COMMENTS OF SCHOLARS' PARENTS

The colleges and universities participating in the Early Admission Program have not made a systematic effort to determine how the Scholars' parents feel about the program, but two colleges (Goucher and Louisville) conducted special canvasses of the parents of their 1951 Scholars shortly after their graduation. These results, although based on a very small and incomplete statistical sample, tended to confirm the general impression reported by the colleges that the parents on the whole have been favorable toward the program.

In the Goucher survey, 26 of the 27 parents responding said that if they had the choice to make again they would send their daughters to college early. Many of the parental opinions reflected the same balancing of advantages and disadvantages as the Scholar essays. One mother, who said she would again choose early admission for her daughter, remarked nonetheless that the girl had lost contact with her high school classmates and added on the drawback side: "It was, too, a lonely pinnacle of fame in the adolescent community." Another expressed the opinion that entering college early "helped to build up her self-confidence and initiative." Another wrote: "She was made more resourceful and self-reliant; had to think and act independently." And another: "I believe she matured in many ways sooner than if she had completed high school."

In the Louisville survey, 11 of the 12 responses expressed parental approval of the Early Admission Program. The one exception, written by the mother of a Scholar, said in part: "I would never influence a boy or girl again into giving up the last year in high school.... [My son] entered engineering school at the age of 16. He needed the chemistry, physics, and math he would have had his last year in High School. He was lost as far as the work was