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For children who exhibit extreme academic promise, one response is to provide radical early acceleration into college. As with all other solutions, however, this one represents a series of compromises.

Providing an optimal educational setting for the highly able learner requires multiple compromises. The educational system in contemporary United States is an age-graded progression that allows little flexibility for the youngster who is different. For the very bright child, it is impossible within the system to achieve, simultaneously, matching with classmates who are (1) of the same age and average intelligence, (2) at the child's own level of social and emotional maturity, and (3) at the child's level of intellectual maturity and/or academic achievement. Placement in segregated classes for gifted youngsters precludes interaction with nongifted peers and, for the highly advanced child, may still not provide an adequate match in other spheres. Acceleration of academic placement (grade skipping) can often improve the match between capability and intellectual challenge and provide exposure to a wider range of non-gifted young people, but it may throw the gifted youngster into a social setting demanding more maturity than he or she has achieved. Retaining the child in the grade indicated by his or her age, with pullout classes and out of school activities for enrichment, requires the least involvement by school personnel but may relegate the child to five or six miserable hours each day. Choosing the appropriate compromise and making it work constitutes a potent challenge for students, parents, teachers, and counselors.

The major portion of this chapter is devoted to a description of one such compromise, a radical acceleration program for highly able students who are intellectually and academically prepared for work at the university level long before they are of the ordinary age to enter college. The Early Entrance Program at the University of Washington, since its inception in 1977, has accepted students who have essentially outgrown high school while still in junior high. A radical acceleration program for the student who is radically different from his or her peers, it is founded on the assumption that, for a substantial proportion of students, priority should be given to the match between learner and the intellectual challenge.

Competing Assumptions About the Education of Gifted Youth

Before proceeding to describe the Early Entrance Program, however, it might be well to expand our consideration of the reasons why compromises, rather than perfect solutions, are the best we can hope for, given a highly gifted student in an age-graded system. In so doing, we need to examine some of our most basic beliefs about child development and education. The fact is that most of us hold a series of assumptions that need to be prioritized, if we are not to be immobilized by equally compelling, incompatible alternatives.

Assumptions About Learning
A set of basic truisms about learning constitutes the first set of assumptions:

1. Learning is a sequential, developmental process that is relatively predictable. One can, then, assess a student's progress in attaining orderly sets of concepts and skills.
2. Once a learner has mastered a given stage or level of skills and conceptual understanding, it is time to proceed to the next. If moving on to the next step is delayed, boredom will ensue; if it occurs too fast, the learner will be confused and discouraged. This is essentially what Hunt meant by the match which refers in Piagetian theory to the principle that learning occurs only when there is "an appropriate match between the circumstances that a child encounters and the schemata that he [or she] has already assimilated into his [or her | repertoire" (Hunt, 1961, p. 268). This principle tends to argue against enrichment programs that aim to expand the knowledge base of the student without moving to increased levels of complexity and challenge.
3. Among children of a given age who have been afforded a standard school curriculum, there are substantial differences in learning status that primarily reflect differences in rate of learning. Individual differences characterize not only overall cognitive development (that is, general intelligence) but also specific subject areas and skills; there are also intraindividual differences that must be taken into account.
4. With respect to these assumptions alone, it should be possible to devise appropriate educational programs without compromise. Individually paced curricula such as self-teaching programs (which, alas, in practice seldom produce much enthusiasm or insight) or a flexible assignment system in which learners are matched to incremental classes in specific subject areas should do the trick. Unfortunately, however, we simultaneously hold other sets of assumptions that complicate the situation.

Assumptions Favoring an Age-Graded System
Classes in the United States today are organized by age of pupils and deviations from age norm are disapproved. Children who are slow learners are socially promoted until they become such dismal failures that special placement becomes necessary. Exceptionally precocious children move nominally at the very same pace, one grade per year. Even special programs for gifted and retarded children advance one grade designation per year. To be sure, many teachers try to individualize instruction, to teach prescriptively, and to accommodate to the different learning rates of their pupils. Some create smaller subgroups within the classroom and encourage students to do special projects and to study more advanced texts on their own. Special self-contained and pull-out programs usually focus on horizontal enrichment, although some advancement is unavoidable. Such adjustments tend to be piecemeal and uncoordinated, however, increasing the problems of the child who has already mastered a subject before he or she is the "right age" for it.

