the Scholars, and from 85 to 97 per cent among the Comparison students. (See Appendix Table IV, B.) These figures would indicate that in the judgment of the colleges, the Comparison students were slightly more successful than the Scholars in overcoming the deficiencies in their academic preparation, and that the overwhelming majority of both had succeeded in doing so.

A more subjective report on the matter of overcoming deficiencies in previous preparation was contained in the essays written by the 1951 and 1952 senior Scholars and Comparison students just before graduation. Both groups were asked, in looking back over their four-year college experience, if they had been handicapped by any deficiencies in their academic preparation for college. The answers tended to confirm what these same students had reported during their first year of college. Sixty-five per cent of the 1951 Scholars and 56 per cent of the 1952 Scholars reported handicaps in one or more fields, as against 52 per cent of the 1951 Comparison students and 60 per cent of the 1952 Comparison students. Then they were asked if they had been able to overcome their handicaps. Their replies tended to confirm what the colleges had reported. Ninety-two per cent of the 1951 Scholars and 93 per cent of the 1952 Scholars said they had overcome their handicaps in whole or in part, as against 90 per cent of the 1951 Comparison students and 95 per cent of the 1952 Comparison students.

Richard Pearson of the College Entrance Examination Board, who analyzed the essays of the 1951 and 1952 Scholars and Comparison students who graduated, suggested in his report that the initial deficiencies may well have turned out to be an added stimulus rather than a handicap to the Scholars. This underscored a point made by many of the senior Scholars in their essays, namely that they found in college an intellectual challenge and satisfaction that they had not been able to obtain in high school.