Student Selection Process

The selection of students for attendance to Piedmont Governor’s School for Mathematics, Science, and Technology will be the responsibility of each school division’s steering committee. This committee will include, but not be limited to, a guidance counselor, a school administrator or designee from each local high school, and secondary gifted education personnel. The charge to this committee will be to identify and rank applicants to be invited to attend the Governor’s School based on criteria set by the governing board.

Nominations of potential candidates may be received from a variety of sources including students, parents, school personnel, and community leaders. Multiple criteria will be used to create a pool of applicants from the nominations to insure that a student can not be eliminated by one measure. The criteria may include such items as grade-point averages, Standards of Learning End-of-Course test results, scores from standardized tests, and successful completion of specific courses in mathematics, science, and technology.

Students who are eligible to participate in the full two-year curriculum will be given preference in ranking.

An information meeting sponsored by local school divisions and the Governor’s School will be held in January or February at various locations for interested students, parents, and patrons. Potential candidates will have the opportunity to a half-day orientation at the Governor’s School prior to the completion of the selection process if they so choose.

The selection process will utilize percentile rankings on standardized achievement and ability tests, such as the Matrix Analogies Test (MAT); writing samples; unweighted grade-point averages; and teacher recommendations. In the event of a tie between students’ scores, science and mathematics course grades, and achievement tests scores in those areas will be compared.