This rigid adherence to age-grade correspondence is relatively new in American education, a product of the post World War II era and its egalitarian ideals. Prior to that time, one often found a mixture of ages represented in classrooms because of grade skipping (double promotion) and holding back (Kett, 1974). Most of the gifted children in Terman's study (Terman and Oden, 1947) were accelerated one or more grade levels in school. Even today we encourage excellence and advancement in the performing arts and athletics. Who has said that a teenage champion swimmer should be held back from the Olympics because of being too young?

The rationale opposed to flexibility in grade placement as a means of meeting the needs of the intellectually advanced student rests in part on educational concerns, in part on concern for the social adjustment of the child, and in part on our current concept of the "American Way." There has been particular concern about any academic program that smack of elitism, especially programs that tend to involve more children from middle-class families than from families less well situated. Programs that increase rather than decrease social imbalance are similarly antithetical to the thrust of social equalization. Unfortunately, school aptitude, at this point in our nation's history at least, is in fact correlated with social, educational, and economic status of parents. This fact runs counter to the state of affairs we would wish--giftedness, in our ideal world, being independent of family background--and restricts our latitude of decision making.

Within the context of this social outlook, there lie strong concerns. It would be well, then, to examine some educational and developmental assumptions that bolster the age-grade system and require the compromises mentioned earlier: The reason most often advanced for the age-grade system is that advancement according to educational achievement ignores the students' maturity in social and emotional spheres. Such maturity is thought to correspond rather specifically to chronological age (see, for example, Gold, 1965; Rothman and Levine, 1963), and it is argued, therefore, that academic advancement may jeopardize healthy progress in other areas (Congdon, 1979).

There is, to be sure, a lack of sufficient data in this area, but there is available considerable evidence to challenge the specificity of age and maturity level. We know, for example, that during the middle school years, girls on the whole tend to be more mature both physically and heterosexually than boys, and we know in addition that measures of intelligence and social competence show a strong positive relationship (Hurst, 1962; Meyers, Nihira, and Zetlin, 1979), as do intelligence and social reasoning (Greenspan, 1979). With the expected publication in 1983 of the revised Vineland Scale, one can predict a spate of studies focused upon social maturity (and, it is to be hoped, on individual differences).

A wealth of publications deal with academic advancement of bright students, including early admission to kindergarten or first grade, grade skipping, advanced placement courses for college credit, and early admission to college. These studies strongly suggest that such practices benefit those who are allowed to move ahead according to their competencies (Daurio, 1979; Gallagher, 1975; Newland, 1976). As Keating has observed with respect to acceleration, "As for the socioemotional concerns, it seems time to abandon them unless and until some solid reliable evidence is forthcoming that indicates real dangers in well-run programs" (1979, p. 218).

A second reason given for adhering to the age-grade system is the importance of academic content provided at each grade level. Grade skipping causes students to miss important learning experiences (see, for example, Hildreth, 1966). Such gaps are not limited to grade skipping. Indeed, because each of the states adopts its own curriculum guidelines, gaps are often created for average as well as gifted students whose families move about the country. In fact, these gaps are much more likely to pass unnoticed than those created by skipping, because they have been created inadvertently. The arguments for a coherent and well-planned curriculum are justified. Concepts, skills, and essential specific facts may be omitted when grades are skipped. Even so, there is little evidence to indicate that bright students who skip are handicapped (Keating, 1976; Stanley, Keating, and Fox, 1974). Specific gaps in sequential areas can be handled directly, and material in nonsequential subjects that is repeated, spiral fashion, several times during one's school career, can be acquired at subsequent grade levels as well as through college work and independent study.

Similarly, there is concern for the omission of nonacadernic experiences and extracurricular activities of the school years. Class offices, school newspaper and yearbook, and team sports are regarded as valuable preparation for adult life. Of course, students who are young for grade are unlikely to be the football heroes of their class, but they may well edit newspapers, take photographs for the yearbook, serve as coxswain for the crew, enter the marching band, participate in a debate club, or play the ingenue in the school play. The evidence does not suggest that age per se strongly affects participation in extracurricular activities. In fact, in a study of high school students who had been admitted to kindergarten at an early age, Hobson (1963) found the underage students actually engaged in a significantly larger average number of extracurricular activities including athletic and social honors, elective offices, and awards at graduation.

