Sample Demographics As noted previously, 1078 high school students in grades 8 through 12 filled out the questionnaire. of these, 855, or 79.3%, indicated they had tried at least full or bottle of an alcoholic beverage in past at some point the in a non- family situation. This incidence of drinking is comparable to that found in other surveys of this age group (DHHS 1991) Just under half (46%) of the sample were 14 years of age or younger, and 54% were 15 years of age or older. Somewhat over half (54%) of the sample were female and 46% were male. Close to nine in ten (88%) were white, 6% were Asian, 2% were black, and 4% were classified as "other.