Human Services News

Association for Psychological Science:

On February 13, high-school juniors and seniors were able to access their January 2006 SAT scores through the College Board website.

The test is an important step toward gaining college acceptance.

But new research shows that the test may go far beyond predicting college success; when taken in the early teens, it may actually foretell a person's success and life satisfaction after university.

According to Vanderbilt University psychology researchers David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow, along with Rose Mary Webb (Appalachian State University) and April Bleske-Rechek (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire), high SAT scores at young ages can reveal individuals who have cognitive and creative potential for future success as doctors, engineers and professors.

Their study provides evidence that students who scored in the top .01 percentile of their age group on the SAT before age 13 were more likely than a comparison group of graduate students to later achieve a MD degree, earn an annual salary of at least $100,000, or secure a tenure-track position in a top-50 ranked institution.

The findings are reported in the article "Tracking Exceptional Human Capital Over Two Decades" in the March issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society).

Graduate students who had been enrolled in a top-ranked engineering, mathematics, or physical science program in 1992 also took the survey in 2003-2004.

Survey results found education levels and career paths to be very similar between the two groups.

A minimal difference was found between the percentage of graduate students and young SAT-takers who obtained a doctoral-level degree from a highly-ranked institution.

Survey results revealed higher income and tenure status as a university professor among the SAT-taking group than the graduate students in the follow-up study.