Does this count as being one of the few hundred 'geniuses' that HYP selects?

Colleges & Universities Princeton University
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<p>Time to get out my FAQ electrons. </p>

<p>All IQ tests have error of estimation, and no one brand of IQ test will yield the same score for the same individual on every occasion, nor will two different brands of IQ tests necessarily sort the same group of test-takers into the same rank order. Lewis Terman (the developer of the first widely used IQ test in the United States, the Stanford-Binet, the test that Marilyn vos Savant took and I took in childhood) noted that error of estimation in IQ scores increases as IQ scores are above the mean: </p>

<p>"The reader should not lose sight of the fact that a test with even a high reliability yields scores which have an appreciable probable error. The probable error in terms of mental age is of course larger with older than with young children because of the increasing spread of mental age as we go from younger to older groups. For this reason it has been customary to express the P.E. [probable error] of a Binet score in terms of I.Q., since the spread of Binet I.Q.'s is fairly constant from age to age. However, when our correlation arrays [between Form L and Form M] were plotted for separate age groups they were all discovered to be distinctly fan-shaped. Figure 3 is typical of the arrays at every age level.</p>

<p>“From Figure 3 [not shown here on CC, alas] it becomes clear that the probable error of an I.Q. score is not a constant amount, but a variable which increases as I.Q. increases. It has frequently been noted in the literature that gifted subjects show greater I.Q. fluctuation than do clinical cases with low I.Q.'s . . . . we now see that this trend is inherent in the I.Q. technique itself, and might have been predicted on logical grounds.” (Terman & Merrill, 1937, p. 44)</p>

<p>A slightly different issue is that anyone’s IQ can change over the course of life. For example, young people in the famous Lewis Terman longitudinal Genetic Studies of Genius (initial n=1,444 with n=643 in main study group) when tested at high school age (n=503) were found to have dropped 9 IQ points on average in Stanford-Binet IQ. More than two dozen children dropped by 15 IQ points and six by 25 points or more. Parents of those children reported no changes in their children or even that their children were getting brighter (Shurkin 1992, pp. 89-90). Terman observed a similar drop in IQ scores in his study group upon adult IQ testing (Shurkin 1992, pp. 147-150). Samuel R. Pinneau conducted a thorough review of the Berkeley Growth Study (1928-1946; initial n=61, n after eighteen years =40). Alice Moriarty was a Ph.D. researcher at the Menninger Foundation and describes in her book (1966) a number of case studies of longitudinal observations of children’s IQ. She observed several subjects whose childhood IQ varied markedly over the course of childhood, and develops hypotheses about why those IQ changes occurred. Anastasi and Urbina (1997, p. 328) point out that childhood IQ scores are poorest at predicting subsequent IQ scores when taken at preschool age. Change in scores over the course of childhood shows that there are powerful environmental effects on IQ (Anastasi & Urbina 1997, p. 327) or perhaps that IQ scores in childhood are not reliable estimates of a child’s scholastic ability. </p>

<p>Lewis Terman’s longitudinal study of high-IQ elementary-age pupils showed that many of those young people did not qualify as “gifted” on a subsequent test that Terman gave them at high school age. But he kept them in the study group anyway. An especially odd result of the Terman study is that Terman tested and rejected for inclusion in his study two children whose IQ scores were below his cut-off line who later went on to win Nobel prizes: William Shockley, who co-invented the transistor, and physicist Luis Alvarez. None of the children included in the study ever won a Nobel prize. The book by Shurkin I have just cited here is a good corrective on many misconceptions about IQ, and has an excellent section on attempts by one of Terman’s study associates to estimate–by extremely dubious methods that have never been validated–the IQ scores of historical persons. </p>

<p>REFERENCES</p>

<p>Anastasi, Anne & Urbina, Susana (1997). Psychological Testing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.</p>

<p>Deary, Ian J. (2000) Looking Down on Human Intelligence: From Psychometrics to the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</p>

<p>Howe, Michael J. A. (1998). Can IQ Change?. The Psychologist, February 1998 pages 69-72.</p>

<p>Pinneau, Samuel R. (1961). Changes in Intelligence Quotient Infancy to Maturity: New Insights from the Berkeley Growth Study with Implications for the Stanford-Binet Scales and Applications to Professional Practice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. </p>

<p>Shurkin, Joel N. (1992). Terman’s Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up. Boston: Little, Brown.</p>

<p>Terman, Lewis & Merrill, Maude (1937). Measuring Intelligence: A Guide to the Administration of the New Revised Stanford-Binet Tests of Intelligence. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.</p>

<p>Truch, Steve (1993). The WISC-III(R) Companion: A Guide to Interpretation and Educational Intervention. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.</p>

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<p>It’s called brain plasticity, my friends. :)</p>

