Explores how the focus on class rank has affected students from star public high schools, creating a disadvantage when students try to enter elite colleges. Explains a new approach, "winner-take-all," being utilized in high schools in which schools focus on the top students. Includes references. (CMK)

Three systems of class ranking (grades, test scores, and clinical performance evaluations) are compared, using 124 residents graduated from medical school. All three systems showed modest correlations with performance in residency, but clinical performance measures were most predictive. Reliable and valid deans' letters of recommendation could be…

Describes a journal-based orientation course at a small, public two-year technical college. Reports on a study of 160 students which found that the orientation-course grade was a better predictor of student success (as measured by timely graduation and grade point average) than high school rank and far superior to the American College Testing…

This paper examined the attitudes and perceptions of urban college students regarding Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) awareness and prevention. AIDS has devastated the lives of citizens in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the AIDS incidence rate for young Americans between the ages of 13 to…

An initial study of the revised (1985) Student Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ) of the College Board found it to be of sufficient accuracy to fulfill its intended purposes. This second phase examined the adequacy of the SDQ in terms of the predictive validity of its student academic self-report information against a criterion of first-year college…

A study examined the general achievement and aptitude of prospective teachers at the University of Minnesota's College of Education. Test scores were examined over time, against majors in other professional schools in the same institution, as well as across different education majors. The specific variables investigated included subtests of the…

Factors that affect enrollment, applications, and student academic achievement (high school rank and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores) at 38 private colleges and universities in North Carolina were studied, based on data obtained from the Higher Education General Information Survey and the North Carolina Higher Education Data reports. The following…

The predictive value of secondary school honors-type courses for the college admissions process was studied, with attention to the proposition that an honors-type course grade should be promoted one full level (e.g., from a "B" to an "A"). The sample consisted of 950 freshmen at Pennsylvania State University in 1979. The…

The primary purpose of the study is to assess the degree to which SAT scores, high-school GPA (HSGPA) and class rank predict success in college. Data collected from students enrolled in several sections of Principles of Economics at the University of South Carolina in 2000 and 2001 are used to study the relation between college GPA (the dependent…

The aim of this study was to appraise whether different forms of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) used since the mid 1970s varied in their correlations with academic performance criteria in the same cohort of examinees. A 1975 form and a 1985 form were administered to equivalent samples of high school juniors, and self-reported grade-point…

Changing patterns in how students apply to colleges and universities have affected the way institutional researchers project enrollment. This paper explores the usefulness of adding student prematriculation activities (i.e., commitment to enroll, registration patterns, and academic ability). Trends in prematriculation activity identified include…

This paper demonstrates a grade server that allows college students to access their grades over the Internet from the instructor's home page. Using a CGI (common gateway interface) program written in Visual Basic, the grades are read directly from an Excel spreadsheet and presented to the requester after he/she enters a password. The grade for…

The records of 7,499 college students were examined to determine if the Nelson Denny Reading Test (NDRT) scores, high school or college grades, high school rank or ACT composite scores differed across 8 colleges or major student groups at a midwestern state university. Arts and science students and music students tended to produce slightly higher…

This brief third volume of a three-volume study addresses in more detail several analytical issues raised in the first two volumes. The overall study involved research on the former New Castle County (Delaware) School District--reorganized into four districts in 1981--to discover whether the 1979-82 overrepresentation of minority students (mostly…

Each of the three studies in this report examines a different aspect of the basic question of what the four item types (analogies, antonyms, reading comprehension, and sentence completion) on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) verbal section are measuring and of whether a change in the relative emphasis on the various item types would enhance the…