On this forum and from other sources over the years I have heard that the high school dropout rate amongst gifted kids is as high for them as it is for those in Special Ed. I've never tried to verify this before - took it at face value. Could someone please let me know what source this info comes from? Thanks. (Are we maybe talking about HG or PG kids with this stat? Or maybe I've just got it wrong)

I think the notion that gifted students drop out of high school as often as the general population is nonsense and contrary to common sense. According to the Bell Curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve, among non-Hispanic whites, the drop-out rate was 0.4% for people with IQ between 110 and 125 and 0% above that.

The source of the myth may be the desire of some gifted advocates to heighten the urgency of serving the gifted -- "if we don't provided gifted programming, they'll drop out!" In reality, few gifted students drop out, although gifted programming would enable them to learn more in their K-12 years.

Would "dropping out" in favour of home schooling be counted as dropping out?

http://giftedkids.about.com/b/2007/08/22/are-schools-failing-our-gifted-children.htm

this says 'same as non-gifted students', which, oddly, does not seem alarming to me. Am I reading this wrong?

I dropped out. I would say it was due to bordom and frustration, and the inability to make myself understood most of the time to most of my teachers.

So the rate is not _exactly_ 0%. In my giftie highschool, though, the drop-out rate was higher than average for the city. I don't remember anyone ever really commenting on it, except a few kids from other schools saying "you know someone who dropped out?!?!?!" We also had a *lot* of people who never came to class, but were kept off the "drop out" list in odd ways. This happened to me several times. Actually, now that I think about it, I technically do not count as having dropped out I just somehow graduated with a technical dip. (not sufficient for entering university) from an academic school that didn't offer that programme (different # of years, different requirements, all back-engineered when I dropped out w/ course-names "re-jigged" etc.)

Many more people graduating from my high-school dropped out of university durring their first year. I don't know how the number relates to broader numbers, but in the case of my own group of friends, the number was startlingly high, maybe 50%, probably more, though many returned later & went through to advanced degrees. I can't help noticing that the ones who dropped out are mostly the ones who *did* go on to advanced degrees.

I suspect educational systems are different enough from place to place that it only really makes sence to talk about this one locally. And I think dropping out to homeschooling should count in some, but not all, contexts. If all the gifties are dropping out to homeschool, the school is clearly not serving them well, eh? But if all the homeschool/dropouts make something of themselves, well, apparently they made the correct decision & life in general did NOT fail them, maybe the best way to support them would be to support homeschooling.

Meh, this one caught my eye because people tried SO HARD to keep me in school, and I tried SO HARD to stay, and my decision to drop out had a lot to do with my mental health (I was becomming increasingly depressed and suicidal & knew it). Dropping out was the single best decision I ever made. It was also the single worst. I genuinely do not think I'd have survived another year, and it was clear from the experiece of going to community college the next year, both to myself and others, that that was the case & that I was a "different person" a few months later. BUT. I have never been able to recover from the lack of university qualifications. I'm attending an open university to try and get through an undergrad, while publishing in my field and raising an intense toddler. The timelines do not compute & I'm droppin' out again. On the 30th, to be precise. Maybe I'll try again, but I have sincere doubts. Wish me luck on my stats exam

-Mich

I'm white, and dropped out at 14 from a prep school that must have had a very low total dropout rate at the time, but my case was unusual in many respects. Here's some more light reading:

http://www.nagc.org/uploadedFiles/PDF/Advocacy_PDFs/dropout%20(GCQ%2044(4)).pdf

I'd like to see confirmation of this as well. It's clearly not 0%, though--what nonsense. I personally have a friend who dropped out who eventually got his GED, his BA, his MS, and his PhD and is now a professor and a major rising star in his field of study. I don't know his IQ, of course, but I'm extremely sure it's in the gifted range. He dropped out due to major family turmoil AND being bored as hell in his backwater school.

ETA--he's also white.

I can attest to the fact that the dropout rate is not 0% for non-Hispanic whites with IQs over 125. Two close male family members who have IQs over 140 dropped out of high school. Both were also dyslexic, and (much later) went back to school successfully, but clearly, that "0%" is erroneous. I very nearly dropped out of high school myself. If I hadn't enrolled in the science research program, which allowed me to sign myself out of school to go to the university library to do research, I almost certainly would have just stopped attending classes altogether. As it was, I pretty much lived in the university library, but since they were excused absences, it didn't count against me. I showed up mostly for tests and avoided class attendance in most subjects as much as possible - and I was in the top track in a school that practiced ability grouping!