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<p>How so? Does a high IQ say anything about someone’s character aside from they’re smart? And well, he probably would be doing something like that…if he didn’t decide to blow things up.</p>

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<p>@ christian soldier: and morality next to nothing with criminality…</p>

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<p>This has become really nerdy really quickly. Well this is CC, so keep going I guess.</p>

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<p>Well, maybe you would appreciate our intellectual discussion if you weren’t a ■■■■■.</p>

<p>And if you aren’t, then why do you continually come back to defend the honor of “your friend?” Clearly, he is one of those “geniuses” that HYP accept, and that’s all you need to say. Even if we don’t believe you, does it matter? Apparently it does to you. We’re saying that he’s not a genius under standard definition (IMO champions, Intel winners, infants who have published novels, IQ> about 160), but under your definition, a genius being someone who HYP accepts, than he obviously is.</p>

<p>If he exists.</p>

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<p>Oh, and I read somewhere that if someone’s IQ stayed the same for his/her whole life after childhood, they would be considered mentally ■■■■■■■■.</p>

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<p>I think that’s based on an older system, where age is a major factor in the determinant of your IQ and you must continuously score higher as you get older in order to maintain the same IQ.</p>

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<p>You might be right. I’m not going to argue with people about IQs :slight_smile: I imagine none of us are dumb. That might be wishful thinking though.</p>

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<p>I did read somewhere that it’s scored on a curve; i.e. different bands. </p>

<p>When you’re 60 your band would be similar to that of a child below 14… I can’t remember the exact numbers though.</p>

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<p>If anything, christiansoldier, your subjective factors may have deterred you. </p>

<p>Consider this a detached criticism, but you seem to be very “open” about sharing your rank, grades, AP scores, SAT scores with the rest of CC, not to mention your Facebook rant about your Yale decision was not exactly the model example of maturity.</p>

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<p>Today all IQ tests are normed and scored to report how the test-taker’s performance compares to other persons of the same age, in narrow age bands only a year or two wide, from about age five or six of to age sixty-something. (Some brands of IQ tests have separate versions for children and adults, but at least one tries to cover that whole age range with the same battery of item content.) The score labeled IQ 100 is at the mean of what is presumed (based on the norming sample) to be the level of the whole population. A score labeled 115 is one standard deviation above the mean, a score of 130 is two standard deviations above the mean. In practice, considering both necessary sample sizes to make such inferences and the fact that the standard deviation is not a resistant statistic, any score above 160 is not a validated score on current IQ tests.</p>

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<p>Where are now those gifted 200-300 students who were accepted 10, 20, or 30 years ago?</p>

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<p>Samsunimomo are you willing to post that facebook link or PM it?</p>

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<p>I’ll say it again, because I don’t regret it.</p>

<p>In response to my deferral, I posted a status saying “**** you!” (The status, of course, referred to Yale rather than the reader). I meant it when I said it, and there’s no shame in getting angry when anger is a relatively normal response. When challenged to realize that there are people out there who are just that much better than me, I responded that I will show I’m the best (in hindsight, “great” is probably a better word than best), Yale’s decision notwithstanding. I also said that Yale would regret their decision some day, and that I no longer had any desire to go to Yale, because I’m “No one’s backup date, not even Yale’s.”</p>

<p>I’ve never touted modesty or humbleness as my virtues. My behavior can be called a lot of things, but I don’t feel immature applies. Aggression in response to rejection (or what, for my purposes, I considered rejection) is by no means a reaction particular to children.</p>

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<p>This thread was started out of horrendous ignorance. </p>

<p>Someone will never be a genius because of a high school work load, period. </p>

<p>christiansoldier, I don’t think you will, but I hope you never consider yourself to be “smarter” or more intelligent than someone else because of your strong application.</p>

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<p>Just by the way, saying you don’t tout modesty as a virtue doesn’t make it any less bad that you may not have any (and I’m not saying you don’t, as I have not much to go off of.)</p>

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<p>In my opinion, I think christiansoldier has a right to say such things. I would be furious if I were deferred with those stats. I understand that college admissions are fairly unpredictable but I counted on this guy to get in.</p>

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<p>@Christiansoldier, you are undeniably gifted and I completely understand your anger towards your deferral, but there are many people with similar stats/subjective qualities that were also deferred or rejected from other schools. You did everything in your control, and it’s not really something to be angry about if you were deferred.</p>

<p>I’m not trying to demean you. I actually was rejected from Stanford with similar stats.</p>

<p>But this thread has become ridiculous. I think most of us realize that the OP’s “friend” has been accepted to Harvard, so he’s obviously a “genius” that HYP accepts. Genius, though, in normal society, does not constitute a difficult high school workload, as another poster has previously mentioned.</p>

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<p>Christiansoldier is right to be angry. He’s probably Asian and got screwed by Affirmative Action while some URM with a 2200 and a 3.8 jacked his spot.</p>