Among Harvard dropouts, the higher the intelligence-or, more accurately, the academic potential as measured by Projected Rank List (PRL)-the more likely he is to drop out for psychiatric reasons, according to a Medical School psychiatrist.

"The data suggest that when a graduate school refuses an applicant because he has dropped out for psychiatric reasons, the school not only closes the door to a student who has as high a probability of completing his education as any other drop-out but may also be denying entrance to one of the more intellectually gifted," said Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr. in a 1970 report to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Nicholi's conclusions are based on a five-year study-and seven-to-ten-year follow-ups-of 1454 men who dropped out of Harvard College for all reasons during 1955-60.

According to Nicholi, about 24 per cent of each class for the past 20 years has dropped out; about 90 per cent of these come back at some time, but less than half actually get Harvard degrees.

"Emotional illness far outweighs every other cause for leaving college," Nicholi said. "More than 43 per cent of the sample left for psychiatric reasons."

A "psychiatric dropout," Nicholi said, was defined as a student who consulted a psychiatrist one or more times before leaving college and who was given a specific psychiatric diagnosis.

Of the sample studied, 43 per cent left school for psychiatric reason. More than 700 of these failed to obtain a degree from Harvard, and approximately 420 failed to obtain a degree from any institution.

Brilliant Drop Out

"The data demonstrate clearly that the psychiatric dropouts are more intelligent as a group than those leaving college for other than psychiatric reasons," Nicholi said. "The relationship of high intelligence to psychiatric disorder among the dropouts was further demonstrated within each major field of study."

Dropouts with a diagnosis of psychoses, Nicholi said, were over represented in social sciences, literature, history, government and economics. Dropouts with a diagnosis of a neurotic disorder were over represented in mathe-matics, the humanities and the physical sciences.

According to Nicholi, most dropouts leave school because of depression, or "the discrepancy between what they thought they were before they came here and what they are beginning to feel they are when they've been here for a while."

"These students are often plagued with the fear that they are not really very bright," Nicholi said.

"The decision to leave college," Nicholi added, "seldom, if ever, causes depression; on the contrary, the decision to leave, once made, brings considerable relief."

Some conclusions of Nicholi's study include:

Students with private-school backgrounds have a higher probability of dropping out than students who attended public schools, but the public-school students tend to drop out more frequently for psychiatric reasons (although the more serious illnesses are over represented among the private school students);