Birchwood Students Recognized as NUMATS Award Winners
Birchwood is pleased to announce that six of our students qualified to attend the annual NUMATS Award Ceremony sponsored by Northwestern University’s Midwest Academic Talent Search (NUMATS) or received recognition for outstanding achievement based on performance on the PSAT™8/9, SAT®, or ACT®. The award ceremony was held on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois on Saturday, June 29. The top 1 to 2 percent of the more than 11,500 high-achieving students who participated in NUMATS in 2018-2019 qualified for the award ceremony, so this is an exceptional scholastic achievement. Additionally, students in the top 3 percent also received recognition as outstanding achievers and were sent a certificate noting their accomplishment and received a merit scholarship toward programming offered by the Center for Talent Development.
Birchwood School of Hawken is proud of Jordan Gordon (grade 6), Angela D’Souza (grade 6), Benjamin Miyares (grade 6), Areesha Nouman (grade 6), Cadence Guo (grade 7), and Manan Raina (grade 7) for their outstanding achievement and invitations to the awards ceremony. The Center for Talent Development conducts NUMATS for academically talented students in grades 3-9. Students qualify for the search by attaining outstanding achievement in math and/or verbal subscores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Birchwood students who qualify for testing take either the PSAT™8/9, SAT® or ACT®. The purpose is to establish ceilings for student learning and to propose coursework that matches student abilities most of which Birchwood already does.
This year Birchwood had 90 students who qualified for the NUMATS with 34 students choosing to participate. Consistently a large percent of our students are invited to participate each year. During the past 3 years, 70% of Birchwood students in grades 3-8 qualified to participate, and 5% of them went on to finish in the top 2% of all participants nationwide.
NUMATS Northwestern University’s Midwest Academic Talent Search (NUMATS) is a research-validated program that utilizes above-grade-level assessment, as a means of gifted testing, to help parents and educators better understand their students’ educational needs. NUMATS allows eligible students to take internationally recognized tests before the grade levels at which they are normally administered.
