When I stepped into 优蜜视频鈥檚 Barder House on June 18, I did not know what to expect. While I had researched the mission and programs of 优蜜视频, I was not sure what exactly the term 鈥渘on-profit management鈥� encompassed, nor was I familiar with the inner workings of non-profits, despite my experience volunteering with non-profits in the past. But having matriculated through gifted programs before, I was deeply moved by 优蜜视频鈥檚 advocacy for gifted education and focus on the 鈥�.鈥� With my interest in entrepreneurship and economics, I wanted to learn about the origin and development of 优蜜视频, and understand what makes a non-profit a non-profit.

I came upon after my friend told me about his experience as a Caroline D. Bradley Scholar. After researching 优蜜视频 and the mentors and sites at EXPLORE, I was drawn to the program鈥檚 career-oriented philosophy. I had taken courses at local colleges during previous summers, so I yearned for a more hands-on experience.

Here are three themes that defined my externship and made my EXPLORE experience unforgettable:

1. Community: Throughout my externship, I felt like a true member of 优蜜视频鈥檚 staff. Six weeks may not seem like a long time, but my mentor Abby and her colleagues welcomed me as an integral part of their team. From our July 4 potluck to our light hearted conversations during meetings, I appreciated the sense of unity and camaraderie within 优蜜视频. I was also fortunate to connect with 优蜜视频鈥檚 close-knit community of gifted students, parents and educators at the annual Summer Spotlight event.听And I cannot forget Not to mention the Friday workshops鈥攅very Friday morning EXPLORE externs came together to connect with each other and learn about career and college readiness. It is truly a small world that I got to meet fellow boarding school peers with whom I shared mutual friends. During our educational workshops and lunch breaks in Little Tokyo, we shared stories about our schools and became friends over udon soup and ice-cold lemonade.
2. Hands-on: In addition to learning about the fundamentals of marketing, development, and programming, I enjoyed applying my skills to worthwhile projects. By analyzing the history of donations to 优蜜视频, for example, I not only honed my statistics know-how, but also gained and shared valuable insight on areas of strength and weakness in our development strategy.听For my Google Analytics project, I delved into Google鈥檚 helpful tool for tracking a website鈥檚 traffic. Besides mining through the labyrinth of stored data, I harnessed my findings to formulate recommendations for possible future improvements. I discovered that 优蜜视频 has untapped potential to attract more Spanish speakers and implemented this recommendation by translating a few of our program flyers to Spanish.
3. Revealing: My externship shed light on the skill sets necessary for various careers. While working on my Donor Analytics project with Abby, I discovered the importance of statistics in data-driven fundraising, where past trends inform future strategies. It was also exciting to use my Spanish to translate flyers; I came to realize the significance of the language in marketing and communications-based careers. While my interests and goals may change over the years, at least I now have a grounded impression of what careers in the non-profit sector entail.

Rather than hammering concepts in a lecture hall, I fell deep into the weeds of informative projects and learned about marketing and management in an engaging way. No course or tutorial in non-profit management could have given me the same level and depth of knowledge.

Mark Blekherman is an EXPLORE extern at 优蜜视频 this summer. He is a rising senior at Phillips Exeter Academy.

As the program manager for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship, I am often asked by the CDB community if Advanced Placement (AP) classes and the culminating AP exam is the best 鈥渇it鈥� for a gifted student. AP courses have long been considered the gold standard for high achievement in upper level high school coursework. The classes are modeled on college courses and meant to represent the difficulty and breadth of material that students are expected to handle when they get to college. For that reason, some colleges give incoming freshmen credits or allow them to pass out of introductory courses if they score a three or above on the AP exam (exams are scored from one to five).

While every gifted student is a unique individual, for many who have long been stymied in general education classes, the promise of an AP curriculum comes with the following preconceptions: AP classes move faster than other classes covering the same subject matter, classmates are more motivated and likely to do the work in an engaged, enthusiastic manner, and the more talented teachers land the AP class assignments. Many gifted students are quite adept and facile at memorizing vast amounts of material which is an added plus within the fact-dense AP curriculum. But, as more high schools abandon AP programs in favor of crafting their own advanced course offerings, the efficacy of the AP program for gifted students is being questioned by secondary and collegiate institutions throughout the United States.

