Do High School Science Competitions Predict Success?

When the winners of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search were announced at an awards banquet in Washington, D.C., last month, two young women had taken the top slots in the prestigious precollege competition. Elizabeth Pine, 17, of Chicago finished first for her experiments linking two different types of fungi; Xanthi Merlo, also 17, placed second for demonstrating the role a specific protein may play in prolonging blood clotting. "After they announced the first five of the top 10, I didn't expect to win--I was truly shocked when I heard my name," Merlo said minutes after winning the $30,000 scholarship. Like Pine, Merlo, whose parents own an auto parts store in Racine, Wis., plans on getting a Ph.D. and pursuing a career in biological research. These two teenagers, along with the eight other finalists, are members of an exclusive club. Of the 2,080 finalists in the Science Talent Search since its inception in 1942, five have won Nobel Prizes; two have won Fields Medals for distinguished work in mathematics; eight have been awarded MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, the so-called genius awards; 28 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences; and three are members of the National Academy of Engineering. Clearly, being a Westinghouse finalist carries an inestimable cachet. And growing research evidence--including studies done by Harriet Zuckerman, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, and Benjamin S. Bloom, an education specialist now retired from the University of Chicago--suggests that the participation of high school students in such extracurricular competitions as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (STS); the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the "World Series" of science, now in its 44th year; or the Math Olympiad, which began in 1972, are indicators of characteristics like originality, persistence, and dedication, which are important for success in a scientific career. But does winning the Westinghouse or any of these other prestigious competitions accurately predict future success in science? Or is it the experience merely of entering such a contest that encourages a young person to pursue a career in science? In fact, many of these young people already have impressive resumes when they graduate high school: summer stints at research universities, numerous awards and scholarships, prizes from the regional science fair circuit, and even papers published in refereed journals. So what factors determine which ones eventually become scientists and which pursue other careers? "There are so many other variables as to whether someone will succeed in science, including whether that young interest persists or whether you discover new things in college you had no awareness of before," says Nina Tabachnik Shor, who won first place in the 1972 STS, and was the first female participant to capture first place among finalists of both sexes. She is now a cancer specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. "I would have gone into medically related research regardless of what happened in the competition," she says. "But it did give me a vote of confidence that I could do this at a very early stage." There is one ongoing longitudinal study of the 300 semifinalists in the 1983 STS. It's too soon to draw any statistically significant conclusions, but the preliminary data are intriguing, according to Rena F. Subotnik, an associate professor of educational foundations at Hunter College of the City University of New York, who conducted the study. Her research is scheduled to be presented in the forthcoming book Beyond Terman: Contemporary Longitudinal Studies of Giftedness and Talent, edited by Subotnik and K.D. Arnold, to be published by Ablex Publishing Corp. of Norwood, N.J. The book's namesake, Lewis Madison Terman (1877-1956), was a child psychologist who did pioneering studies on gifted children in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Out of the original group of 300 semifinalists, 98 have continued to participate in Subotnik's study: 60 men and 38 women. By 1990, 49 of the remaining 60 male participants, or nearly 82 percent, could be categorized as scientists or mathematicians from their field of study or employment in scientific research or an applied discipline; of these 49, 21 are currently in graduate school. Of the 38 women, 25 are still in science; 10 of these are in graduate school. Thus far, a much higher percentage of STS participants than the norm for U.S. high school students are still on the research track, although it is important to note that people who would enter the talent search are by definition more motivated than the average student. One-third of the 1 million new students entering four-year colleges each year express an interest in natural science or engineering. About 20 percent of that one-third get baccalaureates in science and engineering, 7 percent of those go to graduate school, and fewer than 1 percent of that portion complete advanced degrees, according to a 1989 report from the Office of Technology Assessment, entitled "Higher Education for Science and Engineering." So, clearly, there is some correlation between doing well in the Talent Search and pursuing science. But Subotnik believes the attrition rate would be even lower if these gifted young people were identified and encouraged throughout their college years. "Winning the Westinghouse allowed many of them to go to a more prestigious college than they would have normally," says Subotnik. "But once they got to college, they were all thrown in with everyone and the fact that they won the Westinghouse was lost. The more dedicated ones stayed in science, but many dropped out because they weren't encouraged. This is especially problematic for women, who tend to react to any kind of negative reinforcement, and are more easily discouraged and more easily seduced by other disciplines." In fact, other studies suggest that, when it comes to predicting science success, winning major contests is not what counts--the mentoring relationship that evolves of necessity through the process of entering a competition seems to be the key ingredient. As Chicago's Bloom noted from interviews of talented performers in a variety of disciplines, special experiences are important for the development of talent. "No matter what the initial characteristics (or gifts) of the individuals, unless there is a long and intensive process of encouragement, nurturance, education, and training, the individuals will not attain extreme levels of capability in these particular fields," noted Bloom in Developing Talent in Young People (New York, Ballantine Books, 1985). In other research, Columbia's Zuckerman