Bussman, now 18 and a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was considered a gifted child growing up. According to The Gifted Development Center in Denver, children usually demonstrate giftedness by showing good verbal and problem-solving skills, abstract reasoning and intense curiosity at an early age. Like other gifted children, Bussman needed to be with other students who shared his intellect and interests in order to stay motivated and do well in school. Stephanie S. Tolan cite underachievement in school as the most common motivational problem parents of gifted children observe, although it is not the only one. Currently an adviser for Parents magazine, she has written extensively about the importance of special classes for gifted students.
Some students become depressed and disinterested when they reach the ceiling of their learning.
These programs are important because they give gifted children a chance to meet and interact with each other, an experience they may not get during the regular school year. While some students may balk at going to school in the summertime, more than 90,000 students take placement tests through the CTY talent search to get a spot in one of the coveted summer programs. Most of the students who end up at the CTY test in the 97th percentile or higher in standardized tests given at their schools, such as the Iowa test of Basic Skills or the Connecticut Test of Basic Skills. Programs for the gifted also can be found across the country and are often affiliated with universities, including Duke University, Northwestern, the University of Denver and the University of Delaware. Eser, a senior at Horace-Mann School in Riverdale, N.Y., recently was accepted by Stanford University and plans to major in computer science and electrical engineering.