Our Lady of the Valley 8th grade student Leah Bostany has been accepted into the Vanderbilt Summer Academy’s 2008 class, a program for gifted 8th through 12th graders hosted by Vanderbilt University’s Programs for Talented Youth (PTY). Students attending VSA are among the brightest in the country, scoring in the top tier on academic achievement tests such as the ACT and SAT.

Bostany has been accepted into the “Math and Music” program at VSA.

She has been playing the piano since the 1st grade, and writing her own music since the 2nd grade.

“Leah has a great love for music and because of her mature outlook, she is able to express her music very well,” said Theresa Thienpont, Bostany’s music teacher since the 1st grade. “Every teacher’s hope is that the student will take flight and become creative in his/her own right.

Leah has definitely ‘stepped up to the plate’ and has only to be guided in her instruction.

She is very self motivated.”

That self-motivation has led to Bostany performing more than 140 times at church services, weddings, congregations, school assemblies, and more.

She played her first wedding just two weeks after reaching age ten, and performed at Christmas Eve Mass while in the third grade.

VSA consists of one-week, two-week and three-week sessions, each featuring challenging courses taught in university classrooms and laboratories by Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students.

Vanderbilt Summer Academy is unique among summer academic programs for gifted youth due to the caliber of faculty and access to university resources.

Vanderbilt University’s Programs for Talented Youth seeks to identify and aid academically talented youth from diverse educational, racial and economic backgrounds by providing academic enrichment and challenge, balance and healthfulness in their lives.

In addition to the Vanderbilt Summer Academy, PTY provides engaging and intellectually appropriate educational opportunities to precocious young students and their parents and educators year-round through Weekend Academy at Vanderbilt University, Saturday Academy at Vanderbilt University, parent support groups and the Julian Stanley Lecture Series