Nearly three decades ago, 320 students below the age of thirteen took the SAT math or verbal test and placed in the top 1 in 10,000 for their math- or verbal-reasoning ability (some called them “scary smart”). This article details a twenty-year follow up that analyzes their accomplishments by age 38, with the purpose of determining whether they went on to make outstanding contributions to society. And no surprise, they did. Of the total, 63 percent held advanced degrees, 44 percent of which were doctorates—that’s compared to barely 2 percent of the general population who hold PhDs. These students made an average of 20.6 fine-arts accomplishments (music productions, paintings, sculptures), produced 6.6 STEM-related publications, and were responsible for seven software developments and/or patents per individual. The average amount in grant dollars brought in by each was roughly $826,000 (thirty-one of them had received more than $25 million in grants). Many were employed by Fortune 500 companies, renowned medical hospitals, and Research I universities. Finally, analysts found that students who uber-excelled in math tended to work in computer and informational sciences and engineering, while those who uber-excelled in verbal ability tended towards the social sciences. This was all the more interesting since the lesser of their two scores still put 94 percent of them in the top 1 percent of ability, meaning they still gravitated to their relatively higher strength even if they were very strong in both math and verbal ability. Analysts conclude by saying that atypical individuals like these require atypical learning opportunities for optimal growth—and we agree.
SOURCE: Harrison J. Kell, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow, “Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators,” Psychological Science 24 (2013), 2013: 648–59.
