In the 1960s, psychologist Julian Stanley realized that if you took the best-testing seventh graders from around the country and gave them standard college entry exams, those kids would score, on average, about as well as the typical college-bound high school senior. However, the seventh graders who scored as well or better than high schoolers, Stanley found, had off-the-charts aptitude in quantitative, logical, and spatial reasoning. In other words, they were gifted.

In the 1970s, Stanley and his team launched a full-scale study, identifying many of America’s gifted kids and tracking them throughout their lives.

The study, called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth never ended and is now more than 50 years in the making. It has followed countless kids from middle school into their careers as some of America’s top politicians, scientists, CEOs, engineers, and military leaders. Needless to say, a lot has changed with how students are today compared to 50 years ago.

Stanley passed away in the mid-2000s, but psychologist David Lubinski helped bring the study to Vanderbilt University in the 1990s, where he now co-directs it with Camilla P. Benbow.

Why this study matters so much

It’s not a stretch to call this the biggest and most in-depth study on intellectual “precociousness.” The results of the study thus far are both fascinating and genuinely surprising, a deeply insightful look into the minds and lives of........

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