Statistics bear out that in many nationwide high schools, AP classes are more popular than ever, as students seek a leg up in the competitive college admissions process. But within the past five years, the trend is changing, as some of the most elite schools in the country are opting out of the AP frenzy, saying they can design better and more rigorous courses on their own that won鈥檛 force them to adhere to someone else鈥檚听 curriculum and timeline and force teachers to 鈥渢each to the test.鈥� Administrative and faculty detractors who have abandoned the AP program state, 鈥淥ur major complaint with the AP courses was that it was a race for breadth against depth.鈥� And instead of replicating a college level course in high school, some schools who have left the AP curriculum say they can go one better鈥攑artnering with local colleges so their students can actually take classes and garner individual internships on site.

The pro AP argument that AP credits allow high scorers to skip introductory college courses and, perhaps, graduate in less than four years, is no longer valid for two reasons: 1)increasingly, colleges and universities are abandoning the practice of granting automatic acceleration based on AP scores, 2) 听and many of the highly selective colleges and universities gifted students want to attend are bypassing AP exam results and require students who want to move past intro classes to take鈥攁nd pass– their own mandated proficiency exams to prove they meet that institution鈥檚 highest standards in a given subject.

Among the CDB high school administrators I spoke with who chose to phase out the AP program, the decision to move away from AP鈥檚 did not come easily and, in all cases, followed a highly participatory, multi-year long conversation with students, faculty, parents, trustees and college admissions officers. Lick Wilmerding High School in San Francisco opted out of AP courses because: 鈥淟WHS teachers want to create innovative, rigorous courses that are 1) relevant, compelling, and impelling, 2) aligned with current knowledge and best practice in their fields and 3) reflect teachers鈥� particular passions and the school mission. We know, both from experience and research literature, that our teachers are most successful at engaging our students when these three goals frame the work they do. It was also the case that LWHS programs have, for many years, been truncated and eclipsed by the intrusion and distraction of AP exams during the first three weeks of May, well before the school year is over.鈥�

Those schools who have done away with AP curricula found that the AP program became a limiting, rather than enriching, factor in their school鈥檚 determination to provide what has been described as a 鈥�21^st Century educational experience for its 21^st Century highest achieving students.鈥� The Urban School in San Francisco also no longer offers AP courses, nor does Riverdale Country Day School in New York. Dominic Rudolph, Riverdale Country鈥檚 Head of School, said, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 sort of an impoverished view of expecting kids to learn a bunch of stuff and parrot it back to you. These kids have to be better critical thinkers, they have to be better communicators, and I don鈥檛 think passing the AP test necessarily gives them those skills.鈥澨� When Scarsdale High School, an affluent public school outside Manhattan, did away with AP classes in 2007, the school superintendent said, 鈥淭eachers felt driven to cover what was on the AP test, 鈥榞aming鈥� their classes by teaching with only the test in mind鈥� and that it was the teachers who asked for the change to a non-AP curriculum.

Unfortunately, it seems that the choice not to offer AP classes is happening in mostly affluent schools. Cash-strapped schools may not have the resources- time or money- to design and implement specialized courses that emphasize depth or have the necessary outreach to work with nearby colleges and universities to incorporate college-level classes and appropriate teacher training into the curriculum. If high schools don鈥檛 offer AP classes and are not able to incorporate their own 鈥渉onors鈥� level classes in their place, they run the risk of being harder to tout the accomplishments of their highest level students to college admissions staff.

Research connecting AP participation to positive college outcomes has been conducted since the program鈥檚 inception by non-profit organizations, institutions of higher education and the federal government. Pro-AP advocates stress that there is strong evidence that participation in AP programs correlates with student achievement in college, including higher GPAs, more credit hours earned, college readiness and college completion. A college counselor at the renowned Chicago Laboratory School noted, 鈥淪tudies that simply establish that students who are involved with the AP program in high school perform better in college do not necessarily provide proof that that AP program caused the students to be successful in college. Students who have the motivation and study habits to take AP classes in the first place have those same attributes upon reaching college,鈥� argues the counselor. 鈥淪o how can we know if it was the program that caused these students to do better in college?鈥� To date, no longitudinal study has been implemented to target the success of gifted students in college based upon their participation in AP programs in high school.

To provide some background on how the AP program came to be, following World War II, American educators sought a way to bridge the widening gap between secondary and higher education. The Ford Foundation created a fund that supported two committees studying education. The first study was conducted by three prep schools- the Lawrenceville School, Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy鈥攁nd three universities鈥擧arvard, Princeton and Yale. In 1952, this consortium issued a report which recommended allowing high school seniors to study college level material and take achievement exams that allowed them to attain college credit for this work. The second committee developed and implemented the plan to design and choose an appropriate curriculum.

