Few descriptions of the graduate school experience are taken from the viewpint of the graduate student. The comments and real life experiences presented in this paper are not intended to dissuade potential students but to promote a serious discussion about the role and expectation of the graduate student. The paper opens by sharing thoughts on…

This follow-up study of gifted students who had either entered the University of Washington before age 15 (n=61), qualified for early entrance but chose the normal high school path (n=36), or were nonaccelerated National Merit Scholarship finalists (n=27) found that early entrants entered graduate school in greater numbers than did the other…