Young, Gifted and Skipping High School

"They could act like silly teenagers one second and talk about Descartes the next," said Razel Solow, the college's director of research for the program, who is co-writing a book on former pegs.

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One warm September morning, Jackie, thin, with wavy blond hair and wearing faded jeans and Converse high tops, crossed campus to her psychology class. She slid into a front-row seat in a room with women four or five years older as professor Andreas Anastasiou talked about neurotransmitters and personality disorders. The class veered into a discussion about how cultural differences can complicate diagnoses.

Jackie raised her hand. "How about if a person has two or three of the symptoms and they go into another culture?"

"Then that person is very likely to be misdiagnosed," Anastasiou said, launching into a story about a former patient who showered only once a week. Doctors initially thought it was a sign of a problem, the professor said, but learned that the man came from a part of the world where water was scarce and daily bathing wasn't the norm.

It was the kind of discussion Jackie had craved in middle school. She liked her teachers and had a few close friends but never grew too attached. Many days, she said, she would finish her assignments early and bury herself in a book.

"I didn't particularly dislike school, and I didn't love school," Jackie said. "Most of the stuff throughout the year I knew already. We had these worksheets with 20 questions, and it was, 'Oh great, you're done. Here's another one.' "

Classmate Frances Webber, 16, finished 10th grade at Edison High School in Fairfax County. She liked marching band, Key Club and tennis but didn't feel challenged in class.

"Sometimes, my friends, they would ask, 'Why are you reading all the time?' It just got old," Frances said. "I wouldn't say I'm, like, super smart or anything. I just really care about learning. In high school, a teacher would ask a question, and we would just sit there and sit there, and eventually they'd answer themselves. People are here because they want to be here."

Brenda Bryant, dean of students, said pegs are encouraged to immerse themselves in campus life. "Most of the pegs feel they have as normal an experience as any other college student," she said. "They run for student government. They play varsity sports."

If Jackie had stayed in Fairfax, she would have been a freshman at Herndon High School. There, students can choose from a menu of 22 Advanced Placement courses. Most high achievers in the Washington area can find the high school challenge they need in college-level AP or International Baccalaureate classes, or at magnet schools. There's no solid estimate of the number nationwide who take the more radical leap straight to college, but a few universities have programs for exceptional students who haven't finished high school.

Mary Baldwin, which started its program in 1985, advertises for gifted students in magazines and at conferences and recruits them systematically. Just as colleges visit football fields or basketball courts to find the next star athlete, a handful of universities, including Johns Hopkins and Duke, hunt for great young minds. Mary Baldwin buys lists of students identified through such searches and courts the girls and their families.

Freshmen pegs have an average SAT score of 1793 on a 2400-point scale, impressive for students who take the exam not having finished years of demanding high school work. Students at Fairfax County's McLean High School, an academic powerhouse, had an average SAT score last year of 1751.