She is an A student. She is also just 13, and in September she will enter the eighth grade at the Ann Street School in Newark. Miss Monteiro was plucked from the inner city by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to join some of the nation's highest achieving junior high school scholars at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth, where for up to six weeks students with stratospheric College Board scores immerse themselves in everything from calculus to Renaissance art at one of a dozen campuses nationwide. The Center, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in October, draws top students from 25 states and 36 countries.
Some students master two courses.
Sixty-five parti cipants from the New York area, including Stephanie Monteiro, were awarded full scholarships. For most of the 21 Newark students in the program in August, it was their first experience away from home. Adjusting to dormitory life and enduring the rigors of a year's curriculum crammed into several weeks is all part of the challenge. The Center scouts middle and junior high schools, primarily in the Northeast and on the West Coast, for students who score above the 97th percentile on standardized exams like the California Achievement Tests or Iowa Tests. The students are then inv ited by the Center to take the College Board exams.