To 'cut' to the chase' early, it can be said that the only advertised, or even documented, systematic procedure which has ever been offered, or even suggested, to predict success or failure for one to be granted a hhigh-level security clearance by the U.S. Government, if one were ever processed for such a clearance status, is the Personnel Security Standards Psychological Questionnaire (PSSPQ).  The Web page that describes the PSSPQ can be found at:

     For those not yet familiar with the PSSPQ, this short (72 multiple-choice items) psychological assessment instrument was first developed back in the late 1980's by Dr. LeRoy A. Stone, who at that time was a Senior Clinical Psychologist in this Country's largest intelligence agency; at the time of the initial development of the PSSPQ, he was Branch Chief of the Agency's unit that was responsible for conducting psychological evaluations of applicants for employment as well as a number of employees who were employed by  private contractor organizations who held contracts with the Agency.  The conducted psychological evaluations were done regarding the question of "psychological reliability and suitability" in relationship to the possible granting of high-level security clearance; the clearance level involved was known as Top Secret - Special Compartmented Information (TS-SCI).  The suitability adjudication requirements for the TS-SCI clearance status are described and stated in the Director of Central Intelligence Directive 6/4 (DCID 6/2).  It was very shortly after this that Dr. Stone was named and reassigned as the Agency's Chief Research Psychologist until his retirement from Federal employment in January of 1997.

    Certain PSSPQ  scoring results information has been found to be highly correlated with the success/failure dichotomy involving the granting and non granting of TS-SCI clearances.  The level of association between test score results and the granting or non granting of clearances can be understood as a correlation coefficient (i.e., r) of 0.79.  This predictive validity coefficient was found in the original validation sample (N = 102).  When cross-validated with a new independent sample (N = 179), the original validity association was clearly substantiated again.  Since the original cross-validation success, the PSSPQ has continued to produce data results that are quite consistent with the original validation informational results and as such, the test would seem to produce information that reaffirms its excellent validity status.

     The PSSPQ, when employed with individuals who are interested in being granted high-level security clearance status, use of PSSPQ scoring information results in predictions of success vs. failure to be granted the clearance status that is, in general, better than 95% accurate.  It shouldalso be known that PSSPQ scores that are above or below the more generalized 'average level,' produce predictions that approach the 100% accuracy level.   At the present time the PSSPQ is commercially available to interested individuals as well at to human resources or security office directors.  The charges for being administered the PSSPQ and for being provided with a large amount of results information, along with interpretations of all, can be regarded as being quite reasonable.

     Although no other assessment technique or method, other than the PSSPQ, that is scientifically based and is objective, exists, it is not infrequently wondered whether what the PSSPQ predicts, can be found elsewhere.  Although  I (i.e., Dr. Stone), in other PSSPQ associated Web pages, has indicated rather broadly and loudly that the PSSPQ is the only real source of any predictive information that predicts whether a particular person will or will not be successful in being granted a high-level security clearance were that person be processed for such, there are actually a couple exceptions to my elsewhere statements.  The following couple of paragraphs will describe some other sources of the same predictive information as can be gleaned from a 'taking' of the PSSPQ.

     When persons are processed for possible eventual granting of high-level security clearances, they come into rather close and highly personal contact with a number of Government employed professionals who attempt to glean important and pertinent information regarding the candidate for potential security clearance granting.  In some instances, these professionals may not actually be Federal employees, but rather contracted professionals having the same expert credentials.  A candidate for potential security clearance status, when being processed for such a status, can be expected to come into highly involved contact with governmental human resources, medical and security officers (i.e., personnel officials,  psychologists, psychiatrists, security officers, and polygraphers).  Were a candidate for a high-level security clearance to directly ask one of the above listed professionals, who was involved in the candidate's processing, about his/her chances for being granted the hoped-for clearance status, he/she would be rather directly informed that such a prediction could not be made until the entire process were completed and finally adjudicated.  Also, the candidate would routinely  be informed that even if the final decision were or could be known, the involved professional would be ethically directly required to not reveal the likely final adjudication decision direction.

     Actually, if the truth be told, some of the involved Federal (or contracted) professional employees actually could be expected to be able to accurately speculate, during the process, as to whether the candidate might eventually be successful or not in being granted the hoped-for security clearance status.  The process actually requires that a number of these professionals, during the processing,  make formally recorded postive or negative recommendations regarding granting clearance status for the involved candidate.  These recommendations are strongly considered when the final adjudication decision is made.  As noted before, however, these professionals are strongly instructed NOT to ever communicate to the involved candidate what direction their recommendations are most likely to go.

     To further show that such in-process recommendations are quite meaningful and are considered,, in one of the PSSPQ validation investigations, the relationship (i.e., correlation) of "intervewing clinical psychologist's" recommendation with final adjudicated decision to grant or not grant the high-level security clearance was shown to be even more accurate that that coming solely from PSSPQ testing information.  The interviewing clinical psychologists' recommendations have been found to be just slightly superior to what the PSSPQ was found to show.  A correlation coefficient of 0.836 (N = 102) was found to describe the relationship of the recommendation (i.e., yes or no) to grant the security clearance status.  In comparison, the PSSPQ showed a correlation coefficient of 0.79 with the final adjudicated decision.  Therefore, if the involved interviewing clinical psychologist were allowed to communicate whether the involved individual would or would not be successful, his or her recommendation would be expected to be predictively quite accurate.  Such should not be surprising as the interviewing psychologists' recommendations actually help create or form the final adjudication decision.  Also, it should be known that the involved interviewing psychologists normally possess psychological testing results from several hours of testing of the candidates as well as sometimes full information derived from polygraph testing.  The fact that the prediction accuracy of the PSSPQ, which only involves responding to 72 multiple-choice items and normally requiring only about 10 minutes time (for the test-taking itself as well as the scoring and interpretation times), is about exactly as accurate as the actual recommendations coming from the involved interviewing psychologists.  Candidates typically spend several hours (i.e., taking several quite lenghty psychological tests and sometimes including several more hours of polygraph-developed information) to create background information that is heavily used by the psychologists to conduct their interviews (which typically involve a half-hour to a full-hour duration).

     A candidate being processed for a high-level security clearance is fully able to 'take' the PSSPQ at any time before or during the processing for possible eventual granting of the high-level security clearance.  In fact, Dr. Stone invites inquiry pertaining to a 'taking' of the PSSPQ.  However, in comparison, no one actually involved in the evaluation and adjudication process will or is even allowed to communicate to a security clearanvce candidate any such predictive suggestions or ideas.  In this vein, it all 'boids down to' the realization that

     For those who are interested in 'taking' the PSSPQ test, full instructions as to how to do so can be found at:  http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/howtotakepsspq.html.