Past researchers of education candidates have remarked that educational administration (EA) has attracted students of below-average verbal, quantitative, and analytic scores as measured by standardized tests. This is a two-fold problem: (1) Principals with high overall academic ability are more likely to be viewed as leaders in re-intellectualizing instruction with teachers so that they achieve academic success with nearly all students; and (2) principals should be highly analytic about their work in storing and retrieving information in ways that result in high-quality decision making and problem solving. In this study, researchers examined the Graduate Record Examination of examinees intending to enter EA graduate programs from 1982-96. Two key findings were that examinees planning graduate work in the field of education have lower verbal, quantitative, and analytic scores than those of examinees in the other 7 fields, and within the field of education, the verbal scores of examinees intending to study administration are 11 points lower than the mean for the entire field of education. Suggestions for improving the problem and recommendations for future research are provided. (Contains 30 references.) (DFR)