A pilot program was run in 1952 covering eleven disciplines. The non-profit College Board has run the AP program since 1955. The first year of its inception, 104 high schools and 130 colleges participated in the College Board鈥檚 AP program. In the 1960鈥檚, the College Board focused on training high school teachers in the new curricula. And in the 1980鈥檚 and 1990鈥檚, the College Board worked to get more minority and low-income students into AP classes. In 2006 over one million students took over two million AP Placement examinations. Any student is eligible to take any AP exam regardless of participation in its respective course; therefore, home-schooled students and students from schools that do not offer AP courses have an equal opportunity to take AP exams. 听Financial aid is available for students who qualify for it.

With tests currently available in close to 40 subject areas, College Board, in an attempt to stay ahead of the AP critics, reports that it constantly reevaluates and changes its offerings, which are developed by committees of college faculty members and AP teachers.

Since the AP program was initiated (as more than a pilot program) in 1955-56, the research supporting and documenting the academic impact of the instruction in these courses on students has been very limited. Several studies have investigated student and teacher satisfaction with AP courses, and researchers have conducted limited investigations of the educational success of students who have participated in the AP program.

In 2006, a lengthy report was published by the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented called 听 23 high schools from seven states were chosen for participation in this study. Selected schools represented varied geographic regions and levels of community size, a range of school poverty levels, diverse cultural groups of students in the AP courses and/or IB programs and variations in the scope and services of courses and programs offered to highly-able secondary school students. Within the 23 selected schools, approximately 200 teachers, 300 students, 25 administrators/coordinators and eight counselors participated in classroom observations and interviews. Documents such as teachers鈥� planning and instructional materials, program literature and communication materials were collected and analyzed over the five year period of the study.

*(For the purpose of this post, I will only be addressing the AP findings鈥攏ot the IB鈥攆rom this study, even though the findings proved to be quite similar among both programs.)

Several important themes emerged from this study related to the question of how teachers conceptualize and implement curriculum and instruction for gifted learners in AP classes.听 Classroom observation and teacher and student interview data indicated that AP teachers tended to view their students as a homogenous group and, as such, designed curriculum and instruction in accordance with their expectations of the class as a whole, rather than in accordance with expectations and performance of individual students.

Most AP teachers鈥� decisions about curriculum seemed to follow a similar pattern. Guided by the belief that high school performance on the end-of-course AP exams was the ultimate goal of the course, teachers first and foremost considered what material would be tested and used that to determine course content. Belief in the need for student exposure to the entire curriculum and constrained time limits led to one-size-fits-all curricula with minor modifications when it came to setting the pace at which content was taught in response to the general level of understanding. Teachers considered individual student needs as they arose, particularly when a student seemed to be falling behind, but provided extra work for more advanced students very infrequently. Teachers鈥� beliefs that AP students were a homogenous group, and that any differentiation of the curriculum for students would entail 鈥渄umbing down鈥� the content, led them to make few, if any, provisions for academic diversity in the classroom.

The study found that AP teachers鈥� instructional decisions were guided primarily by the goal of 鈥渃overing鈥� a large amount of content by the time the tests were given in early May. As a result, AP teachers tended to choose what they perceived to be the most expedient instructional method鈥攍ecture鈥攁nd to forgo instructional methods they perceived to be more time-intensive (such as experiments, hands-on activities, in-depth investigations, individualized student-led research). The shared belief among AP teachers was that learning equates with exposure to content, not with making meaning out of in-depth consideration of ideas. Multiple studies have delineated that lecture-based learning is among the least successful鈥攐r enjoyable鈥攁mong gifted students who find little opportunity to participate, ask questions or provide content in a lecture format.

While AP teachers in general felt that they had some flexibility in their choice of instructional methods, what is astonishing鈥攁t least to me鈥攊s the study reports that in NO case were AP teachers observed adjusting their instructional methods to meet the diverse needs of individual learners in their classrooms. It seems that the generally held belief among AP teachers that their students were a purposefully homogenous group of learners left them feeling as though they should not鈥攁nd ultimately need not– make any modifications to their instructional methods to meet the various learning needs and styles of the students in their classrooms who quite often were left feeling marginalized and onlookers rather than active class members.

The majority of students participating in this study were satisfied with the nature of the curriculum and instruction within these AP courses, perceiving them as challenging and representing the 鈥渂est鈥� classes offered at their schools. Students seemed to believe that AP courses were the 鈥渂est鈥� because they were taught by the most experienced teachers, required students to take on the heaviest workload, and were populated by the most advanced students. Most of the students did not question what they were learning, whether or not they found the content interesting or the teachers鈥� instructional methods. Students believed that the courses would ultimately provide them with benefits in the future鈥攚ithout getting into specifics about WHAT exactly these benefits would/might be. The majority of the students in these AP classes described finding respite from many years of unchallenging, inappropriate and even hostile classroom experiences. Many of these students appreciated the opportunity to work with other advanced students and the highly positive, adult-like relationships with their teachers.

