Indian-American schoolgirl Natasha Perianayagam has made it to the “world’s brightest” students list for the second consecutive year by the US-based Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth. The list was based on the results of above-grade-level tests of over 15,000 students across 76 countries.
Perianayagam, 13, is a student at Florence M Gaudineer Middle School, New Jersey. She also took the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY) test in Spring 2021, when she was in Grade 5. Her parents hail from Chennai. The school girl said she loves doodling and reading JRR Tolkien’s novels in her spare time. Her results in the verbal and quantitative sections levelled with the 90th percentile of advanced Grade 8 performance, which helped her into the honours list that year. This year, she was honoured for her exceptional performance on the SAT, ACT, School and College Ability Test, or similar assessment taken as part of the CTY Talent Search, the university said in a press release.
CTY used above-grade-level testing to identify advanced students globally. Less than 27 percent of its participants qualified for the CTY ceremony, receiving either high or grand honours based on their test scores. In her latest attempt, Perianayagam scored the highest grades among all candidates.
