Do you have any insight into what happens at Hunter round 2 of gifted and talented testing?

Hunter College Elementary Round 2

Hunter College Elementary is a school in Manhattan for gifted and talented children.  The school is publicly funded and only open to residents of Manhattan. It is not part of the public school system.  The Hunter School is very competitive because it is unique in that it is a research teaching school.  About 3,500 students apply to get into kindergarten. Out of those they accept 25 boys and 25 girls every year.  The only opportunities to get your child into Hunter are in kindergarten and 7th grade through high school.  62% of Hunter’s high school seniors attend Ivy League or top universities after graduation—the highest rate in the country.

There are two rounds of testing to get your child into the Hunter School.  In Round 1, your child must score around 142-148 on the Stanford-Binet® IQ test in past years. This year, 2010, the cut-off was 149.  For Round 2 of testing, the field is narrowed from 150-200 four year-olds to about 20 to come to Hunter for round 2 of observation.  Teachers bring the children into a classroom (without their parents) where they observe for approximately 2-3 hours doing projects and interacting with one another. There, teachers see and learn the child’s strengths and weaknesses.

No one knows the exact recipe for what the Hunter School looks for in a child. What we do know is they except a child to work well with others, respond to questions, and take direction.  Though they certainly look for basic intelligence (one can expect their four year old to be asked questions involving basic arithmetic, such as “what’s 6+3?”). Since Hunter promotes itself as a research college, selecting a well-rounded classroom is very important and they want children that may bring a variety of skills. Do not prepare your child for round two except to make sure that they are comfortable talking in group settings, interactive, and can talk comfortably to adults.

I have found that they mainly evaluate problem solving, creative thinking and verbal & math. From what parents have said they also evaluate leadership, ability to learn a new task and respond to complex directions.