overrepresented IQ gifted Asian students

In a plenary address at the annual Congress of the American National Association for Gifted Children in November 1985, Sternberg reported that the number of students of Asian background in American programmes for gifted children exceeded the normative expectations from population figures by a factor of five. Entrance to programmes for gifted children in the U.S. is usually set at a level to accommodate moderately gifted children rather than the highly or exceptionally gifted; thus an interesting pattern seems to be developing an over-representation of Asian children by a factor of five in the population of moderately gifted students and by a considerably greater factor-15 or over among the exceptionally gifted. A student has to be extremely gifted mathematically to score more than 700 on the SAT-M by the age of 13; only 4 per cent of college-bound 17 and 18 year olds in the U.S. attain such a score!