A "simple" solution has seemed feasible: Individualized instruction has been advanced as the answer to meeting the needs of diverse children of the-same age. The classroom teacher is thought capable of providing for differences in performance levels both between children and within the same child. Paradoxically, this is in some ways a much easier task when the child is moving slowly through the curriculum than when he or she is moving rapidly, for the duller child uses up lesson plans at a much slower rate. With bright pupils, the classroom teacher often simply can not keep up. If an enrichment program is provided by a special teacher, it in turn must provide for differences in rates of learning or the very advanced gifted child will again be seriously underchallenged.

A number of other arguments have been advanced to support the age-grade system. It is argued, for example, that cognitive advancement may not be stable; the child who is far ahead at one age may not be at another. While this may occur in some instances, most longitudinal studies of children identified at school age indicate a strong correlation between earlier and later intellectual measures. (Several parents of entering kindergartners from different school districts have reported to us conversations with school principals whose remarks have been to this effect: "Even if your little darling has been reading for two or three years, by the time we get him or her to third grade, he or she won't be different from any of the others.") Some studies suggest that young people can be robbed of a carefree childhood and "burn out" at an early age; others fear that accelerating the highest achieving students will deprive non-gifted age peers of valuable role models (though these same students can provide role models wherever they are); still others are concerned about the negative effects of letting a child know he or she is gifted (as if such a characteristic were a blot on the family). Finally, it is said to be unfair to allow youngsters to leave school before graduation at age eighteen, implying that school is a sentence to be served for bad behavior.

Assumptions Favoring a Competency-Based System
We have already examined assumptions about learning and individual differences favoring a system that provides a challenge to the able learner and permits advancement to the extent that it is appropriate to the student. We have also reviewed the assumptions that contraindicate acceleration as a viable compromise for gifted students and support the age-grade structure of the educational establishment: Admittedly, for both sets of assumptions the empirical evidence is scanty, particularly when one inquires about long-range consequences.

We have also previously quoted comprehensive reviews of the literature, of which Daurio (1979) is the most thorough and up to date, in support of the conclusion that carefully selected students are likely to profit, rather than suffer, from a program that provides carefully monitored acceleration. Before describing one such program, let us examine a final set of assumptions that tend to tip the scales in favor of making available as one option or one compromise advancement that is greater than one grade per year.

Precocious children in an age-graded system often become bored and frustrated (Hollingworth, 1942; Newland, 1976; Terman, 1925), sometimes tuning out and turning off, sometimes misbehaving. What were once eager learners become disenchanted, uncurious, often angry or withdrawn, seat fillers. The child who finishes early the assignment he or she could have done several years ago, who finds the teacher's careful presentations obvious and elementary, is forced to waste precious time and to find some means to adapt to the classroom scene. Such adaptations are not likely to be positive ones.

A serious outcome of the situation described here is that gifted children are seldom encouraged to develop habits of organization, self-discipline, or persistence in the face of adversity. When every classroom problem seems self-evident, when all one's homework can be completed easily during school hours, and when one's offhand effort is better than the laborious product of another child, a set of expectations about the world is developed that undermines one when a true challenge is presented. Frequently, when such youngsters encounter a program for gifted children or finally enter a selective college they become anxious and discouraged. When they must exert an effort to learn or to produce a paper, they think that something is wrong with them and find the whole situation aversive rather than intriguing. While a student of lesser talents who is accustomed to an occasional failure could pick up the pieces and proceed, these children panic, adopt avoidance mechanisms (such as not going to class or delaying the assignment), and further complicate their situations, sometimes withdrawing from school altogether.

Although empirical studies about the peer relationships of academically gifted students are surprisingly few, there is a trend in the data that suggests that the positive social adjustment of the young, gifted child may worsen during the middle school, early adolescent years, with girls perhaps suffering more than boys a decline in social status and a devaluation of intellectual attainments (Austin and Draper, 1981). The process seems to proceed downhill for gifted adolescent girls, though boys may regain their favorable status during the latter years of high school. Presumably, the youngster who is intellectually advanced is rejected as different from the rest, perhaps viewed as somewhat threatening or distant.

