Woods was born in Vernal, Utah to Gail Peyton Woods, an army intelligence officer who died in 1960 following routine surgery, and Martha Dixon, who operated a pre-school after her husband's death; he had a brother, Michael Woods, who was raised in his Irish American mother's Catholic religion, grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School. Woods had been accepted to attend the United States Air Force Academy with the intention of becoming a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, several weeks before he was to depart, Woods suffered an accident involving a plate glass window which injured his hand tendons severely enough to result in his acceptance being retracted. Woods then chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at MIT, where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as a surgeon), but dropped out in 1969 just before his graduation in order to pursue a career in acting. Woods headed to New York City, calling his mother to tell her of his plans. While his mother wasn't thrilled at the news, she gave him her blessing to pursue a career in acting. At the 2006 CBS UpFront James Woods told the audience that his mother told him that if he was going to switch careers to acting that he be the best actor he could possibly be. Before this transition to acting, however, he was considered a brilliant student and had been permitted to enroll in a linear algebra course at UCLA while still in high school. He scored a perfect 800 on the verbal SAT and 779 on the math portion. Woods is believed to have an IQ of 180 based on the Stanford-Binet IQ test.