Educational success is often synonymous with attainment of academic qualifications. However for some students, simply continuing to attend school rather than dropping out may represent an important attainment, and completion of secondary school significantly reduces chances of subsequent chronic poverty. The longitudinal US NELS dataset was assessed to examine predictors of dropout. Results supported a differentiated perspective of student outcomes whereby dropout before Grade 12 was predicted far less by prior academic achievement in Grade 8 than academic achievement in Grade 12, and to a greater extent by non-cognitive measures such as daily school preparation, planning and subjective peer perception. Cognitive ability measures are known to correlate well with academic achievement but "non-cognitive abilities" may have an important role in the prediction of persistence, especially among marginalised students. (Contains 1 table.)