Stanford University, home to some of the world's brightest college students, will open the nation's first online high school for the gifted this fall.

University administrators say the high school grew out of a summer school for super-smart kids as well as existing Internet courses for those youths offered by Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth.

Online high schools aren't new but until now haven't targeted gifted students who often progress rapidly through advanced material. A gifted student might finish a math course in four months that an average student would need a year to complete.

"We want to set high expectations and push these kids," said Ray Ravaglia, Academic Research and Program Officer for the program. "They will be happiest in an environment where they can realize their full potential."

But earning an Internet diploma from the program won't be cheap. Annual tuition for a full-time student is $12,000, although the school will offer financial aid.

Matthew Bunday, 14, of Minnesota plans to enroll. With a perfect SAT math score at age 11, he could have long ago gone to college, but his parents didn't want to send him. Local high schools would have meant easy A's but not enough intellectual stimulation.

Stanford, the family decided, provided the answer by challenging gifted kids in a way many public and private schools don't. Matthew, who just spent two months learning numbers theory at a summer math camp, has already experienced Stanford's online math classes and looks forward to taking writing and Mandarin courses.

"You can get classes that you wouldn't be able to get in a high school," he said. "You can go any speed you want."

The program, which has offered individual online courses since 1990 and a summer program since 2000, doesn't just benefit gifted students and their families. Stanford can discover some of the best minds and develop them early.

"This is a way of finding really good kids early and getting them to understand what Stanford has to offer," said Ravaglia. "That's not lost on the university."

The new online high school comes as advocates of gifted education say the federal No Child Left Behind Act has unintentionally hurt gifted students in the public schools. They say that because teachers face pressure to make all students proficient, they don't challenge the successful ones who could do more. There are other impediments: Schools often don't have a curriculum for extremely advanced students; teachers have only so much time to give individualized instruction; and parents and teachers cite social development reasons when explaining their reluctance to have students skip grades. It's important to recognize and challenge children with gifted intellectual abilities, said Patricia Wallace, senior director of information technology and distance education at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.

"We have so many different choices to make about how resources are allocated," she said. "The gifted -- they'll be getting B's or A's and so they don't look like they're in trouble. It's a huge risk to our country and the world to allow students who could achieve so much not to be given that opportunity."

Parents of gifted youth sometimes homeschool or supplement their child's education with individual online courses or summer programs. The online diploma-granting high school, Stanford officials believe, will give parents another option to combat the academic boredom that can plague exceptionally smart kids.

"For really bright students who can handle the work, this is an exciting possibility," said Jane Clarenbach, director of public education for the National Association for Gifted Children in Washington, D.C. "They won't have to drop high school and start college early. They won't have to enroll in college and skip all the other things about high school that they might not want to."

Online courses aren't for everyone. They require exceptional motivation but that tends to define gifted students, Ravaglia said. Stanford's online high school will offer two types of classes. One is a seminar-style course where students and teachers will use audio feeds to discuss and study online classroom materials together. In another more self-directed type of class, students will learn from a CD-ROM and contact instructors online with questions.

Raphael Holmes taught an online summer class that's a good example of what students can expect. The 24-year-old Stanford graduate and physics instructor with the Education Program for Gifted Youth recently logged on to a mechanics course for office hours. Cecilia from Ontario, Canada, soon logged on, too, and typed "Hi Mr. Holmes! I have one (yes, only one this time) physics question to ask, before I start the exam."

"OK, ask away," Holmes replied, his fingers clicking against a keyboard in a cluttered Stanford office.

In its first year, the Stanford high school plans to enroll a total of 30 sophomores, juniors and seniors. Administrators say it eventually will grow to 300 students. The course offerings are advanced. Students can progress beyond Advanced Placement calculus -- typically the upper limit of learning at most high schools -- and take multivariable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations, courses on a par with what Stanford teaches its best math and science freshmen.

The online school will recommend, but not require, that students visit the Stanford campus during the summer to meet instructors and take classes impossible to teach online, such as labs. This year, 950 gifted students from as far away as Qatar and Zambia are taking summer courses at Stanford on everything from quantum mechanics to music theory.

One July morning, Gary Oas, who holds a doctorate in physics from UC Davis, discussed black holes, naked singularity and thermodynamics in a fast-paced lecture that prompted students to ask questions like: "Does a completely isolated object floating out on the universe still have entropy?" When certain students spoke, others rolled their eyes as if to say, "What a dork," even though everyone had elected to spend precious summer vacation time talking high-level physics.

Daniel Schwarz, 16, a rising senior at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, loved the class. High school teachers generally go too slowly for him so he supplements his education with courses at his local state college. Although he isn't enrolling in the online high school, Stanford is looking for students just like him.

"In high school, it's expected teachers have to cater to the lowest common denominator," Schwarz said. "It's more important that people don't fall behind than people get ahead. ... This is a perfect opportunity to thrive."

A number of other prominent universities offer gifted programs with online and summer courses including Northwestern, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Denver.

"Gifted" is a nebulous term, and no one test or score determines someone's giftedness. The National Association for Gifted Children conservatively estimates 6 percent of the U.S. student population, or approximately 3 million students, are academically gifted -- sufficiently advanced compared with their peers.

Stanford finds gifted students two ways: It pays the College Board for the names of those high school students who scored in the top 2-3 percent of the SAT or students find Stanford. Admission to Stanford's online high school is based on a portfolio that includes evidence of exceptional ability whether or not it's a test score, as well as samples of work, essays, current intellectual interests and teacher recommendations.

Homeschooled his entire life, 15-year-old Ariel Fischer plans to enroll. The program's English courses he has taken in the past allowed him to interact with gifted students around the world.

"We figured it would be nice for him to be connected to one place," said his mother, Tina Fischer. "He's with a community even if it's virtual."