Historically, two commonly held stereotypes of genius have been that precocity was associated with social failure, and that precocity bred early burnout. Later research on the gifted has refuted these stereotypes. The two studies in this paper investigate whether the stereotypes have changed in light of this new knowledge. In the first study, 66 males and 61 females in an introductory psychology class completed a questionnaire describing six hypothetical males and females rated as gifted, able, and average (first at 17 years of age and later at 44). The first study was then rerun with 60 male and 59 female subjects rating stimulus persons of very high intelligence and extreme acceleration. Results indicate that the perception of the gifted, especially females, as encountering serious social problems is still prevalent. The illusion of burnout, however, has been replaced with an illusion of unqualified success. In the repeated study, the image of the gifted was not differentiated by level of giftedness. (JDD)