I did some "gifted student" programs in middle school and high school, although not the specific one discussed in the article. This was my experience:
> And how are kids even suppose to know about these schools at a young age? I would assume it's the parents that needs to be knowledgeable and push their children to those admission exams.
Middle schools want to feed as many of their students to these programs as possible. When Johns Hopkins held an SAT for eighth graders, the teachers distributed flyers home and I heard about it on the morning announcements every day for two weeks. (If Virginia's middle schools aren't making students aware of their high school opportunities, that is very easy to fix.)
> It's the same as saying scoring in the top 1% percentile is within your control.
A topic of active debate within educational circles is whether we should tell students that intelligence is innate or that hard work/"grit" is the most important thing. There's some evidence that the "grit" story leads to better outcomes, so that's what educational establishments prefer to tell students.
It's likely, then, that "you can score in the top percentile with enough hard work and determination" is the official position of the school district. And who knows, it might even be true!