2001-The Present

In 2001, EPGY enrollment exceeded 3,000 students for the first time. The year 2001 also marked the first time that EPGY offered a residential summer program. In 2002, thanks to a generous gift from the John Malone Family Foundation, EPGY began to work with Title I schools to establish programs for gifted students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds.

The EPGY Summer Institutes

During the Summer 2001, from July 7 to July 21, EPGY held its first residential summer program on the Stanford Campus. The Summer Institute in Mathematics and Physics (SIMP) provided students with an opportunity for intensive study in mathematics or physics. Forty students participated in this first program.

The following year, Summer 2002, EPGY renamed its residential summer program "The EPGY Summer Institutes" and expanded the duration of the program to three weeks. EPGY also increased the course offerings to include courses in English and computer programming. With the Summers of 2003 and 2004, EPGY further expanded its course offerings to include Music Theory. The number of students participating in the Summer Institutes during this time grew to over 360.

In 2005, the EPGY Summer Institutes have further expanded the range of subjects being offered to include courses in Geology and Engineering. Additionally a five-week, extended session has been added to allow students to pursue accelerated, independent study in core concept areas. On top of this, EPGY has also added the Summer Institutes Middle School Program (SI-MSP) to provide students in grades 6 through 8 with the opportunity to take courses.

New Courses

Mathematics

In the Spring of 2001, EPGY completed work on its Honors Geometry course. With the addition of this course, EPGY became the first organization to offer a complete mathematics curriculum from Kindergarten through the courses required for an undergraduate degree. Honors Geometry features the new EPGY theorem-proving environment which allows students to write proofs online and to have their proofs interactively checked by the computer.

The interactive theorem proving environment used in the geometry courses has also been used in varying degrees in other proof-intensive courses, such as the Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, and the Differential Equations courses. Support for the development of the theorem proving environment has been provided by a grant from an anonymous source.

English

In 2002, EPGY developed its first grammar course, EG20. The course, which we hope to be the first of a series, is designed to help students understand the grammar of the sentence and make stylistic choices in their writing informed by their knowledge of grammar. The EG20, by being self-paced, departs from the seminar course approach taken by EPGY in the W09 - W11 series of courses.

In 2004, EPGY began offering its Language Arts and Writing course sequence, which brought instruction in English mechanics and grammar to younger gifted students. This sequence is designed to prepare gifted students to begin the W series of courses.

School Programs

Title I Gifted Students

Through a generous grant from the Malone Family Foundation, EPGY began a focused effort in 2002 to identify Title I eligible gifted students and to work with their schools to create school-day programs for these students. Through this support EPGY has established programs in over 100 schools.

School-Wide Programs

Beginning with the 2004-2005 Academic Year, EPGY has begun to create differentiated curriculum versions of the EPGY courses. The goal of these courses is to make it possible for schools to meet the needs of their gifted students while also providing rigorous, individualized curriculum to the entire student population, making it possible to accelerate learning for all students.