What You Can't Tell About A Harvard Man

Harvard students from the 1940s—a time when there was a wider range of IQ at that school—were tracked into middle age. The high IQ men were not anymore successful than the lower in intelligence. Similarly, 450 boys from Boston slums were followed into middle age. Success in this social group was not dependent on intelligence. Ten years after 81 valedictorians and salutatorians graduated from their high school, only four were at the highest level of young people of comparable age in their chosen profession. Academic intelligence fails to predict how one will react to the vicissitudes of life.