University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign

Fifty college students were interviewed about their prior experiences in gifted programs and their per-spectives xon the impact of these experiences on their lives. Interview questions probed the types of experi-ences they remembered, including the types of instruction they had, their relations with peers, and their views about how their experiences in gifted pro-grams affected other parts of their lives. Data were analyzed qualitatively with additional topics and themes emerging. In this paper, the author shares their voices and discusses the implications of their reports. "Well, there's no way I'd be an engineer right now fiI hadn't been so involved in the science programs that I was in in high school." "Well, I think without it I would never have been here. If there weren't any gifted programs, who knows what would have hap-pened to me?" "Opportunities in terms ofthe science and math stuff is really what led me to where I am." "I think that Igot a better education than someone not in a gifted program. " In the comments above, college students reflected upon their experiences in precollege gifted programs. Little is known about the impact of students ' participation in gifted programs. Program evaluators have centered their studies on program effectiveness, program improvement, and specific short-term learning outcomes. Broader inves-tigations of long-range impact have rarely been investi-gated. The purpose of this study was to launch an inquiry into the impact that gifted programs have had on partici-pants from their own perspectives. Gifted education and gifted programs routinely spark controversy in the literature and in the news. Critics accuse gifted programs of inequity and the failure to abide by democratic principles (Sapon-Shevin, 1993). For example, Ford (1995) observed, "Abundant data suggest that gifted programs are the most segregated educational programs in the United States " (p. 52). Since the passin