, when she was in the 5th
grade. Her scores from the verbal and quantitative sections were on par with
the 90th percentile of advanced grade 8 performance.

She was included
in the Johns Hopkins CTY “high Honors Awards”.

“This
motivates me to do more,” Peri said, adding that doodling and reading JRR
Tolkien’s novels are among her favourite pastime activities.

Less than 20%
of the CTY Talent Search participants qualify for the CTY high Honours Awards.
Some students are also chosen for the CTY online and summer programmes, through
which students can form a community of engaged learners from around the world.

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“We are
thrilled to celebrate these students. In a year that was anything but ordinary,
their love of learning shined through, and we are excited to help cultivate
their growth as scholars and citizens throughout high school, college, and
beyond,” Virginia Roach, CTY’s executive director said in a statement.

Both the
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) are
standardised tests that many colleges use to determine whether to accept a
student for admission. In some cases, companies and non-profits also use these
scores to award merit-based scholarships.

All
colleges require students to take either the SAT or the ACT and submit their
scores to their prospective universities.