Natasha Perianayagam among Johns Hopkins’ ‘world’s brightest’

Indian American schoolgirl makes it to ‘world’s brightest’ list for the second year in a row

Natasha Perianayagam, a 13-year-old Indian-American schoolgirl, has been named among the “world’s brightest” students for the second consecutive year by the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth CTY).

A student at Florence M Gaudineer Middle School in New Jersey, Perianayagam was selected by the Baltimore, Maryland based CTY, a gifted education program for school-age children based on the results of above-grade-level tests of over 15,000 students across 76 countries.

Read: Indian American Advay Misra among Johns Hopkins’ ‘world’s brightest students’ (January 29, 2021)

She also took the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY) test in Spring 2021, when she was a Grade 5 student.

Her results in the verbal and quantitative sections were on par with the 90th percentile of advanced Grade 8 performance, which catapulted her into the honors list that year.

This year, she was honored 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 on Monday.

Perianayagam, whose parents hail from Chennai, said she loves doodling and reading JRR Tolkien’s novels in her spare time.

CTY uses above-grade-level testing to identify advanced students from around the world and provide a clear picture of their academic abilities.

The quantitative section of the Johns Hopkins CTY test measures the ability to see relationships between quantities expressed in mathematical terms, the verbal section measures understanding of the meaning of words and the relationships between them.

Less than 27% of 15,300 students from 76 countries qualified for the CTY ceremony in the 2021-22 Talent Search year, receiving either high or grand honors based on their test scores, according to the press release.

In her latest attempt, Perianayagam scored the highest grades among all candidates.

Read: Indian-American student named by Johns Hopkins as the ‘world’s brightest’ for second consecutive year (February 7, 2023)

“This is not just recognition of our students’ success on one test, but a salute to their love of discovery and learning, and all the knowledge they have accumulated in their young lives so far,” said CTY’s executive director Dr. Amy Shelton.

“It is exciting to think about all the ways in which they will use that potential to discover their passions, engage in rewarding and enriching experiences, and achieve remarkable things — in their communities and in the world,” she added.