Characteristics of Gifted Students: Age and Gender Findings from Three Decades of Cohorts

We have studied three cohorts of the students accepted to the Young Persons' Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Excellence: October 1982, October 1993, and October 2003. Each cohort was of more than 350 students, chosen randomly from the 35-year database of the Institute. The number of 350 students for each cohort was in order to enable a ‘slicing’ as delicate as possible of the ages of the students starting their participation at the Institute's activities. The database is compounded of two parts: information of children accepted and those who were not accepted to the Institute's afternoon enrichment classes — because of not reaching the required minimal achievements. The paper presents the comparisons between the genders in all three cohorts.