Thousands of students were incorrectly told they weren't eligible for the city's gifted-and-talented public-school program due to errors by the testing company, city officials said Friday.

The errors affected 4,735 children, or 13.2% of test takers, who are now eligible for gifted programs, including 2,037 students who are newly eligible for elite schools that accept students from across the city who scored in the 97th percentile or above.

Test maker Pearson PLC discovered the errors after two parents last week took their concerns about the scoring to Department of Education officials. The British-based company found it made an error on the students' ages and two errors in calculating their scores.

The city said parents would be notified quickly of the new results, and the deadline for applying to a gifted program has been pushed back to May 10 from the original deadline of Friday.

All children who were previously eligible for gifted programs will remain in consideration, schools spokeswoman Erin Hughes said. Six students were bumped out of eligibility for local gifted programs when the scores were revised, but they won't be penalized, she said.