The interview data from students who had dropped out of AP programs told a different story, however.听 These students made their decisions to leave the program precisely because they believed that the curriculum, instruction and learning environment of the classes were inappropriate for their individual needs. All of these students indicated that they originally took the courses because they desired greater challenge than that offered in non-AP classes, but that the way the AP courses were taught did not allow them to succeed, feel welcome or learn in the ways they liked to learn.

There are important, significant conclusions from the National Research Center on Gifted and Talented which resonate today; it is still considered to be the critical benchmark for assessing the efficacy of AP curricula for gifted students.听 The study concludes that AP courses provide important educational options for students who, by their last years in our nation鈥檚 public schools, are clearly starved for challenge, interaction with similarly motivated peers, and relationships with teachers who understand them. One concern, however, that emerged from this study鈥檚 findings and has contributed to a growing departure among high schools formerly using AP curricula, is the disturbing picture that AP students鈥� interview responses painted of the grave mismatch between the curriculum, instruction and learning environments within many AP classes that did not mesh with the needs of gifted learners. Many AP students described educational histories riddled with boredom, uninspiring instruction, and curriculum that did not stretch them. A pervasive sense of relief at being 鈥渞escued鈥� from general education鈥攁nd even some supposed honors classes– by the option to take AP courses was evident in most students鈥� responses. Clearly, the level of challenge and the learning environments within AP courses are judged more positively by many advanced secondary students than other classroom environments these students have encountered. However, it鈥檚 not enough that gifted students find the educational experiences within AP classes to be 鈥渂etter鈥� experiences only in comparison to the other unsatisfying courses available to them.

While AP courses are still prevalent among the majority of United States high schools as the most challenging option for advanced secondary school learners, the NRGTC study suggested numerous ways in which the learning experiences of the students populating AP classes could be enriched, including:

• Enriching the curriculum and instruction within AP courses by decreasing the breadth of content to be covered within the scope of the courses and increase depth of subject matter
• Emphasizing the benefit of experiencing genuine challenge over other rewards for taking AP courses that may or may not ultimately be recognized as college credit
• Provide AP teachers with skills in delivering a differentiated curriculum and using varied instructional strategies to meet the needs of a broad range of gifted students
• Investigate options for gifted and talented secondary learners beyond AP courses

As with many areas of gifted education, research comparing alternative options for the wide variety of secondary level students who are labeled as gifted or who have the potential to develop as gifted adults is needed when it comes to determining how 鈥渂est鈥� to challenge, engage and prepare gifted students for the next chapter of their academic experience.

鈥淩eally, what colleges are interested in is that a student has taken the most rigorous coursework available,鈥� a self-described AP U.S. History 鈥渄ropout鈥� teacher told me.听 鈥淥ne more transcript with three more AP courses looks like a thousand other transcripts. A transcript with solid standardized test scores and interesting courses like American Studies or Science Writing, from a good school, with good results by good students helps that student stand out more in the competitive admissions process rather than hindering students.鈥�

Whether via an AP program that allows for more individualized teaching approaches or an honors-level alternative course, the gifted student who is able to flex his/her academic muscles in classes that aim for higher-level analysis and in-depth learning over rote memorization of facts is going to not only be prepared for college, but will continue to soar.

Like this post? to receive more stories, information, and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

Every gifted person has a unique story. The following story is part of a series of posts depicting the many faces of gifted by highlighting gifted children and adults we have found through 优蜜视频 programs. The program 鈥� mentioned in this story 鈥� awards highly gifted applicants with a four-year scholarship to a high school that fits their individual, intellectual and personal needs.

Manning Ding
2003 CDB Scholar
Business Analyst, McKinsey and Company, Minneapolis

Before Manning Ding graduated with highest honors from Harvard in 2012, and before she worked in Kampala, Uganda, and Beijing, China, she was a junior high school student in Iowa who was awarded the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship. The merit-based scholarship let her attend any high school of her choice, and she chose Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

鈥淚t was Exeter鈥檚 鈥楬arkness鈥� method that did it for me. At Exeter, every class is conducted in discussion format, with 12 students and a teacher sitting around an oval table trading questions for answers on subjects from author Jhumpa Lahiri鈥檚 short stories to how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem.