analyzed the career paths both of Nobel laureates and of occupants of the "41st chair"-- scientists who did research of Nobel quality but were not awarded the prize. They are analogous, according to Zuckerman, to "the `immortals' who happened not to have been included among the cohorts of forty in the French Academy" (Harriet Zuckerman, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States, New York, Free Press, 1977, page 42). Zuckerman found that virtually all of the individuals whom she studied showed promise very early in their careers--which, in turn, opened up more opportunities for intellectual development. Most laureates, for example, attended the most distinguished universities (10 universities produced 55 percent of the laureates), where they apprenticed with previous laureates. What is equally significant is that the high achievers actively created these opportunities. In other words, it wasn't just intelligence and ability--it was drive, determination, and a host of other intangibles that pushed them ahead of their peers. What can be distilled from all of this research, experts say, is that the various competitions--as well as summer research programs and the new science-oriented "magnet" high schools that are popping up across the U.S.--are extremely important. That's because they create enhanced learning environments enabling gifted young people to become acquainted with science, they force them to be enterprising, and they hook them up with mentors, who are most often the catalysts for guiding youngsters into scientific careers. "Teachers matter a lot," says Roald Hoffmann, a chemistry professor at Cornell University and a winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry. During his senior year at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Hoffmann took top honors at the STS in 1955 for a project analyzing the tracks of cosmic rays. "This new phenomenon of these science academies in various states is good because they create that stimulating hothouse environment--like Stuyvesant did for me," says Hoffmann. "It's a very good climate for young people because it shows them the reality of what science is about." Tessa Walters, a chemistry major at Harvard University who placed sixth in the 1991 STS, agrees, although she didn't attend a magnet school. Preparing with her teacher for the STS project was tremendously valuable, she says. "There is an incredible workload in science at Harvard," Walters says. "If I hadn't had the research experience in high school, it's quite possible I would have been diverted into another field." The science magnet program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., is a prime example of what can be done with generous funding--its annual budget for equipment and materials is about $78,000, more than twice that of the school's regular science department--and a program that emphasizes hands-on bench work under the guidance of a faculty adviser or an outside mentor. This year, Montgomery Blair, which started its science magnet program in 1985, produced three of the top 10 finishers in the 1993 STS. Another program for the gifted, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), was launched by Julian C. Stanley, a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, in 1971 in order to identify 12- and 13-year-old adolescents who possess exceptional mathematical abilities, and then ascertain the factors that contribute to their educational and vocational development. The program has since evolved into a vast network that searches for verbally as well as mathematically talented teenagers. Those who score in the top 1 percent for their age group on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, recently renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test--and about 50,000 young people do each year--are invited to participate in summer enrichment programs at six different universities across the U.S. Many of the gifted young mathematicians in the SMPY program are among the nearly 40,000 junior and senior high school students who take tests each year to qualify for the 24 berths on the USA Math Olympiad. Out of these two dozen adolescents, six are then chosen to compete in the International Math Olympiad. On other fronts, 19 of the U.S.'s outstanding high school science students are selected each year to participate in the Dr. Bessie F. Lawrence International Summer Science Institute at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, a leading research center in that country (Barbara Spector, The Scientist, July 9, 1990, page 4). Now in its 24th year, this international program brings together 71 students from 19 countries for five weeks of lectures and laboratory work. STS semifinalists are invited to apply to the Bessie Lawrence program as part of the recruitment effort for the program. "We get a lot of really talented kids applying for this, but if they haven't done an independent research project, they don't qualify," says Margaret Brewer, director of the Bessie Lawrence program. "We know that the Westinghouse kids have [done independent research], so we invite semifinalists to apply." Not all of these young prodigies end up in science, however. Those who enter other fields have varied reasons for doing so, but most say it's just because they discover other interests. "You always have a few people who are just plain maladjusted--who have mental health problems or aren't ambitious," says Stanley of Johns Hopkins. "But we haven't had any real failures, though there were a few college drop-outs who got bored in their early years of school and never did recover." One SMPY math whiz, for example, is now a nationally ranked player on the racquetball circuit. Another became a financial analyst on Wall Street. And Jim Scott, who scored 720 on his math SAT at age 12 and could multiply two-digit numbers by two-digit numbers in his head when he was four years old, chose to forgo math: He majored in history and economics at the University of Virginia. "I assumed I'd be a mathematician and attend MIT or Caltech," says the 23-year-old Scott, who won more than $149,000 in 1991 on the television game show "Jeopardy." "But I just hit a brick wall when I took calculus--I barely scraped through. It was very frustrating, but," he wryly adds, "I think things have worked out pretty well for me." He plans to use his winnings to pay for law school. "Competitions are usually stimulating, but I'm not sure how much of a predictor of future success they are," concludes Hoffmann. "If you took a cohort of about 40 scientists around the age of 55, you'll find that perhaps one or two did well in the Westinghouse. The other 38 probably came up in different ways."

Do High School Science Competitions Predict Success?

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