At the extreme, some proportion of gifted children become unmistakable isolates among their age peers; this is particularly frequent with students who are extraordinarily precocious (Terman, 1925, Hollingworth, 1942). Rather than profiting from the opportunities available--the athletic teams, class offices, and marching bands--they may be regarded by others and may regard themselves as misfits. This maladaptive pattern is often used as evidence that the student should not be moved ahead in school. "Why," it is said, "he or she cannot even get along with children of the same age. How could he or she succeed with older children?" And yet, many gifted children, as we know, on their own seek out older children as companions (Painter, 1976; Freeman, 1979).

Finally, it can be argued that a school plan that advances children according to competence can be run less expensively than a program that requires either extensive individualized curriculum planning on the part of the regular classroom teacher or a special pull-out class and special materials. The chief ingredient in a competency-based system becomes the school psychologist or counselor who can match child to class(es) and vice versa--a matchmaker, literally and figuratively.

This brief overview has touched only the superficial, gliding rapidly over real concerns voiced by parents, teachers, and students about how best to go about meeting the needs of academically talented youngsters. It has been meant to convey not the simplicity but the complexity of the decisions that must be made about individual children. One must take into account not only the child's intellectual power and preparation but factors such as social, emotional, and physical maturity (which may not be in synchrony with each other). The pleasures being reaped (or not reaped) from nonacademic aspects of the school situation, available out of school activities that may enrich and challenge the child's best efforts, the alternatives within the school (or the family's available choices of schools)--all must be reckoned with. For any given child, it will be almost impossible to find a school setting that optimizes every aspect of the situation, particularly if the child is not merely moderately gifted but extraordinarily so. The right compromise for one child may well not be right for another. Priorities will have to be chosen and experiments tried.

The University of Washington's Early Entrance Program

As part of a comprehensive program to investigate aspects of intellectual precocity and devise ways to meet the needs of highly gifted young students, the Early Entrance Program was established in 1977 by Halbert B. Robinson and his colleagues in the University of Washington's Child Development Research Group. Already under their auspices was a longitudinal study of highly precocious children identified during the preschool years; from that study had grown a preschool devoted to gifted children and a diagnostic and counseling service. As the outgrowth of consultation and collaboration between the Child Development Research Group and the Seattle School District, a public school individual progress program (IPP) had also been established to serve students performing four or more grade levels in advance of their age mates. Faced with the future prospect of graduates from the IPP who would still be in their early teens, Robinson devised a program to enable highly gifted youngsters to enter the university as qualified regular students.

The Early Entrance Program was, of course, not the first program to facilitate the entry of young students into a university. Indeed, at almost any moderately large or large university, one will find one or more significantly underage students upon whom a kindly admissions officer has taken pity. Other programs of early entry exist at the University of Chicago and elsewhere, but currently the largest and best established program is that at Johns Hopkins University under the leadership of Julian Stanley. Indeed, the programs have much in common although they also have their distinctive differences (Robinson, forthcoming).

Although the Early Entrance Program has from time to time accepted a few students as transfers from high school--some because they were clearly qualified for university work two or three years early, some because they were clearly making a mess of their high school careers despite their very high ability--it is the radical accelerants who form the major substance of the program. These students, qualifying for admission by the age of fourteen, have attained scores on the Washington PreCollege Test (a test like the SAT given in Washington State) at or above the ninetieth percentile on either the verbal or quantitative composite and at or above the fiftieth percentile on the other. The norms with which the applicants are compared are high school juniors and seniors who subsequently enter four-year colleges. The applicants are on a competitive footing with other freshmen in academic prowess. In addition, the students must demonstrate an outstanding scholastic record, be recommended by at least some of their teachers or counselors, and demonstrate a high level of motivation to attempt the program. The youngest to qualify was ten-years-old at the time. Table 1 reports the entrance data. About one in four applicants qualified on the Washington PreCollege Test (WPCT), but the mutual selection process further narrows the group so that about one in ten actually enters the program.

Table 1. University of Washington Early Entrance Program 1977-1981*

*Radical accelerants only (qualified by age 14) by Fall Quarter, 1981.