鈥淚 remember visiting Exeter in 8th grade and sitting in on an Existentialism course. I think I said one thing the entire time, but it was still exhilarating to listen in on the richness of dialogue across the Harkness Table by 14- and 15-year-olds,鈥� Manning explained.

In addition to covering the cost of tuition for four years of high school, the Institute for Educational Advancement invites the CDB Scholars to an annual weekend gathering, called the , that includes discussions on a global and personal scale.

鈥淢y favorite memory was returning as an alumna to the Bradley Seminar with four other Scholars in my class and realizing that we were closer than ever before, sharing college updates and CDB recollections and endless laughter. Seeing Bonnie [Bonnie Raskin, CDB Program Coordinator] and Betsy [Elizabeth Jones, 优蜜视频 President] and the younger classes of Scholars at the Seminar really cemented for me the realization that being a CDB Scholar has been a part of who I am since the age of 13, and it鈥檒l always be a part of who I am. We, the Scholars, may grow up, but we won鈥檛 grow apart from the CDB community.鈥�

Manning graduated Harvard with a degree in Economics, but didn鈥檛 start off majoring in Econ. 鈥淚 actually went into Harvard thinking I would be a China correspondent at some international news agency. During my first two years in college, I vacillated between Economics (which addressed some of the world鈥檚 toughest development questions in an intellectually honest way) and Philosophy (for its rigor of thinking).

鈥淥f course, the great thing about Harvard is the breadth and depth of opportunities available. So while I was able to delve into fascinating topics in Economics (by taking grad-level courses and working as a research assistant for professors), I was also able to try out a range of potential careers through extracurricular activities (I reported news for The Crimson and headed Harvard Yearbook Publication), internships (at various investment banks and the Beijing bureau of Thomson Reuters) and fellowships and research opportunities (which funded my summers in China, Tanzania, and Uganda).鈥�

Prior to graduation, Manning applied for, and received a Fulbright Award. The Fulbright Award is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, and is known as America’s flagship international exchange program. It is a competitive, merit-based grant that facilitates the exchange of students, scholars, and teachers between the United States and over 155 countries worldwide.

鈥淚 applied for the Fulbright during senior year of college and was fortunate to receive the grant, allowing me to spend 10 months after graduation researching Chinese social enterprises and economic development. The Fulbright is very flexible – while they provide you with a support network of local researchers and resources, I had complete ownership of my project and was solely responsible for driving the project forward. It has definitely been a challenging but rewarding opportunity both in terms of cultural exchange and career development.鈥�

Manning explained more about the China Fulbright application process, saying, 鈥淭he applicants determine the location and scope of the research project and are responsible for securing a host academic institution and a local advisor. They then submit a project proposal explaining the motivation behind their project and the methods by which they intend to carry out the project.

鈥淎s part of my research, I interviewed Beijing- and Shanghai-based social entrepreneurs, worked with both a foreign-run and a government-backed social enterprise incubator, organized dinners for female social entrepreneurs in Beijing, helped professors at some of China鈥檚 top universities put together a white paper (one of the first of its kind) outlining the state of Chinese social enterprises, and spent four months at a social enterprise aiming to revolutionize Chinese rural education with digital tablets.鈥�

I asked Manning for the definition of a 鈥渟ocial enterprise.鈥� She explained, 鈥淪ocial enterprises are an exciting new model that is currently receiving increasing attention in China (and across the world) for its ability to solve social and environmental issues that the government and the market are not necessarily in a position to address. The legal and academic definition of 鈥榮ocial enterprise鈥� is still being heatedly debated, particularly in China. There are, however, a couple of commonly accepted definitions of social enterprises.

鈥淪ocial enterprises are essentially businesses whose primary purpose is to do social good. They鈥檙e different from non-profit NGOs in that social enterprises are financially self-sustaining and do not rely primarily on donations. They鈥檙e different from businesses (even socially responsible businesses) in their impact-first (versus finance-first) approach.鈥�

This summer, Manning began work as a Business Analyst at global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company in Minneapolis. Since she鈥檚 a recent college grad, I asked her for any advice to incoming college freshman. I think her words of wisdom are perfect for any student or adult in a new situation:

鈥淏e present. Half of achieving anything in college is simply showing up. Show up to lectures, extracurriculars, events. Show up on time, and stay the whole time. Put away your cell phones and laptops and tablets and actually engage that professor or speaker or new acquaintance — ask questions, remember names, take notes. You鈥檒l be amazed at how much you鈥檒l learn and grow if you are simply fully present. And of course, take risks, have adventures, try not to pull too many all-nighters and always remember to laugh.鈥�

Like this post? Please share!