Giftedness, school vulnerability and university admission test scores

Abstract

Relation between giftedness, cognitive abilities, participation in a gifted program, school vulnerability and the Chilean university admission test scores was studied in a sample of 1303 students who applied to PentaUC Program between 2001 and 2004, and took the Chilean University Admission Test (PSU) between 2007 and 2010. Results show that students who complete a gifted program obtain better PSU scores than those who drop out. Vulnerability of academic contexts and the type of content evaluated in PSU, appeared as variables that modulate both the effect of the program and the effect of giftedness on PSU scores. High cognitive abilities seem to have no direct influence on PSU scores when those scores are at the upper end of the scale.