Katy Fifth Grader Earns John Hopkins Grand Honors
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KATY MAGAZINE NEWS
August 31, 2026
By Natalie Cook Clark
A Katy fifth grader from Fred and Patti Shafer Elementary School has earned the Grand Honors/SET from John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. They use this to assess students who are above grade level and advance learners.
Each year, about 16,000 students from more than 75 countries join CTY. On average, about 45% of students who take an above-grade-level test as part of CTY’s Talent Search qualify at the High Honors level annually. Fewer than 18% qualify at the Grand Honors level annually.
Alexander Gui, a fifth-grade student at Shafer Elementary qualified based on his 2026 Spring performance on the quantitative section of the School and College Ability Test, taken while he was in fourth grade. The SCAT is an above-grade-level assessment CTY uses to identify advanced learners and help families find appropriately challenging academic opportunities.
Alexander enjoyed taking the test and the experience. “It was really fun finding out which one was larger in the math sets, unlike any other type of math problem I have ever seen,” explains Alexander. “One question asked for a circle’s area, which was surprising and tricky, and it helped me remember how to find it using πr².”
Alexander moved to Katy with his family from San Franciso when he was 5 years old. He has attended Katy ISD schools since he was in kindergarten.
“This is not just recognition of students’ performance on one test, but a testament to their curiosity and capacity for learning,” says Amy Lynne Shelton, PhD, CTY’s executive director. “These students have demonstrated enormous potential, and now we encourage them to seek out experiences and communities that help them challenge and stretch their knowledge, connect with other young scholars, understand diverse perspectives, think critically, and pursue their goals confidently.”
Alexander participates in Shafer Elementary’s after-school chess program and has completed the annual Houston Kids Triathlon in Katy for the past two years, moving from the short course in 2025 to the long course in 2026. Outside school, he especially enjoys Minecraft and creating challenging custom levels in Geometry Dash.
And he’s already thinking about his future. “I would like to be a software engineer, and I might try rocket science.” He is especially interested in artificial intelligence, Python, and computer science, and has recently been reading about John McCarthy, one of the early pioneers of AI.
Alexander’s advice for students is, “Don’t give up. Be consistent. The result doesn’t matter; only the progress does.”
The Center for Talented Youth, a nonprofit academic center of Johns Hopkins University, has been a global leader in gifted education since 1979. CTY identifies and nurtures the academic talents of advanced learners in grades 2–12 through accredited, challenging courses, research, and advocacy. Its community includes students, educators, alumni, and supporters from across the United States and more than 75 countries.
Learn more at cty.jhu.edu.
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