The debate over religion and spirituality in higher education and their relevance to higher education is continual. Rockenback (2011) outlined the relevance in asserting that because religion and spirituality are part of the whole person, they are also part of the traditional value of the whole person. This traditional value of religion and…

As high schools offer more pre-Advanced Placement (pre-AP) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses to prepare students for college academics, students often are given quality grade point average (GPA) points to help compensate for the rigorous curriculum. In states where class ranking determines automatic university admission, fluctuations of class…

We find an individual's rank within their reference group has effects on later objective outcomes. To evaluate the impact of local rank, we use a large administrative dataset tracking over two million students in England from primary through to secondary school. Academic rank within primary school has sizable, robust and significant effects on…

Describes an alternative to the traditional grading system and its relation to student placement in colleges and universities. (AN)

The University School of Milwaukee eliminated class rank and substituted a bar graph system, illustrated and explained in the article. (SP)

If colleges continue to insist that class rank is vital information and treat the rankings from the various schools as comparable data, then the professionals using that information have an obligation to present and use the concepts and the terminology accurately and uniformly. (Author)

Results of a national survey on collegiate use of class rank have been analyzed in terms of the chief characteristics that are associated with differences in a college's practice: 1) public or private support, 2) two- or four-year institutions, 3) size of enrollment, 4) section of country; tables and commentary explain the findings. (Editor)

Various reasons are given for the unrealiability of class rank as an indicator of academic success; author is head of a small private college-preparatory school. (SP)

To investigate children's ability to infer their relative academic ability even when instructional groups are not overtly ranked, the author studied the level of agreement between individual junior-school pupils, their peers, and their teachers on class positions in English, mathematics, and creative writing. Agreement on rankings was high.…

Answers to the major issues that confront secondary schools and colleges in making decisions about the use or non-use of grade point average and rank-in-class as features of the college application/admissions process. (Author)

Results of a study involving over 800 secondary schools; data presented in tables. (SP)

The advantages and disadvantages of two common grading methods are presented, and from an analysis of the virtues and vices of these prototypic methods, a set of goals or criteria for grading systems is derived. Percentage and class-curve grading systems are discussed in detail. Criteria for grading systems include the following: obtain relevant…

This article uses four data sets to assess changes in the relative weights of test- and performance-based merit criteria on college enrollment during the 1980s and 1990s and considers their significance for affirmative action. Our results support the "shifting meritocracy" hypothesis, revealed by selective postsecondary institutions'…