Having qualified initially, students may enter the EEP program via either of two paths. Until 1980, the single route for entry was engagement in increasingly demanding university course loads while simultaneously maintaining a major involvement in another home school, usually a junior high school. Students were encouraged to begin with courses in their favored area of interest and preparation, but by the time a full probationary quarter was undertaken, the selection of courses had to represent a broad spectrum. Such courses would eventually be needed to meet distribution and other college requirements. A grade point average of 3.0 or better during the probationary quarter was required to qualify for full admission to the EEP. Ordinarily that quarter was taken in the summer, so that, if a student did not seem to be profiting from the program, no bridges had been burned and the standard secondary school educational track had not been interrupted. This system had the advantage of providing the student with a gradual entry into the university, but most students found it difficult to cope with the kind of "split personality" required in trying to adapt to two school settings and to manage scheduling and transportation problems. Moreover, the massive grade skipping represented by this program left some obvious gaps in the students' survival skills for coursework at the university level.

For these reasons, a transition component, or bridge, was added to the Early Entrance Program in 1980-1981. Consisting in essence of a minischool, the small program for thirteen to fifteen students concentrates explicitly on the skills needed by college freshmen. It also provides a convenient base (geographic and personal) from which the student may take regular university coursework as appropriate. Instruction centers on writing style, organizing material, preparing term papers, taking blue book exams, notetaking, typing, review procedures and other study skills, as well as basic concepts in science and the humanities. In addition, content areas such as mathematics (up to the precalculus course taught at the university), history, literature, and foreign language are included. A full time coordinator and several part time teachers and tutors (ranging from regular university faculty to graduate students and even Early Entrance Program students ("EEP'ers") provide a selective education. The goal of the transition component is an accelerated program that breeds confident, competent, organized, and mature students. Its first graduates have just joined the EEP so it is too early to be certain, but it is our impression that the program is a more effective support for the young student in transition into the university than was the alternative (and intact) method.

For students enrolled in courses at the university, the EEP provides a comprehensive support system. All first year students are required to attend a weekly meeting that provides a chance to make friends and to share problem solving and information. The meetings give program staff a chance to trouble-shoot, as individual or common issues become apparent. The meetings also serve the instructional program of the university by introducing coleaders, clinical psychology interns, and child psychiatry fellows to a gifted population. In addition to the regular meetings, which many students attend far past the required four quarters, the program provides a lounge and study area to be used as home base between classes. Each student who is not yet affiliated with a major department is also required at least quarterly to discuss academic plans in preparation for registration, and all EEP undergraduates are asked to set aside another hour per quarter for discussion of more personal adjustment matters.

In addition to these required elements of the program, however, it is the availability of staff and their sensitivity to students' behavioral clues that permit effective support and intervention as needed. Students who begin to come around more often or less often, who actively seek help in dealing with academic problems or suddenly become vague in talking about their courses, who appear glum or suddenly become silly and attention seeking, as well as those students who drop by to chat about anticipated, emerging, and/or minor concerns about which they are developing increasingly mature coping skills—all these constitute an ongoing responsibility of the program staff. Most of these young people were at least mildly unhappy in their school situation before they entered the EEP. Indeed, this state of affairs was the most predominant reason behind their choice of this particular educational alternative, or compromise, rather than another.

The EEP acts in a more parental role than is common in universities today, but in addition it works closely with parents. Students live at home for their first two years at least, and most families are active partners with EEP in monitoring and supporting the work and play of their students. One of the most difficult problems confronting many families is the rapid social and personal maturation of their children in a telescoped time. The metamorphosis from child lo college student occurs more rapidly than the parents had anticipated. Most, but not all, families have been able to make this transition with good grace. One retired father still accompanies his son, now a senior, to class and back every day; others drive to and fro students who are perfectly capable of taking the bus. Some find it difficult to refrain from calling professors to discuss their children's progress or to voice complaints. Some still argue about bedtimes and baths.

Despite the contrast in age between EEP students and their classmates, our overall impression of the social adjustment of these students is quite positive. Many have continued their extracurricular activities, such as the serious pursuit of a foreign language, ballet and swimming, orchestra and solo musical instruments. Some have joined campus activities such as the inarching band, the crew, the sailing club, the campus newspaper, and various student political groups. Most seem to have satisfying friendships both within the program and outside it. It is our impression that the girls, who tend to be well into puberty when they enter the program, have an easier time socially than the boys, particularly the prepubescent boys. Fortunately, prepubescence is a temporary affliction, and we witness a marked leap in the social skills and maturity of these youngsters as the years go by.

With regard to the academic achievement of the students, the record is very presentable. Table 2 reports in capsule form the standing and academic progress of the group through Spring Quarter, 1981. (Average grade point average at this university approaches 3.0 where 4.0 is maximum).

