Introduction

Only a small minority of high school graduates have the intelligence to succeed in college. For forty years, american leaders have been unwilling to discuss the underlying differences and academic ability that children bring to the classroom. A survey of high school students revealed that more than 90 % were encouraged by their high school counsellors to go to college. The refusal to confront the relationship between intelligence and success in college has produced a cascade of harms to many students who try to go tocollege,. to those who do not, to the system of education and to the nation as a whole.