One student, a fifteen-year-old classics major, graduated from the program in 1981. She has decided to remain at the university to pursue a master's in the same area, while she simultaneously obtains advanced training in ballet. Several others are due to graduate in 1982. Students are encouraged to pursue a well-rounded liberal arts education in addition to a specific course of study. Moreover, they must meet special University requirements because of having entered without the usual high school prerequisites. The typical student will probably take about five years to graduate. Several, tempted intellectually in many directions at once (usually despite our advice), carry course loads of over 20 credits each quarter, rather than the usual 15 units, because there is so much they want to learn. These are by and large "turned on" students—eager, industrious, organized, and successful. Most of them are contemplating graduate work upon completion of their undergraduate degrees, with career aspirations distributed over a broad spectrum. We have students who are currently headed for international corporate law, space exploration, medicine, geophysics, drama, music composing, computer science, writing novels, business administration, mathematics, the diplomatic corps, engineering, and college teaching/research in a variety of areas.

Table 2. University of Washington Early Entrance Program

Status of Radical Accelerants After Spring Quarter, 1981

To return to our earlier theme, it is important to stress that the philosophy underlying the Early Entrance Program is not acceleration per se but an optimal match between the student and the learning situation. EEP students have demonstrated, before entering the program, the maturity, a good many of the skills, and most of the knowledge needed for success in college. Many of them have had to scramble along the way to pick up missing skills and content, but for the most part they have been able to accomplish this easily. (One twelve-year-student with only one year of high school algebra, largely self-taught, followed literally the advice of her calculus teaching assistant to "take a weekend to read a trigonometry text," for example.) Their curiosity, verve, and optimism reflect for the most part the kind of match for which the program was designed, though monitoring that match must be done more carefully than would be the case for ordinary freshmen.

Some students have had academic problems along the way; some, in fact have withdrawn. (See Table 1.) By no means all those who have withdrawn have earned poor grades; rather they have tried the EEP as an experiment and have opted for another alternative. We have not yet in error admitted any students who were not bright enough to handle this program. We have, however, witnessed several students who have had trouble for other reasons. We have now developed a set of rules of thumb that characterize students who will succeed with ease in the EEP versus those who will find the adjustment more troublesome. These characteristics match very closely those described by Stanley (1981) in his description of successful younger students at Johns Hopkins University:

1. Demonstration of a very high general ability according to the Washington PreCollege or other test scores. General achievement at least equal to that of older university students is essential. In the course of meeting college requirements, students with distinctive patterns of ability sometimes encounter specific courses with which they have difficulty, but they do very well in their major fields. Those who have the easiest time, however, have demonstrated high levels of competence in both verbal and quantitative fields.
2. A consistent pattern of good grades in the previous school setting. The student who, though bored, has made an effort to comply with conventional school demands, is likely to accept with relatively good grace the occasional mediocre professor, the disliked assignment, or the unwelcome distribution requirement and to apply himself or herself with sufficient energy to maintain a good record.
3. High motivation to enter the EEP. The capable student who contacts us independently, who eagerly desires not just to escape from the current school but to partake of what the university offers, is usually able to do so successfully.
4. Relatively positive mental health, though not net necessarily popularity or contentment, in the previous school. The student with adjustment problems at entry may well have difficulty dealing with the demands of this challenging program and may be hampered by poor problem-solving and interpersonal skills.
5. Habits of industry, organization, and application. Students who have filled their lives outside of school with so many activities that they have had to maintain strong self-discipline and consistent organization do well with us. Typical outside activities of such students have included playing more than one musical instrument, serious modern dance and ballet, swimming, skiing, studying several foreign languages, writing poetry, earning spending money with paper routes, and so on. The student who tells us that reading or another passive pursuit is the favorite hobby may be in for trouble.
6. Competitiveness, preferably oriented toward improving one's own record rather than beating the opposition. Students who have engaged in activities that require constant improvement (such as dance, competitive individual sports, playing instruments, and learning languages) often develop habits of perseverance in the face of adversity and discouragement. They would not acquire such habits in the ordinary school situation where the work is easy. We have witnessed several students whose previous unremitting successes had ill-prepared them to meet the challenge of the optimal educational match. Accustomed to doing beautifully with a minimum of personal investment, they have found highly aversive the need to work hard and have been overly alarmed by occasional medium to low grades on examinations or papers. Cutting class, postponing assignments, and failing to review for examinations, they have fallen behind and compounded the assault on their feelings of self-worth and competence.
7. Families who encourage academic excellence and support the student's entry into EEP. When one parent or the other is subtly opposed to the program, trouble brews. The dissenting parent often makes demands that are incompatible with steady application on the part of the student. Fortunately, even though this situation sometimes exists initially, it usually diminishes once the EEP'er begins to thrive. Our families range from those of very modest means and modest education to highly educated professional couples. Although a well-educated family usually provides an intellectual context that is conducive to academic success, it is the combined purposiveness, respect, and support offered by the parents that appear to be crucial.
8. Parental harmony and mental health. Marital discord, divorce, and parental mental illness produce as much havoc with our students as they would with any other teenagers. In every case in which a student has exhibited marked difficulty in our program, there has been serious trouble at home unrelated to the EEP. When students' resources must be diverted to a more personal agenda, particularly when that agenda involves the parents, there may not be enough energy left to cope with the academic challenge.

Any program of this nature must be flexible and experimental. Currently, for example, the transition component curriculum is undergoing refinement and fine tuning with feedback as its graduates encounter the demands of university courses. The admissions procedure for both the Early Entrance Program and the transition component are being formalized, to include the usual transcripts (very high grades required) and letters of reference, additional data the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Revised) and focused extensive interviews.

A grant from the William H. Donner Foundation of New York will make possible a comprehensive and objective assessment of the personal and social adjustment of the EEP students. It is clear that, as a group, they have been successful students at the University of Washington and at the demanding colleges (Duke University, Reed College, California Institute of Technology) to which a few have transferred. How well, though, are they managing their lives? Thus far, we have only subjective impressions.

During the next three years, EEP students who have entered the program since late 1979 will be compared with three groups of students: (1) those who qualified for the program but did not elect to join it, (2) regular University of Washington students matched for Washington PreCollege Test scores (taken, on the average, when four to five years older), and (3) regular University of Washington students who present exceptionally high Washington PreCollege Test scores. In other words, the EEP students will be compared with nonaccelerated high school students and college students who are equally bright and with another group of college students who are not as exceptional in intelligence but who are equally ready for the college coursework as judged by their WPCT scores.

Most of the evidence collected will be questionnaire measures, annually administered over a three-year period and covering the following areas:

1. Intellectual ability (Washington PreCollege Test Scores, Terman Concept Mastery Test).
2. Overall personal adjustment (MMPI, IPAT Anxiety Questionnaire)
3. Personality descriptions (California Test of Personality, Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, Locus of Control questionnaire, Personal Orientation Inventory).
4. Social relations (Dating Problems Checklist, Social Performance Survey Schedule, structured interview).
5. Maturity (Bern Sex-Role Inventory, Defining Issues Test, assessment of career decision making).
6. Academic Performance (transcripts, Graduate Record Examination).

Information about the students' in-class behavior will be sought from instructors, and parents will be asked to describe the adjustment of their children as well. The thrust of the study is descriptive, although the comparison of the responses of the radically accelerated students with the various nonaccelerated groups will be instructive. Confounded variables are unavoidable. The radical accelerants, for example, are probably a less satisfied group of students when they apply to the program than are those who apply but elect not to join it, although they may also be more confident of their ability to succeed in a challenging situation. The groups may differ in family background and family goals, in education experience, and in social skills. The broad range of information to be gathered over a three-year period will yield, it is hoped, not only descriptive material but a set of hypotheses for further exploration.

It is, of course, too early to evaluate the outcome of a program of this nature. The ultimate personal and professional careers of these highly talented young people will constitute the best index of the appropriateness of their having participated in a program of radical acceleration. It is unfortunate indeed that Hal Robinson will not be here to follow, as he enthusiastically anticipated, these gifted and promising young people as they enter adulthood. So far, however, the evidence indicates that the program he conceived will continue as a memorial to a psychologist who cared very deeply about what he could do for these young people and what they could, in turn, do for their society.

The work cited was supported in part by grants from the Ford Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the U.S. Office of Education. Thanks are due to Paul Janos, Judy Opacki, Charles Stillman, and other members of the Child Development Research Group.

References

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